The Art of War . Our Armour

It's good to see you.

if we have not met, my name

is Luke.

I do actually

work here at the church.

It might be a shock for some of you, but I've been away for

three months, driving across

and around Australia.

with my family and it was absolutely awesome.

We live in a blessed land.

It is so diverse.

It is so beautiful.

And the people that come along with it are pretty awesome as well.

Well, we met some great people on our journey, but one of my favorite moments

about the journey was coming home.

It's something about being away for a while, isn't there?

And coming home.

And there's that realization of what home is and how much of a blessing

home is to you when you're away

from it.

We, we weren't

going to get all the way from Kalgoorlie to home as we were coming home.

We were going to stop in Meriden because we actually, we camped

on our first camp for our trip.

where we very, very, very first started was in Meriden in a free

camp just out the back of the town.

My mum is from Meriden, that's where she was born and raised.

And she grew up on Bates Street.

That's my

surname.

which is crazy.

cause obviously

that's not her surname.

That's, her maiden name was Paloo.

And, so it was ordained by God, I guess.

And, and we just, we were about an hour out from Kalgoorlie and I'm

just like, stuff it, I wanna go home.

I wanna go home.

But it was already like lunchtime.

Woo!

And I'm like, oh, six, almost seven hour drive, towing a caravan, and I turned her

back, I'm like, do you want to go home?

Do you want to do it?

You could just see it in her eyes.

She's like, I really want to say yes.

And so we had like a little team sort of vote in Southern Cross

and we all voted to go home.

And oh man, coming, cause it was nighttime by the time we got to the

hills and we came over the hills and we saw Perth and it was lit up and oh my

goodness, the feeling of seeing home.

Oh, it's so good.

So

that's got nothing to do with what I'm speaking about.

I'm just reminiscing with you.

Love it.

We're going to actually talk and continue on with this

series, on, the art of

war and we're taking it out of Ephesians, chapter six, verse

10 through to 21, I believe it is.

I'm just going to speak on chap, verses 13 through to 18.

And we're going to read through that now and get in on this subject.

And the subject is, the armor of God tonight.

So let's read this together.

for this reason.

Take up the armor of God so that you may be able to resist in the

day, sorry in the evil day and having prepared everything to take your stand.

Stand, therefore.

with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on

your chest, and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace.

In every situation, 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.

Pray at all times in the spirit with every prayer and request and

stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.

So there's a

lot here.

there's,

there's almost too much here to, to do in one little

message, but what

I'm really wanting to do for us tonight is to help us see, see through a lens

that Paul's seeing through, to see in context what, what he is actually, what is

he trying to say to those, in Ephesus?

What is he, and what might he be saying to us as Christians?

So what I want to start with is just sort of remembering, what

was spoken about last week.

Dale started this series off so very well.

And there were three things that stuck out to me that she mentioned in her message.

And the three things were that evil powers and dark forces are at work in our world.

Today, this is, this is a reality that we find ourselves in as Christians.

Therefore, times of evil will be encountered by all

people, including Christians.

We will experience evil, coming against us, resisting us in

our fellowship of Christ.

And then thirdly, the greatest work of Satan himself is to promote either

his non existence or to breed in us a hyper spiritualism that leads us

down rabbit holes and on witch hunts.

day and night.

So there's this, there's this balancing act.

We must, we must come to these scriptures with this feeling of tension.

Yeah.

There's, there's actually a danger zone for us as Christians as we

talk about passages like this.

And, and I want to start there to help us see a little bit more clearer, but

clearly about what Paul might be saying.

See, the larger truth in this passage of Scripture in Ephesians and something

that I think we need to keep in mind is that Paul's encouragement to us is

an encouragement in our whole lives.

Paul is very holistic in his theology.

Very holistic of the human self and the interconnectedness that

we experience in the spiritual and material realities of the world.

Paul, in his letter of Ephesians, has, has just covered, in the passages before this

passage, has just covered household codes.

Children and parent relationships, the relationship between slaves and masters.

