"Armed for Battle: Kitted Up and Chest Out" Ephesians 6:14 Sunday Morning Worship Service

One verse this morning, Ephesians six, verse fourteen.

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness.

In Ukraine, last week we all saw the invasion beginning with paratroopers followed by tanks coming over the borders.

I'd never seen an invasion with paratroopers before.

I mean, I'd seen reenactments in movies and stuff from World War II era, but I'd never seen it.

Uh as we saw it last week.

I don't know if you saw the videos of the paratroopers coming down, but there were places where there were just thousands of them in the sky.

They block out the sun, uh, coming down with their massive parachutes landing in the fields and on the streets with their weapons, and it's designed to be an overwhelming presence.

Um it certainly is as they come through the sky, of course, followed by tanks that are taking the grounds behind where the parachupers landed, and you just wonder how do you respond to that kind of overwhelming invasion?

And from a military standpoint, there's really a couple different possible responses that are all appropriate and could all make sense depending on the circumstances.

You know, one response would be just to kind of assimilate, to not oppose the opposition, to just go about normal life.

Let the people land, let the tanks roll, and just live your life, but then work behind the scenes to sabotage and disrupt and behind the scenes to blow things up and make diffic life difficult for the occupiers, but not stand out, not confront people, just blend in, almost like guerrilla warfare, but on your own ground.

Blend in with normal society, don't do anything that stands out, but just be disruptive to the enemy.

Another possible response would be the kind of with the withdrawal, the retreat, regroup, and re-engage approach for the military of Ukraine to just pull out then.

They're overwhelmed, pull out, go to Germany somewhere, regroup, get your numbers together, get support from your allies, and then re-engage, then try to take back your land.

And that could be an appropriate response in some scenarios, I'm sure.

But if you've been watching the news, you know that's not what Ukraine did.

They didn't, the citizenry there didn't just blend in, they didn't withdraw, retreat, regroup, but instead they have, for the most part, just stood their ground.

There's all kinds of videos that were jarring.

I'm sure many of you have seen these, but you know, just Ukrainian women walking up on the street to the Russian forces and rebuking them, yelling at them.

You know, these little babushkas walking up to them, yelling, What are you what are you doing here?

Go back.

One of my favorite video clips I saw this week was a guy in a pickup truck driving down the road and he came across a tank that had run out of gas.

I'm sure many of you saw this video.

He rolled down his window and he asked the Russian tank, Hey, do you guys want a tow?

I can tow you back to Russia where you belong.

I mean, that's not blending in.

That's not blending in.

Of course, the Russian government spread propaganda that the Ukrainian president Zelensky had retreated, had fled to Germany.

And you remember how he responded, he took to the streets, Facebook Live.

I mean, why not?

Facebook live on his phone with his cabinet walking to the street, look like a bunch of guys going to the pub, really.

And said, no, we're still here.

Here's the cabin, I'm still here, here's the cabinet, we're all still here, here's where we are.

You know, here's the intersection where we're at.

Russia's looking for us, we're right here.

We're not going anywhere.

We're gonna stay here.

The Americans offered him respite, offered to fetch him and bring him to safety, and of course he famously responded that he needed ammunition.

He doesn't need a ride.

And who knows how long that'll last.

I mean, that seems like a a brave response now.

Maybe the situation will turn and it would be strategic and advantageous and even wise and best for his country too, for him to leave and set up kind of some exile government.

But for now he's digging in his feet and standing his ground.

I mean, you can't watch this and not be a little bit awestruck by the their tenacity.

I'm watching this while I'm reading and meditating on Ephesians 6.14, and of course the first imperative in Ephesians 6.14 just jumps out at you now, doesn't it?

Stand your ground.

Dig your feet in.

Paul's using imagery from the military, from war, from a conflict, from an invasion kind of scenario, and he's telling the Christians, I don't want you to just assimilate with the culture around you.

I don't want you to just blend in and, you know, kind of lead the normal worldly life and not cause any problems, just fit in with the world's systems, and you can be disruptive behind the scenes, but just kind of mind your own business.

He doesn't say, you know, retreat, withdraw, let the devil have the run of the place, and we'll regroup and look for a strategic time to re-engage.

He uses a very different military analogy.

He says, stand your ground.

The devil is advancing in this world where fighting verse 12 says, not against flesh and blood, of course, but against rulers and authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness.

This is the evil day, he says in verse 13.

As we fight spiritual forces from the heavenly places, and he doesn't say blend in, and he doesn't say retreat.