So it's all very grounded in real, tangible, physical experiences

of life, isn't it, for Paul?

There's a great practicality for Paul.

And then we arrive in verse 10.

It's like, whoa, hello,

you've got, you've got this?

all happening now about forces and, rulers and spiritual dark, darkness.

And you got all this stuff going on.

And, and I think what, what Paul is doing here is that he's not, he's not leaving

us room to, to just be concerned about, The material physical world or to just

be concerned about the spiritual world.

He's not letting us have that, that room.

So, so if you're a, if you're a spiritualist and you care little

about the impact of the material and physical realm, then you are foolish

and you are blind and, and therefore you are immature in the faith.

But the reverse is true also, according to Paul.

For Paul, the kingdoms of this world rebel against the kingdom of heaven,

both spiritually and also physically.

To have a theological view that's hyper duralistic, which is to divide

or segment ourselves up, and also the created world around us into distinct,

separate, Separate realities, I think, is to make a wrong move when reading Paul.

That's a lot, isn't it?

It would be like, let me give you an example, it would be like

saying, Luke is a human being, and funny enough, Luke's got a soul.

Well, that's, that's just ridiculous.

Me being a human being implies, implicitly implies, that I have a soul.

I'm a human person that has a soul.

You cannot segment me apart, according to Paul.

And this is where, for you and I, as Christians, and, and, and, and, and,

and, and, and, and, Dale made this point last week to have a really, really

good robust eschatology, which is end times, in mind because the general

resurrection that we all have hope in in Jesus Christ is physical and spiritual.

We're not, we're not getting rid of this physical reality and then floating up

to heaven to fly around in the sky where we're being raised to life again to

experience the joy of the created world the way that God has always intended it.

To have complete unity with one another and with God himself.

It's beautiful.

Now we all can struggle in these conversations.

I do.

You can lead one side to the other.

You can sort of, lean a little bit more on the whole spiritual

stuff or I lead a little bit too much in the way I think about my

discipleship in the physical and the

material.

or maybe

you could be like really brilliant like me and actually fall under the illusion

that you're actually quite balanced.

You're not balanced, you're just abdicating.

That's what I've done.

In the past, I was just abdicate, just too hard.

No matter where we fall, no matter where our weaknesses are in these

conversations, we all need to say the same prayers each day to our Lord and God.

And that is a prayer of Lord, help me see clearly the work of the flesh, the work

of Satan, and also the work of the spirit of the world, the spirit of the age.

We all need to be praying that same prayer.

The hope is that we would, we would see with clarity as we grow in

Christ and discernment together.

Notice also in this passage, another interesting point that Paul makes,

he doesn't say, Oh, quick, get the armor on when trouble comes.

He actually, His encouragement is, is that, oh no, no, you will,

you will already have the armor of God on when trouble comes.

Or to use his phrase, the, the day of evil comes.

Put it on and stand in the armor of God is, is something that,

It's something that is expected.

It's something that, that is realized as the Christian.

I, I have Christ in me.

I'm in Christ.

I am clothed in his righteousness.

So Paul, if we're thinking about this passage of scripture, is not being

defensive to the work of the enemy or the evil powers that are in the world.

He's being offensive.

He's being proactive.

So it, it's a Straight away, you who are in Christ, you're ahead.

That's, that's, that's the encouragement I get, is Paul's just going, hey,

we're, we're the offense here.

We've got the ball in our hands.

We can join with Christ to see his kingdom come against the evil powers that are

raging to defeat it or to undermine it.

We've got the ball.

Okay, so Paul, why are you using this metaphor for the armour of God?

What's going on here?

So clothing in the time of Paul was actually incredibly important.

Very, very, very important.

As type of clothing identifies status, not just for soldiers, but seemingly in Paul's

time, every single person wore clothing that helped articulate, identify status.

Who were they loyal to?

What socio economic position do you hold in society?

Your clothing spoke of that.

So clothing mattered really, really a lot here.

And that's why Paul's using this analogy in one sense.

Soldiers are also this great analogy to be used by Paul because

it actually makes some really important points here, theologically.

So your belt as a soldier was decorated and it's so, it told a story of your

status and loyalty to the enemy.

Emperor but also the empire.

So your loyalty was marked on your belt to the one who is your master

and also to the ones that you serve with to your fellow soldiers.

There's actually a really famous story about a soldier to make this

point, a Roman soldier in 298 CE and his name was Marcellus and Marcellus

had recently converted and had become a Christian, was baptized, and he

went before his commanding officer.

Man, this guy is Well, he is bold, isn't he?

Goes before his commanding officer, takes off his belt and his sword,

laser on the ground and says this.

He, he, he starts with an oath, a new oath of allegiance, not to the empire.

Not to his fellow soldiers, but his Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

And he's quoted in records as saying, It is not proper for me as a

Christian who fears Christ the Lord.

Fears, fears Christ the Lord more so than the Roman army itself

to fight for the troubles of this world.

My allegiance isn't to the mission of the Roman Empire anymore.

It's to Jesus Christ.

Guess what happened to him?

Lost his head.

What one is clothed in speaks of status and identity.

It speaks of our loyalty.

Who am I?

Who am I with?

So Paul is driving home that our being dressed in the armor of God is an

identification of our allegiance to Jesus Christ, the one who rules me and to my

fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

In his service, let us be reminded that our faithfulness to our Lord Jesus Christ

is lived out in, in our minds, in our physical bodies, and also deep within our

souls, Christ, your master and your Lord.

He wants all of you.

Why does He want all of us?

Because He wants our good.

He wants our good.

Resist the temptation.

We need to resist the temptation.

To reduce your loyalty to one aspect or attribute of your life.

You know, don't, don't just simply dedicate yourself to spiritual

practices and leave the material and physical practices out of the picture.

Christ wants all of you.

And this gets us to our next big question is, what is the

armour that he's speaking about?

What is it?

So did Paul just come up with this metaphor all by himself?

Did he, was he just sitting there one day and he's writing this letter to

Ephesians and he's, he's like, oh!

Oh, that's a great picture of us being like soldiers in God's

army and, and then,

oh, come with this great idea and, and, and I can come up with like

symbolizing what the belt means and the breastplate and, you know, no, it's not.

This is actually theologically rich.

Paul is borrowing this imagery from the Old Testament.

All right, so I'm just going to give you two examples because I don't have

time tonight to go through all the, all the references we can go into.

I'll just give you two.

So both are coming from Isaiah.

The first scripture you'll, you'll be familiar with, and

that's Isaiah 52 verse 7.

Isaiah 52:7

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet.

So we've got a picture of sandaled feet in Paul's analogy here with the soldier.

We've also got a picture here of feet.

What are their feet doing?

They're proclaiming the gospel of peace.

And then in Isaiah 59 17, this is God that the writer is speaking about.

And it says he put on righteousness as body armor and a helmet

of salvation on his head.

And goes on to say that he put on garments of a vengeance for

clothing and he wrapped himself in the zeal as in zeal as in a cloak.

So what Paul's doing here in Ephesians is very, very biblical of describing

God's attributes with clothing.

This use of clothing God in different, things to describe

his attributes is very biblical.

It's very, very biblical.

Throughout the Old Testament, we see God being clothed for two main reasons.

The first, it is to describe that He is a God that comes to

fight injustice in the world.

And then the second, is that He is the type of God that establishes

peace, shalom, in the world.

God is a king clothed in faithfulness and righteousness who

fights against the injustices and establishes peace in all lands.

That's his desire.

That's what he's working towards in his creation.

And that's not lost on Paul.

In fact, it's, it's that formational truth that, that is leading him

to write this to the Ephesians.

The game changing reality is this, with Paul, is that Paul

says we can put God's armor on us.

This is the change, that it's not, it's not God over here

with his armor and oh, that's so beautiful and yes, come protect it.