He says, dig your heels in, stand your ground.

Now, this section in Ephesians 6 gives you a list.

It's often called the uh the Christian's armor, the armor of God.

The ESV gives it a heading, the whole armor of God.

It's describing the different elements of the Roman military attire that they would put on to prepare themselves for combat.

And Paul goes through them one at a time.

We'll look at them over the next four, five or six weeks.

But he's going through what you robe yourself for a conflict, and he introduces it with this imperative to dig your feet in, stand your ground.

This is the third time in these little three verses here where he has said, stand your ground, stand your ground.

The other two have been indicative, like as you're standing, this is what you should look like.

But this one is imperatival, verse 13.

Uh sorry, verse 14, stand.

You go into battle and stand.

So let's outline as we we look at this two wartime realities that Paul gives us in verse 14, two realities about this war that you need to be aware of.

And by the way, you're gonna be in this war if you're trying to lead the Ephesians 5 Christian life, the Holy Spirit-filled life.

If you're trying to put off sin and put on righteousness as described in Ephesians 4, if you're putting off drunkenness and putting on praise, if you're leading the Christian kind of marriage and living the Christian kind of marriage and parenting and work situations described in Ephesians 5 and 6, then you will be in spiritual warfare.

And if you're gonna be effective in spiritual warfare and you're gonna stand your ground against the devil, then this is what you need in Ephesians 6.

So you want to have the Ephesians 4 sanctification with the Ephesians 5 life.

You're gonna find yourself in the Ephesians 6 war.

But fortunately, God has given us what we need for this battle.

They're all spiritual things, by the way.

Don't take any of these literally.

They're all spiritual things.

It's a spiritual war, so it requires spiritual resources.

We're fighting on the spiritual level, we need spiritual resources, and that's what we have.

First two, we'll look at today.

You first need to understand that this war is over truth.

It's about truth.

So, verse 14, stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth.

The soldier's armor here begins with truth.

This is a battle about truth.

This is probably the most fundamental point for you to understand, for you to engage.

We've talked about the battlefield over the last few weeks.

The battlefield is not a physical battlefield.

It's in your heart, it's in the world around you.

The enemy has occupied territory, the enemy has occupied the world around us.

We looked at that last week.

The world systems belong to the devil.

He is the one who's over them.

He is the prince of the power of this air.

So, in Christians, in that sense, we live in occupied territory.

We're supposed to stand our ground and we stand, understanding that this battle, it is fought over truth.

That's what this is about.

The war begins with truth.

The war's over truth.

In the military conflict, there's, of course, strategically advantageous positions.

You want the high ground, so you can have leverage over your enemy.

You want air power, so you can have paratroopers drop in, so you can take out entrenchments on the other side.

You want sea power, so you can have a landing force come anywhere.

You can control trade.

There's strategically advantageous positions in warfare.

Understand that in the spiritual war, the advantageous position is that of truth.

Whoever defines truth controls the battlefield.

Whoever understands truth, whoever traffics in truth, whoever possesses truth, that is the strategically advantageous position.

That's what the war is over.

It is over truth.

The war begins, of course, back in Genesis, in the Garden of Eden, when the devil enters the garden.

And you remember the very first battle of this war, the devil comes up to Adam and Eve and he begins with the question Has God really said?

And notice that he is defining the terms of the battle.

He's going to engage on truth.

That's where the devil's conflict comes in.

He's coming in from the perspective of truth.

The devil wants to haggle or to fight, to quibble over what is truth.

And it's not just a small argument, it's the heart of what's at stake here.

When the devil asks Adam and Eve, did God really say?

What he is doing is he's putting them in the position of judge.

He's elevating them over God.

God is the one who is truth.

God defines truth.

In the devil's attack on Adam and Eve, he is encouraging Adam and Eve to put themselves in the position of God and for them to be the arbiters of what is true.

Did God really say?

That elevates them to where they say, yes, God said, or no, God did not say.

Either way, by giving in to the devil's question, they have seeded the grounds.

They've taken truth from the realm of God and put it in the realm of man.

They will be the arbiters of truth.

And of course, they're being influenced by the devil.

That's where the war is at.

So understand, at the start of this war, it is a war about truth.

The war is being waged about truth.

And if you're going to be the kind of soldier Ephesians 6 describes, you need to come to terms with that basic reality.

You need to decide what you believe about truth.

You won't be an effective combatant in this war if you question the authority of God or the authority of his word.

If you place yourself over God's word, you will run when the fighting starts.