Paul's saying you can come and be in that armor, be protected by it,

be identified with the righteousness and holiness of God himself.

Isn't that powerful?

And so if you just take home one little point.

You know, take home your little doggy bag tonight, right?

Just put, put this in your doggy bag, right?

And feast on it later.

Just, just this one point is that when you are meditating on the armour of God,

just think, this is, this is about my protection as his child, but also it is

about my identification as his, that, that I am, I am, I'm marked, I, I put on the

armor of God to go out into the world and, and like that Roman soldier stand before

the rulers and the principalities and, and, and say, I cannot put that belt on.

I cannot, I cannot pledge my allegiance to you.

The, there's only one that I fear, and that's my Lord Jesus Christ.

So, very quickly, let's go through what I wanna call virtues of the armor of God.

And I'm going to use Paul himself to help us with the definitions of these virtues.

So I'm referencing back to Ephesians.

I'm not going to go through these

references.

I'll put

them up on Church Centre.

You can take photos of them if you want to.

Just, just, we don't have time.

Yeah.

I don't have time to do all that.

What I've written underneath is what, what plainly sticks out to me in those

references to help formulate what is Paul talking about here when he talks

about truth, righteousness, right?

So first off, truth, the sealing of the Holy Spirit, that's what truth is.

And it's actually, it's experienced through the hearing of the word of

truth, which is the word of God.

inspires us to grow in love and become more like Jesus.

Truth is pure and it's attractive.

But when you actually see truth for, you know, the reality of

what it is, it draws us in.

It's what we've always been wanting.

It's guiding us to serve our community, brothers and sisters.

Paul continues to use that terminology throughout

Ephesians, brothers and sisters.

And it is a fruit born from the light, according to Paul.

So that's truth.

Righteousness, it represents the way of the new self, the new creation, or

the new person in, in Christ, and this transformation is also referred to

as a fruit or evidence of the light.

And then our next virtue is peace.

Peace is the communal presence of God.

of Christ.

It is healing and restoring reality within the community, serving

as the means by which we are reconciled to God and one another.

So are we picking up a theme already?

How do we experience these virtues?

How do we put on the armor of God

together?

For Paul, this is, this is a project that the people of God do with one another.

This presence is a foundational building block for establishing

and strengthening a new family in Christ as brothers and sisters.

There's a terminology again.

Gospel.

We have an inheritance into His glory through salvation.

And this is good news for us gathered here tonight that are close to God.

But according to Paul, it's also really good news for the pagans and the heathens

that are far away from God as well.

So we, we are to carry this.

Have you ever thought about the gospel as, as something that you are a servant unto?

Paul uses, he says, I'm a servant of the gospel.

I'm a servant of the good news, the heralding that Jesus Christ is

the King and Lord of all things.

Like that actual message, he goes, I carry that and I serve

that message with my life.

You know, have you thought about that, that, that, that that's, that's what.

We are welcomed into as his people, to be servants of the gospel, to bear witness

of Christ being the true Lord and King.

And then our last virtue is faith.

It is, faith is spoken, it's heard, it's believed in, it's lived out.

It reflects loyalty to God in Christ, expressed through love for one another.

This gracious and incalculable gift grants us boldness and confidence as we stand

in and put on faith, put on Christ.

So your Your faithfulness, your loyalty, your allegiance to Christ

enables you to, in boldness and confidence, to stand in Him.

Isn't that, and what, what, what, faith?

Is that something that we just, what is it?

It's given to us, right?

So God imparts the gift of faith that then helps us to be bold

in our faithfulness to Him.

Oh man, we've got it easy.

No we don't.

It

is exclusive, demanding our deepest desires leading to a life

devoted to the one true Lord.

Unity and knowledge, gifts of faith foster our spiritual maturity.

Okay, that's it, that's, how cool is that picture?

Of what Paul's actually encouraging us to come and step in.

And, and what I've journeyed us through tonight is to really get here.

It is to go, how do we put this on?

How do we step in?

How do we, how do we put this on?

How do we be people that Paul describes as, as being in Christ, clothed by

Christ, protected, identified as his, as his, being loyal to un Christ?

How we, so that when the day of evil comes where we enjoy his

protection, we enjoy his faithfulness and his holiness, how do we?

How do we do this together?

Paul makes it clear that in our passage that, that one should have that armor

before it, it comes, all those strife and struggles and evil resistances

and, and the evil according to Paul in verse 12 are rulers, they are Their

authorities, their, their cosmic powers of darkness, their spiritual forces.

So according to Paul, the evil that will resist us, that will

attack us is multifaceted.

It's mostly multifaceted.

It will come in all the ways that you and I experienced life.

That's, that's depressing, isn't it?

But there's good news.

That's good news.

It will come in all the ways.

All the ways in our, against our bodies, it will come against, it will

come against our minds, it will come against our hearts, our souls, it will

It rages against us as people of God.

It comes by the means of the spirit of the world, as I mentioned before, the flesh,

and of course, Satan and his demons.

So therefore, our discipleship as followers of Christ really

needs and ought to be holistic.

The armour of God, Is this, it is the result of a Christian yielding

to whole life discipleship in Christ.

I've got, I've got nothing surprising to add tonight.

This is, this is Christianity 101 and I love it, I love it.

I don't have any secret Gnostic knowledge that will unlock, you know, unlock

you to a life of protection against,

you know, spiritual

attacks.

I don't, what I have is what Paul has given his life for,

the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's what I have for you tonight.

It's the, the meat of it is a life lived out, laying one's

life down, serving the other.

It's, it's the, it's the desire, it's the, it's the impulse to come

and dwell with God and his people.

Yeah?

It's, it's in the praying, it's in the seeking of God together.

It's in the declaring the gospel, actually, declaring the gospel out

of your mind, mind and your heart.

But it's also in the hearing of the gospel.

It's found in acts of love and devotion to one another.

See, the armor of God is truly our riches found in Jesus Christ.

It is the fullness of the victory of the cross and the hope of the cross.

He invites us to be clothed in His righteousness and His holiness.

And for a lot of us, we can see things that we're invited to in

our lives as Christians and we can, we can see them as trivial.

So think, and I'm only saying this because at times I find it trivial.

I've got to, I've got to, I've got to wrestle against the flesh, right?

So something like as simple as, as house church.

Right, I've got to do this again.

I don't want to do this again, but I've got to do this again.

I've got to wrestle.

And the reason why we reduce it to a triviality is, we're not seeing

what's on offer for us in it.

I'm just using this as an example that, that when I, when I come and

serve once again, when I come and sit at a table once again with my brothers

and sisters, that I am, I'm being clothed in Christ's faithfulness.

That's, that's bonkers.

But imagine if we thought like that more often.

Then as I, as I just wrestle the flesh, as I go, no, you're not my Lord.

I'm not.

Submitted to, submitted

to our Lord, my Lord, my one Lord and King, that as I come to this table again

and, and hear and pray for each other, that I'm in the doing of that, in the,

in the participating, in the, in the practices of that, I'm being clothed in

His faithfulness, I'm experiencing the faithfulness of Christ with His people.

Oh, I just, I get excited about that vision.

That, that, that when we meet together around the tables, the, the

hearing of the good news of peace.

That I'm, I'm actually receiving the Gospel afresh from God's people.

And then, then the opportunity to actually share the Gospel of

peace to someone else at the table.

Pooh!

All these, these giving up my life, these welcoming these practices to

grow in the virtues that have been listed here about the armour of God.

What that does is it grows us in maturity in the Lord.

And what Paul was on about in Ephesians here is to taste and see

the fullness of Christ together.

That's what's, that's what's, this is the pot of gold at the end of this

rainbow, is the fullness of Christ.

Yeah,

so,

so where, where, where do we, this is my question for you.

Where do you, where do we, where have we missed seeing and partaking of

the riches of Christ that are here, that are for our protection, right?