Now there's all kinds of other wars going on in our society.

There's, you know, assaults on family, assaults on law and order, assaults on morality, assaults on ethics.

There's a war on children, so to speak, a war on marriage, a war on ethics and morality.

But do you understand that those are just secondary skirmishes?

The real war isn't about those things.

The real war is about truth.

The real objective of the enemy is to attack truth.

And this is why the gospel is our response.

We hold fast to the gospel because that's what's being assaulted.

Ephesians 1, verse 13 calls the gospel the gospel of truth.

Ephesians 1:13

Paul in the very beginning of Ephesians says that you've been saved.

The book of Ephesians ends with you being as a soldier, but it starts with you being the recipient of truth.

Ephesians 4, verse 21.

Ephesians 4:21

You have heard him and you have been taught in him as the truth is in Jesus.

So the middle of the book, if you're pursuing Christ, you're being taught Christ, and the truth is in Christ.

So that's the terms of the battle.

Jesus possesses truth, God possesses truth, the battle is over truth, and so you enter this battle in Ephesians 6, verse 14, robed with truth, clothed with truth.

Ephesians 6:14

The demonic assault in this world, as I mentioned, began in the Garden of Eden, attacking truth.

And if you're going to resist that demonic assault, if you're going to stand up against the authorities and the cosmic powers of this present darkness, you're going to stand for truth.

You understand the breastplate the Romans, I mean the uh the belt the Romans had, not necessarily what we think of as a belt.

You know, for us, a belt is a little leather strap, it holds your pants up.

In the Roman world, for the soldier, normally they would have kind of a flowing, more of a long, long robe.

And for them to be active, for them to run or to be uh to do manual labor, they would have to gird it up.

They'd have to take the robe and lift it up.

And there were different ways to do this, but you could fasten, you'd have a fastener that could hold the extra fabric up around your waist.

That allows your legs to move without you tripping and falling.

You could make it an actual belt, but it wasn't so much a belt like we would think of as a belt, as much as it is a series of clips that hold the excess fabric up.

So when it says your belt is truth, it's really talking about you're being robed in truth.

It's talking about your clothes, what you're wearing here.

What is girded around you is truth.

So you're engaging this battle, recognizing that your undergarments and what you are clothed in and robed in around your waist, around your chest, around your whole body here, really, is truth.

And you want to be able to move in truth.

You need to know the truth so that you can move in it.

If you want to respond deftly to the attacks of the devil and the attacks of the enemy in our society, if you want to understand how the enemy is attacking us and where he is coming at us through the world and the world systems and the cultures of this age to respond to any attacks he gives, you have to be able to move freely with the truth.

So you're robing it up around you.

Think about how truth is under attack in our world.

And it might be helpful to appreciate it through a means of contrast.

You know, I went to college in the late 90s.

I was a new Christian.

I went to a liberal secular school, and relativism was the worldview of that day, relativism.

That there is no such thing as absolute truth.

You define truth for you, he defines truth for him, she defines truth for her, you define, I mean, I can define my own truth.

That was relativism.

That was the major worldview 25 years ago in our society.

Relativism.

And relativism is, you know, it is an attack on truth by saying there's no such thing as absolute truth.

There is truth.

You have your truth, I have my truth.

What works for you, works for you, it works for me, works for me.

Let's just all mind your own business.

Laissez-fier kind of ethics here.

Just go about your your own day and what's truth.

You tell somebody back in relativism, hey, I'm a Christian, I believe the Bible's true.

And the common response was, I'm so glad you found something that works for you.

Do you remember that era?

Evangelism back in that era was difficult.

Because that it became an evangelism over truth.

You would say, I believe Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave.

Well, great, I'm glad that works for you.

But it doesn't work for me.

And you would even push back.

And like in relativism, how can if it's true, it's true for all of us.

Two plus two equals four for me and for you, right?

And the person would say, Oh, maybe, I don't know.

Who knows what math is anyway, you know?

You'd say, I define, all right, fine.

For me, my truth is that I'm a seven-foot-tall Chinese woman.

There.

And the person would say, Oh, I'm so glad that works for you.

Do you hit your head often?

I mean, it's just nonsense.

But that's not so much the world we live in anymore.

You know, relativism has given way to kind of critical theory, standpoint epistemology, perspective idea that, you know, it's not your truth is good for you and my truth is good for me.

It's that truth is wicked.

Truth is evil.

It's not, hey, I'm glad you have a truth that works for you.

It's your truth is evil and wicked and deplorable.