That are, that are for us, our identification in the world.

Where, where have we fallen short?

I could go on and tell you so many stories about where I've fallen short.

But where, where have, where have you, where have you in community fallen short?

And I want to spend a bit of time now talking about that, just sort of a

couple of minutes with each other and, and know that as you just share with the

person sitting next to you, maybe, maybe even the weaknesses that you share with

that person will minister them to them.

Right?

It will reveal something to them about God's goodness.

Like be, be confident that we can share even our weaknesses

and that can minister to people.

So as we, I just want to take a couple of minutes to do that together.

I want you to discover, sort of talk about ways of going, where can I

both spiritually and physically in my practices, where can I taste of faith

Where can I taste of righteousness?

Where can I taste more so, or partner with Christ in peace, in the

endeavor of peace with his people?

You know, we think, think, okay, practically, and think spiritually,

that involve our whole lives.

And this conversation Is really about trying to put some meat on it together.

To spark some vision together.

Because it's a hard conversation.

It reminds me of that scene in Peter Pan.

Remember that scene in Peter Pan where, this is the Robin Williams Peter Pan.

Who hasn't seen that?

You will go home tonight and watch that.

Masterpiece.

Robin Williams, Peter Pan, and they're, you know, he's, he's taken back to

Neverland and he's at that scene with the, with the banquet, right?

And so he's sitting there and all the, the Lost Boys are, They're just all in

eating and he's just like, Oh, okay.

The bowls are empty.

And they're talking about how much joy they're having and how

much, oh, it tastes so good.

And he's, and Tinkerbell says to him, come on, eat up.

He's like, there's no food.

There's nothing here before us.

And they all look at him and they're like, come on, Peter, come on.

And then he has this, remember Rufio?

Yeah, Rufio.

Remember him?

The leader of, of the Lost Boys?

He had the mohawk, the red mohawk.

And him and, and Rufio stand up and they start just slagging

each other off, you know?

And what happens after that slag off is that, is that Peter Pan, Robin

Williams, his sound, and then he pretends to flick the food at Rufio

and then this food hits Rufio's face and he's just like, what the heck?

And what does, what does the lost boy say?

He says, Are you doing it, Peter?

You're finally here with us playing this game.

And God, by His Spirit, is offering us that same thing.

We are sitting at a table and we think that it's, there's nothing here.

We, we live lives of grey.

We live lives not seeing the fullness of what Christ has for us in community.

And this conversation is, is God saying, come and play with me?

Come and play in, in the adventure of life that I have for you.

Like wake up and see that there is a beautiful ban

banquet here to taste and see.

So just a couple of minutes 'cause we've only got 11 minutes left.

Couple of minutes when you turn to the person next to you or you

know, if there's three there you can go together or whatever and

just have a conversation about where am I struggling here, where might.

It might be in my life where I'm feeling like, man, I get pummeled there.

Or maybe it's a part of your life where you're just like, I

feel very apathetic about this.

So just using it as an example, let's use the examples of peace

so we know what we're doing here.

For example, the Gospel of Peace means good news for you, but it also welcomes

us then into a new life of believing in peace, but also Living peace out.

How do we practice that?

How do we put the meat on that?

So you got, you got three minutes to have a quick conversation.

So no chitchat.

Just get into it.

Alright?

And don't feel like you're bad if you just go, oh man, I don't know.

Like actually have that conversation go.

I struggle to imagine what's on offer for me.

I actually have that conversation together, so I've got three

minutes, go for it guys.

One of the challenges is when we talk about something that seems in

scripture to be quite theoretical, how do we move it to highly applicable?

And so, my little story

is when, my context

is marriage,

and when I, find myself

in where my wife is disagreeing with me, pushing back.

She's really good at doing that, by the way.

Oh, she's at the back.

She's listening to me.

I find myself getting very defensive.

I find myself allowing the insecurity to rise up in me.

And what happens is I've forgotten the gospel of peace.