It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's evil.

That's the way our culture functions now.

It used to be truth is relative.

Now it's truth is bad.

You know, in relativism, it was almost this idea that you can have truth without God.

But not today.

Today it's you can have God without truth.

Today it's I define what's right based on my experiences and how my position fits in our society's past with the different stream or current of history and who's been elevated and who's been oppressed through history, and that defines how I perceive truth.

It's not relativism, it's an absolute assault on truth.

There is no such thing as truth.

It's only how you see it in your relationship to history and in class.

It's no longer what is truth.

I mean, at least in relativism, there was an honest discussion about is there a concept of truth.

Today it's just a redefinition of truth, a full-on attack of it.

You know, you'd say, uh I believe in the Bible, you're not going to hear, I'm glad that works for you.

You're going to hear, that's wicked and evil.

It has no place in society.

That's the more common response in college campuses today.

And I hope you appreciate that change.

Because it is a change on the front lines of truth.

But there's some benefits to this if you understand it.

There's some benefits if you perceive the redefinition of truth because you recognize what the battle's really at.

I'm telling you, the next few years, the ninth commandment is going to be where the battle is at.

The ninth commandment is going to be the commandment that is under attack.

Do not bear false witness.

Are you going to be willing to lie just to fit into society?

Are you going to be willing to say things that aren't true just to function well?

That's where the fight is at.

It is at truth, the level of truth.

Our culture's attack on lies now elevates, our attack on truth elevates lies by making truth not only relative, but hostile and evil.

What is the definition of truth?

Here's how I would define truth.

Truth is that which is consistent with the mind, character, and glory of God.

Truth is that which is consistent with the mind, character, and glory of God.

God himself defines what is true.

Something is true if it corresponds to his character, to his will.

God is the author of all, he providentially oversees all things in the world.

And so if something corresponds to reality, it is true.

But not because reality measures what truth is, but because God measures what truth is.

Truth is measured by how something corresponds to him.

Truth is therefore fixed because God is fixed.

God is immutable.

God doesn't change.

He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

God is immutable.

His character is immutable.

God never changes.

Immutable just means he doesn't change.

He's constantly revealing himself, constantly displaying himself.

He is pure energy, pure light, pure action, pure truth all the time.

There's no variation in him, there's no shifting in him.

There's no doubts or obscurity in him.

There is only pure action, pure light, pure life.

He is truth.

That's where the fight is at.

People reject truth because they reject God, by the way.

Not because they have a hard time with the epistemological standpoint where truth can function.

No, forget all that.

People reject truth because they reject God.

John 14, verse 6.

John 14:6

When you understand that, you appreciate this.

Jesus says, I'm the way, I'm the truth, and I'm the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

If you understand that truth is corresponding to God's nature, then you read John 14, verse 6, and you understand that Jesus is elevating himself to the level of God.

John 14:6

Jesus is saying, truth corresponds to me.

I am the truth.

Only God can say that.

But Jesus says, I am the truth.

I am the truth.

Truth is how you relate back to Jesus Christ.

Truth is God's own self-expression, and Jesus is the self-expression of God, and so Jesus is truth.

And so again, when I say that our culture is hostile towards the truth, it's because they're hostile to God, and particularly because they're hostile to Jesus.

I mentioned earlier, but perspective theory or standpoint epistemology or critical theory or whatever you call that whole school of thought, they all define truth and how history relates to you.

So there's, you know, you see yourself as a class of person and history funnels towards you, and you've been oppressed or marginalized or elevated and have advantages, whatever, and now you understand what truth is by how that played into you and how that flows out from you.

Do you understand how that's just not only is it logically problematic, but I have a bigger objection to it.

If I'm saying truth is how something relates to God, and you're buying into one of those frameworks, do you understand that you are replacing God with yourself?

You're saying that truth is how something relates to me and my lived experiences, my past, my culture's past, my socioeconomic group's past, all that functions, funnels together.

Me and it comes from me, so I am the metric of truth here by how things relate to me.

You've taken God out of the equation and inserted yourself.

If that sounds too heady for you, I have a lower shelf illustration.

Have you seen Frozen 2?

I mean, spoiler alert, Elsa goes to look for the meaning of life and the meaning of the universe, and she looks into the history of time, and she finds what the true meaning of life is, and it is herself.

I mean, that's the movie in a nutshell right there.

She looks for the meaning of life, and it's her all along.

It's all been her.

Man, that movie bothers me.

This is a war about truth.

And only Jesus can do that.

Only Jesus can say, truth is all about me.

That's John 14, verse 6, that he is the truth.

John 14:6

Which of course gives way to John 8, verse 31, where Jesus said earlier, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

John 8:31

See how Jesus is using this wartime mentality.

Once you understand that he is the truth, you will know the truth, you will follow him, and you will be set free from the epistemology of the world.

You'll be rescued from it.

Because Jesus sets you free.

Jesus makes himself the definition of truth.

And he uses that wartime imagery of being captive and then rescued, this imagery of slavery and bondage to darkness, then rescued, redeemed, and set free in the light to understand this is a war about truth.

This is why, by the way, I talk about how harsh our culture is towards truth, but I don't want you to lose sight of a very basic point behind all that.

This is a very good time to be a Christian.

A very good time to be a Christian.

In a sense, it was harder to be a Christian in the era of relativism because you were, it's just, you feel like a hamster on the wheel trying to define what truth is.

But now, this is a very good time to be a Christian because our world is so hostile towards truth that it's people don't cherish it.

But people need truth.

They need someone who speaks the truth.

They need to understand right from wrong.

They need to know, thus saith the Lord.

They need a concept of truth.

And the whole culture of the world is antagonistic for truth, mocks truth.

Total moral relativism, where people will say one thing today and the next thing tomorrow, rank hypocrisy.

It is so evident in every era of our society, every area of our society.

And it's not only Christians that perceive that.

Non-Christians see the hypocrisy in our world as well, and it bothers them as well.

It's just that they don't have access to truth.

So it's a very good time to be a Christian.

Because we have a commodity that is scarce in society.

This is Economics 101.

Scarcity increases value.

Truth is scarce right now.

So if you are known as a truth teller, if you are known as someone who has the truth and is not afraid to speak it, you have a privileged position in society.

Psalm 119.

God's word is truth.

It is the vehicle by which God communicates Himself to the world.

You know the truth by knowing God's word.

If you possess God's word and you speak God's word, and you're not ashamed of God's word, then you are in a privileged position.

Non-Christians can speak things that are true, of course.

To be a non-Christian scientist, make a medical discovery, whatever you discover things that are true because they correspond to reality.

Law enforcement, politicians can make the world a better place by checking evil and promoting the common good.

They don't need to be a Christian to do that.

That's that's fine.

But that's very different than having access to God's truth.

That comes through his word, and this is where the battle is.

And so if you listen very carefully, if you want to be effective in our world as a soldier for the Lord, if you want to be in this battle against sin and in this battle against the world systems of the world, as Paul describes earlier, if you want to be in this battle, you need to decide if you believe this book is true.

That's where this starts.

You robe yourself in truth, you pull up the truth, you make sure it's wrapped around you so you can then navigate society deftly and respond to the attacks of the enemy quickly.

But if you doubt this book, if you're thinking, I don't know, I don't know if the Bible is really true, I don't know if Jesus really did die and rise from the grave, you're not going to be an effective soldier in this war.

The war begins with you deciding do you actually believe this is true?

You're in a difficult marriage, and you feel like divorce is the way out, you need to ask yourself, does the Bible tell me what to do in this situation?

And do I believe it?

Let's just start there.

You're going through a trial, the loss of someone or your loved one dies, and you don't know where to turn, you need to ask yourself, does the Bible give me answers for this situation?

And do I believe it?

Start working through your grief with that as the foundation.

Start working through the trial in your marriage with that as the foundation.

You're put in a zit position where you might want to lie at work.

Ask yourself, does the Bible tell me what to do in the situation?

And if yes, then this is where the battle starts, with you knowing what the truth is.

You can't fight unless you say, Listen, the book is true, I believe it.

But that's not where the battle ends.

The battle doesn't end with you giving some kind of intellectual assent to the book.

The battle keeps going here.

The second wartime reality, the war is fought over truth, but the war is fought in holiness.

It's not enough to know the truth, you gotta live it out here.

And that's where Paul goes next in verse 14, having put on the breastplate of righteousness.

So you're you're knowing the truth, you're fighting the war over truth, but you're living it out in a holy way.

You're not just knowing the word of God, but you're loving the word of God, which leads to living the word of God.

You have to live this out.

You know the truth, and that leads to obeying the truth.

These two so often go hand in glove in the Bible, don't they?

So often you don't see truth disconnected from living it.

Almost always in the Bible, they're right next to each other, and this is no exception here.

You know the truth and then you live it out.

You keep the truth, you live the truth, you practice the truth.