The image is is where the feet are fitted ready with the gospel of peace.

So your, your foundation, your standing is sure, right?

Because of what Jesus has accomplished through the gospel.

Now I forget that.

And so I start, I start walking on shaky ground when I start becoming

defensive and reactive and suddenly all hell's breaking loose just because

I were forgotten where I stand.

The image of the gospel of peace with your feet is as you're standing

with like soldier's sandals on.

The image is you're confident because you don't.

Potentially, I've forgotten the, the, the legion of army behind me who's with me.

I think I have to defend myself.

Hello.

He's already defended me.

He's already my, my defense.

I can stand boldly in the midst of accusations and potentially not be

defensive, newsflash, because I've got, the legions of heaven with me.

And I've forgotten that in that moment.

And I think part of the dynamic where we, we, when we forget that is we've actually

aligned our thinking, which Luke's gonna go into now, is we've aligned our thinking

to the accusations and the temptations of the, of the, of the darkness.

Throw to you,

. Hey, thank you.

That was very nice.

And so that very quick conversation is, is really hopefully leading

us into deeper conversations.

As I said before, these conversations can be really hard work to get going.

But if we, if we commit ourselves to chipping away,

man, things start to unravel.

Things start to unravel.

And that's, that's, I can say that's, that's what's happened

for me on the trip I've just had.

I had space to pull on things and actually to see God in, in such a

more magnificent, powerful way than what I'd seen Him before I left.

That's hard work, you know, you've got to scratch it.

And we've got to do that together.

So, as Adam said, lastly, before we depart today,

I want to it's, it's

really well and good, isn't it, to, to sort of paint the vision of practice

and belief, but we will

walk out of this place.

In fact, we're sitting here and the flesh still rages, you know.

The old man still speaks.

He's not silent.

He still yabbers in the back.

The, the, the spirit of the world informs us, right?

It disciples us.

So these, these realities.

here that we've got to be aware of.

We're gonna be wise.

There's two tools that I think Satan and also the flesh, and you can throw

in the spirit of the age also, that, that he and those things will either,

they'll either tempt us or And so I've got some examples here of temptations.

Now, these are not all the temptations we can experience.

There's obviously many.

It's just really important that in our discipleship, we begin to acknowledging,

acknowledge the vices that you deal with.

Right?

Because there's going to be certain things up here that you go, I

don't really get tempted by that.

But for others of us, Oh, actually that's a real sticking point that trips me up.

And so let's just quickly go through these together.

The first temptation that I've written down there is that it offers enticing

bait while concealing the hook.

So, so think about those areas of your life where you're looking

at something and you're going, Oh gee, I really, I really want that.

I really desire that.

And in that.

In that overwhelming sense of wanting it, there, there is, there is an,

there's an avoidance to actually discern what's going on here.

And, and we take that good thing and then all of a sudden we're hooked.

We're ensnared by it.

And we continue to go back to this, this thing that, It was just first

was a desire or a want or a need met and that can be in relationships,

that can be in material, it can be in so many different areas of our life.

The second is that Satan and the evil powers will tempt us to rationalize

sin as morally acceptable and helping make us feel enlightened.

So it's like, oh guys, I've worked something out.

In fact, the history of the church that believed this thing, in fact,

they're wrong and I'm enlightened.

I've worked it out.

It puffs us up.

It's nice, isn't it, to feel like I'm the person that knows it, isn't it?

Do you suffer from that as well?

One person.

Good.

Joe.

You with me, man?

As I said this morning, no one was responding and I'm just like, I've

written all these up I'm going, man, I'm tempted by nearly all of these

and all of you are doing really well and I've got a lot of work to do.

Right, so, The third one, the fourth one is, reminds us, also third one is,

encourages an overemphasis of God's mercy, promoting a cheap form of grace.

So what's going on there?

It's, it's actually, it's actually missing out on seeing the awe

and the holiness of a loving God.

That as, as we experience forgiveness from Him, it's not, not a sense of

going, Oh, yes, I've been forgiven again, so I can, so I can stumble again.