The belt is not where the dressing ends.

You know, you just put on your belt and go fight.

You gotta live out the truth.

You've got to keep getting robed in the right conduct.

Your beliefs about the word of God should lead to your behavior.

Your head goes to your heart, to your hands.

Your convictions about the word of God should lead to your conduct.

Your doctrine should lead to what you see as your duty.

What you learn should lead to how you live.

What you hear should lead to what you heed.

All of this is connected.

The belt goes on and the armor goes over.

The armor in this instance is your righteousness, your holy living.

That's what's going to defend you against the attacks of the enemy, that you are leading a holy life.

The breastplate, if you're not familiar with it, it's more than just like what police officers might have as a, you know, their Kevlar.

The breastplate for the Romans, it went over the shoulders, it goes over the front and the back, it goes down to like the middle of their thighs, it covers all their internal organs.

It could be heavy.

Some of them are lighter than others.

You know, they have metal in them and chain in them, and leather would be underneath it.

The idea is that it's impenetrable and it protects you.

You can't go into battle just with a belt.

It would be ridiculous.

For a soldiers to go fight a war without his breath breastplate in the Roman world would just be absurd.

Go back and get dressed, man.

You're not ready for this fight.

The first fire that I got got called to with the officer I was riding along with, and we showed up and we got there before the fire department did, and the house was, you know, it had was fully involved.

And the fire department shows up, the first truck shows up, and the the guy who's driving the truck hops out.

And I had an experience this for it's common at the LA Fire Department.

The guy, the engineer, which is what they call the driver, he hops out and he's wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

He wasn't wearing flip-flops, but he may as well have been.

And he's the one who's like working the hoses and all this, and it's the other guys in his truck and the trucks behind them.

They're the ones that are in like the full firefighter gear, they're the ones that go in the fire.

Well, this dude's not going in the house for the fire.

That's not his job.

I had just never seen that before.

You think the guy who gets out of the fire truck is gonna be where they have the fire uniforms, you know?

Come on.

No.

And this guy's in charge.

Shorts and a t-shirt.

I don't know if Fairfax County operates that way, but that was the way LAFD rolled.

And you talk to the guy and he's like, I can't wear the pants because I gotta be able to step over all the hoses and everything.

And, you know, he's just working the dials.

You don't want that guy anywhere near the fire.

If you're a Christian and you're going to battle, you don't show up with your shorts and your t-shirt.

You show up with the armor that's on you that will protect you from the battle.

Your liability if you don't have the breastplate on.

You're gonna end up having other Christians need to protect you if you're not leading a holy life.

The image, somebody with the Battle of Regalia on, that person is not going to blend in.

Remember, if our uh defense against the devil, the devil attacks you, the devil invades the world systems, the devil is after you.

One approach I said earlier, if you try to blend in with society and do guerrilla warfare, you don't blend in if you're wearing camo.

You know what I mean by that.

You don't blend in when you have the vest on and the helmet on and your weapon on.

You're not trying to blend in in that sense.

You're standing out.

You're obviously antagonistic to the assaults.

That's the image here.

You're putting on the breastplate of righteousness, you're going to be noticeable now.

You're not a pacifist anymore.

You're not hiding on the sideline anymore.

You're out front in the war.

You remember David versus Goliath?

They both started with breastplates, remember?

They both put on breastplates.

Goliath had a hard time moving with it.

The guy's ginormous.

David put on his breastplate.

He wasn't his.

He couldn't fit his robe underneath it.

He couldn't move around in it.

It was an obstacle because he didn't have the truth to go with it.

So he he gets rid of it, leans on the Lord's truth and the Lord's righteousness.

David, of course, Goliath goes down, of course, with the rock to the head.

It's just an interesting contrast between that and Christians.

Christians don't have to choose.

We have the belt and the righteousness.

We have truth and the holy living.

We have the two together.

It's an important one-two punch.

You gurge yourself in truth, and then you stand with the righteousness of God that He's given you through Jesus Christ, the Holy Living that comes from knowing the truth.

The living out the Ephesians 5 and 6 life is the defense against the attack of the devil.

This is not a new analogy to Paul, by the way.

Some people make a big deal about this being the Roman, what the Roman soldiers would wear, but this predates Paul, it predates Rome.

It's coming from the Old Testament imagery, Isaiah chapter 59.

Isaiah 59 · chapter mention

I'll put it on the screen for you.

It's a longer passage.

I hope you can read it there.

Isaiah 59, verse 14.

Isaiah 59:14

Isaiah is describing what Israel looked like during his lifetime.

He says, Justice is turned back, righteousness stands far away, truth is stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.

Isaiah's looking out at Israel and he says, There's not righteous people around here.

Nobody cherishes the truth right now.

Notice again the pairing of truth and righteousness.

There's no truth.

There's no righteousness.

Truth is lacking, verse 15 says.

And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

That's the way society had gone during Isaiah's lifetime.

So notice what he's saying there.

If you repent from sin and leave following sin, you're now exposing yourself to the attacks of the devil.

And the attack through society, of course.

Yahweh sees this.

And it displeased him that there was no justice.

And the start of verse 16 is kind of an awkward phrase.

Yahweh saw that there was no man.

And you want, it's kind of incomplete thought.

There was no man who what?

Finished the sentence.

There was no man who stood for righteousness.

There was no man who loved truth.

There was no man who would promote justice.

He doesn't even finish the sentence.

Basically, it God looks at society and sees people who don't stand for truth, who don't stand for righteousness, who don't promote justice.

And God looks at that and he says, I don't, I don't even see any men there at all.

None.

There's no man there.

God wonders that there is no one to intercede.

Because there's no man to lead the people and call them to repentance, no one's interceding for them.

So verse 16, God's own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him.

So God enters time then.

God says, I don't see a man to stand for righteousness.

I don't see a man to love truth.

So God puts his own arm in the world and he will do it himself.

I think this is a messianic prophecy here, pointing forward to the fact that the Messiah will be God, that God will come himself.

So verse 17, God puts on righteousness as a breastplate.

That should sound familiar.

Helmet of salvation on his head.

He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

So God gets dressed for war.

Now, intro to theology right here.

God does not have a body.

God doesn't wear clothes.

So God doesn't really put on a breastplate or a helmet.

He doesn't really robe himself in zeal.

These are all metaphors.

They're imagery of God getting ready, so to speak, to enter time and be that rescuer, be the interceder.

And so when God comes, he comes as one who is dressed in righteousness and dressed in zeal, it says.

Of course, this is seen in the life of Christ.

He overturns the tables in the temple, and the disciples are all, you know, hidden their hands and their head going, we should have known, because the scripture said zeal for his father's house would consume him.

This is him.

Of course, he's going to be righteous.

He is the righteous one.

So if truth and righteousness are the are characteristics of God.

God is truth, God is righteous.

Something is righteous if it corresponds to his character.

Then God enters time in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is also righteous.

Do you understand that?

1 Corinthians 1, verse 30.

1 Corinthians 1:30

Jesus became our righteousness.

So Jesus comes to the world.

Jesus is the image of God, so he is truth.

Jesus is the image of God, so he is righteous.

He then leads a sinless life.

Through his obedience, he is demonstrating his righteousness.

And then at the end of his life, he takes our sin from us on himself.

So he becomes sin, even though he is righteous.

He becomes sin in our place.

Now his righteousness, you have to understand, his righteousness is twofold.

His righteousness is inherent because he is God.

He is righteous by nature.

But his righteousness is also economic, could be a word, for his righteousness is also active.

He's keeping the laws, he's keeping the commands, so he is actually walking in a righteous way.

He is righteous by his own nature, but he is also righteous by his conduct.

Do you understand that difference?

We are not righteous by our own nature.

We have sin in our own nature, and so that erodes our conduct.

Our conduct, we're not righteous by nature, and we're not righteous by conduct.

Your own good deeds cannot make you righteous because you're not righteous by nature.

But if you are righteous by nature, your deeds will likewise be righteous.

So Jesus at the end of his life takes our sin and gives us his righteousness.

So we now are clothed in the righteousness of Christ because we are hidden in Christ.

We have the righteousness of God, which was demonstrated by the life of Jesus Christ.

So Jesus becomes our righteousness.

Righteousness is the weapon of God that we hold in the right hand and the left hand, Paul says.

So now, do you follow righteousness?

It's like the shell game where you gotta remember where something is and you see it move around.

Righteousness is in heaven.

God is righteous.

It comes to earth in the person of Jesus Christ, who is robed in righteousness.

Jesus lives a sinless life demonstrating his righteousness.

He then gives us his righteousness, and it becomes ours, and it is our weapon in the right hand and the left hand we take to fight against the world.

That's the exchange of righteousness in there.

We are armed with righteousness.

That deflects the blows of the devil who attacks us.