I can, it's, it's like, I've been so loved that my devotion is now.

It's now towards you, my Lord.

Help me.

Yeah, reminds us of others living well without Christ.

Hi, I have this.

I've got a brother who isn't in Christ and his life is brilliant.

He leads a very good life.

He is well paid.

He's got a great house.

He's got a family.

Everything's going well.

And I look at him and I'm just like, it's not fair.

Here I am walking with Christ and I feel like I'm struggling and I'm bashing my

head up against the wall and he looks like he doesn't ever care in the world.

Does anyone else have people in their lives like that?

Yep.

Got a big amen over there.

Good.

And then finally, leads us to compare areas of our lives,

allowing sin in one area because we're doing well in the other.

We begin to, we begin to justify, it's self justification before the Lord.

It's like actually, man, my Bible reading's doing, man, I'm crushing

Project 73, I'm like nailing it.

You know, I, I'm, I'm unfaithful to my friends.

I gossip.

I, and so there's this justification.

It's like, I'm, I'm actually not doing that bad.

So I can sort of, I can have, have my naughty little thing going on there.

So it's temptations and then accusations.

Another

vice that, the evil

one will use towards us is we, we often focus on our sin instead

of Christ, allowing shame and guilt to dominate our thoughts.

When, when we, when we sin, we, we can get into this infinite loop, can't we?

shame and guilt without, without recognizing that actually Christ

is the one that we need to behold.

Not our, not our guilt and our shame and our sin, but the

accusations come to keep us there.

To keep us from, from looking to Christ and saying, Christ, I have freedom to

come to you and say, what is going on?

Help me.

But guilt and shame, accusation, continues to leave us there, and then

the second one I've got there is we see life struggles as punishment for

our unfaithfulness, feeling inadequate.

Has anyone struggled with that at times?

These things happen in life.

I lose someone I love.

This person in my life got cancer, I got cancer.

Oh, this is, this is because I haven't been faithful to Christ.

These accusations come to us.

And then our last one, we may think of our inner struggles as unique, believing

we're the only ones that experience them in the community of Christ.

Oh, this, this thing that I deal with.

No one else must be dealing this.

Not these redeemed people of, of Jesus.

They cannot be dealing with what I'm dealing with.

And so the accusations keep us quiet, keep us, keep us disconnected from

community and love from each other that can actually lead us to freedom.

And all these and many more will hold you from your status as a child

of God, clothed in the armor of His faithfulness and His righteousness.

So my hope, I don't want to leave you.

Today's this, that we, as children here at Red Door Community Church, may

renew our desires and commitment daily.

This isn't, this isn't, we're not having an altar call and just going, hey,

let's renew our desires and commitment.

Yay!

See you next year when it's

hard again.

No, this

is, this is a daily practice of, of falling before Christ and

saying, Oh, you're my desire.

You're where my commitments lay.

That, that, that when evil comes, His righteousness and holiness might guard

our hearts and minds and our souls.

So the hope is that, that we would know as Adam articulated so well this

morning that, that His arm is there.

It's not like you and I have to do a 10k run to get it.

It's there, it's available for us.

Do you want to step into the armor of God?

Do you want to, do you want to step into Christ today?

Lord, we thank you so much for this opportunity to meet

together, to be with one another.

Lord, my heart tonight is, is really a heart of whatever has

been spoken that is Your Word.

May, may it strike us.

May it.

Stop us in our tracks and any word or anything that is not, that is not

yours, may it fall to the ground.

Lord, may we be as a community, championing each other, encouraging each

other to come and bow the knee before our Lord and Savior every single day to

be clothed in his righteousness and to be clothed in his protection, so that

When evil comes, when the struggles of this life come, when resistance come,

we might find ourselves in his armor, in his righteousness, in his holiness.

I pray that you bless every single person here.

You prompt us that you, you prompt us to ask these deeper questions

of our lives and our fellowship together in your precious name.

Amen.