The devil is a schemer, the devil is the accuser, the devil declares that we are not worthy, that we aren't fit to be in heaven, that we don't have access to God.

The devil says, because of our sin, we shouldn't be able to pray to him, we shouldn't be able to pray to God and have access to him and have our prayers answered because we're sinners and the devil is right.

But what defends us against those accusations is the righteousness that God has given us in Christ.

That's why righteousness here functions as the breastplate.

It is our defense to those accusations.

It is not merely external righteousness, but internal righteousness as well.

That God gives our heart.

He transforms us from the inside out.

So we inside become righteous in a real way.

It's not merely like an accounting gimmick.

We actually become righteous through regeneration, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who puts his law in our heart.

This is the new covenant.

The law is written on our heart.

We have our sins forgiven.

We are declared to be righteous, and now we're freed from the power of sin and death to present the members of our body as instruments of righteousness.

That's Romans 6, verse 14.

Romans 6:14

Present the members of your body to God as instruments for righteousness.

You are now armed.

You used to be slovenly and lazy, and then you went to the academy or to boot camp and you came out armed with righteousness.

That's what happened to you.

So you want to fight, you have to know what you believe about truth.

And then you fight it by living it out.

By living it out.

This is the part of God's armor that is for holy living.

God supplies the standard of holiness, the power for holiness inside of us, the willingness for holiness.

He transforms our hearts and makes us willing.

And we then live that out by demonstrating the practical righteousness that God has called us to.

Listen, our problems in this fight usually boil down.

Some of our problems are outside of us trials, but normally our problems in the fight in this world are because of a lack of holiness.

Right.

I mean, sometimes the soldier might hurt his leg, sometimes he might cut his calf or stub his toe.

But normally when a soldier is hit that disables him, it's in an organ.

His armor got pierced.

And the same is true for Christians.

Normally, not always, but normally our problems in life come from a lack of holiness in our own lives.

That's the breastplate of righteousness that we should robe ourselves in to enable us to fight.

There were some estimates I saw last week that 150,000 Ukrainians had fled during the conflict.

That was of Saturday morning, is when I saw that number, so I'm sure it's much more now.

Poland has opened its borders to Ukrainians.

There's massive convoys of people trying to flee.

There's heart-wrenching video, again, I'm sure many of you saw of these lines and trains being stopped and lines of cars trying to flee the country and the Ukrainian soldiers going through the lines and taking out men between 18 and 60, they said.

Any male between 18 and 60 that was trying to leave for Poland was taken out of line, conscripted in the military, and sent back to fight.

BBC had really, I mean, scenes that would make you cry of these dads that were leaving the country with their kids, stopped at the border.

They have to say goodbye to their kids, hug their babies, hug their wives, and they're going back to fight.

You know, that's your story.

You were leading your life in this world, going off in your own way in this world.

You were fleeing.

The devil's taking over this world, and you're content to run for the hills, to get out of town and lead your own life.

Do what you want to do, live how you want to live, and go your own way.

But the Lord didn't let you do that.

He stopped you somewhere and got you back, pulled you out of line, made you go back.

Your testimonies are all different, I'm sure.

If you're raised in a Christian home, maybe you didn't have time to get to the Polish border.

You're conscripted in the Lord's army from as little as you can remember.

But others of you, man, you made it far.

You got all the way to the Polish border, you got all the way through Poland, you relocated to Australia.

And the Lord found you.

Came and found you, grabbed you, said, you're not, you don't get to live here.

You don't get to retire on some beach somewhere.

No, you're coming back.

You're coming back.

You're going to war.

I hope that's your story.

I hope you understand that you have been conscripted in the Lord's army.

Psalm 119, verse 160.

Psalms 119:160

The sum of your word is truth, O Lord, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

Lord, we know that your word is truth and your righteous rules do endure forever.

We're thankful you've revealed them to us through Jesus Christ.

We're grateful for your word.

It's living and active.

We know that your word gives us all things pertaining to life and godliness.

All things we need to lead a life that is honorable and pleasing before you, you have given to us.

We lack nothing.

We are fed, clothed, equipped, trained, and now sent into the world.

Lord, I pray for anyone who's here this morning that has never given you their life.

I pray this morning they would see their sin and they would see your righteousness and they would say that they want that.

They would confess their sin.

They would look at the filthy robes they wear through their own life, and they would look at the holy robe of your truth, the holy armor of your righteousness, and they would say, I want to wear that.

I pray, Lord, this morning that you would robe them in your righteousness through their faith in your death and resurrection.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for 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 boldness.