Armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-15)

Ephesians chapter 6, starting verse 10.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength.

Put on the full armor of God, so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens.

For this reason, take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist 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 sandal with readiness for the gospel of peace.

In every situation, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

Will you please pray with me?

Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for this book of Ephesians and just all of the things that you have shown us in it.

Lord, I pray that today as we look at this full armor of God, that you would do the work that you desire inside of each one of us and as a church as a whole.

Lord, I pray that we would not only just learn these things, but we would learn them at a heart level, and that you would cause a change in us, whatever you desire to do.

Lord, I pray that that would happen here today, and that we would have humble and willing hearts approaching this passage for you to do your work, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So when I was a kid, I hung out with this one Christian family a lot.

They had a boy that was just older than me and just younger.

We did a lot of stuff together, and they were very devout in their faith.

And one of the things is when I would do like a sleepover at their house or something like that, every morning one of the parents would pray with the kids, and I was a part of that.

And part of that prayer was putting on the armor of God.

But it wasn't until much later that I realized that with the best of intentions, they were really missing the point of the armor of God and how we put that on.

You know, it kind of, the prayers kind of sounded like, you know, Lord bless our day, and we put on the belt of truth and the helmet of salvation, and we take up the what was the next, you know, it was kind of like that.

And like I said, it wasn't until much later in life that I realized that the armor of God wasn't about memorizing pieces and then verbally just saying I put them on.

But it had everything to do with belief and faith and grasping the truth that's behind each piece of the armor.

You know, the truth about God, the truth about Scripture, about our right standing before God that we have through Jesus Christ, about being filled with the Holy Spirit and Him strengthening us, as we've seen so much in Ephesians so far.

So I made up these half sheets for you, hopefully, uh, to help show how faith and belief and truth all play a part in the armor of God.

And I probably could have done ten cross-references for every piece of armor that's there, but I tried to pick a verse that kind of encapsulated or captured the heart behind each piece the best that I could.

Now, there are four things that we need to recognize as we start to look at each piece of this armor.

And that's how each piece points to one, the assurance of salvation and the right standing that we have in Christ.

And realizing that the armor is only effective against the enemy when we believe this with all of our heart.

The second thing, each piece points to Jesus and to truth.

None of this armor is available without Jesus in the first place.

And each piece in some way has to do with the truth of God's word, as we'll see as we go through this.

Now, the third thing, um, something I think it's easy to overlook, is that the armor of God is actually a summation of the whole book of Ephesians.

Not just some random thing that Paul throws in at the end before he signs off.

Each piece of armor is gonna be pointing back to some point that he's already covered in the book of Ephesians.

So I'm gonna try and point back to Ephesians each time we see one of those pieces of armor.

And then the last thing, number four, um, we need to notice that there is activity here on our part.

This is not a passive thing that we're gonna be talking about today.

Each piece of armor is to be put on in preparation for battle.

It's not something that we start doing once we get into battle.

This is how we prepare for battle.

Um, and this is part of that putting on.

Knowing that the battle is coming.

As believers, we are in a battle.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we are, and we need to be prepared.

So we'll see that today.

One other thing that I wanted to point out real quick, and it's a quote from Warren Wearsby, that I think is so important for us to be reminded of before we jump in here today.

It says, as believers, we do not fight for victory, we fight from victory.

The Spirit of God enables us by faith to appropriate Christ's victory for ourselves.

The victory is already won in Christ.

Our future, our hope, it's already secure in Christ.

And this is not about us winning a battle of salvation, this is about the daily spiritual battle we have against the enemy of our soul, which we're gonna see exactly who that is in verse 12.

So this is for the battle that we are already in until we actually get to be with Jesus.

So let's start with verse 10.

It says, Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength.

Like I said, we're gonna be pointing back to Ephesians a lot today.

Ephesians 3, 16 through 17 says, I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

You know, as we're coming to the end of this section of Ephesians, of what mature Christians should be doing and what it looks like to follow Jesus in all of these practical ways that we've been talking about, he says, finally, the last thing in light of all that we've been talking about, but before I say goodbye, finally be strengthened by the Lord and his vast strength.

This is another reminder that we cannot do any of what has been discussed since chapter four on our own.

We're not strong enough.

We don't have enough willpower to defeat our flesh, to defeat the world, to defeat the enemy of our soul without the Holy Spirit first empowering us to do so.

You know, our strength as Christians comes from dependence, not trying harder.

You know, Jesus told us in John 15 to abide in him because we can do nothing on our own.

Now, look at a way that we can draw on the Lord's vast strength.

Look at verse 11 with me.

Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil.

Whose armor?

Of God.

Not ours.

This is the armor that God provides us.

But if you'll notice, it's up to us to put it on.

This is our responsibility.

Like it's our responsibility to put on the new man, like we saw in chapter 4, if you remember that.

God doesn't force us to put this stuff on.

But again, just like the new man, as we discussed, the Holy Spirit wants to help us get dressed, so to speak, to put on the new man and to put on the full armor of God.

If you're a believer, like I already said, you are already in a spiritual battle.

If you're not a believer, you're still in a spiritual battle.

You're just fighting a battle that you can never win on your own.

Because victory is in Christ and it's in Christ alone.

And we may lose a battle from time to time.

We will lose a battle from time to time, but the war is already won.

The victory is already in Jesus Christ.

Now, Paul identifies our enemy here.

Look at verse 12.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.

So ultimately, the struggles that we have on this earth, every struggle that we have on this earth, the battle can always be traced back to the fall in the garden.

God gave Adam and Eve the keys to the kingdom.

Basically, if you look at Genesis chapter 1, starting verse 28, this is what God tells Adam and Eve.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

He says, God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.

God said, Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed, this will be food for you, for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth, everything having the breath of life in it, I have given every green plant for food.

God basically says, Hey, you guys, it's yours.

All of it, it's yours.

But what happened was when Adam and Eve sinned, they basically took the keys to the kingdom that God gave them and they handed them over to Satan.

And it's been his domain ever since.

It's been his kingdom ever since.

The good news is, Jesus is going to get it back.

And he's going to make all things new.

But for now, the world that we live in, while we're still on this earth before we're with Jesus, we're aliens in Satan's kingdom.

And we're fighting against him and spiritual darkness on a daily basis.

Even if you say, you know, well, my battle isn't against spiritual forces, it's against a physical ailment that I'm dealing with.

Well, death and decay and pain and sorrow came because of the fall.

Those things didn't exist before sin.

Or maybe you think, you know, my battle isn't against the spiritual, it's this person.

It's not against spiritual authorities, it's just I have this battle with this person that I can't get over and it's horrible, or whatever it might be.

It's through sin that that relationship is so hard.

It's through sin and temptation that they treat you so poorly, or maybe even abused you.

All of our problems, all of our struggles that we have can be traced back to spiritual darkness.

Because Scripture tells us that Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy and destroy.

You see, none of this was God's desire for us.

And even though we handed over the keys to the kingdom and brought all of this pain and all of this sorrow and death on ourselves in God's mercy.

Because of what we did to ourselves, he sent Jesus to give us a way out of this darkness, to give us victory over this darkness.

But until we are home with him in heaven, our battle is not against flesh and blood.

It's against the spiritual forces of darkness.

And the way that we battle against that is, look at verse 13 here.

It says, For this reason, take up the full armor of God.

This is what God in his mercy has blessed us with.

These are the tools that he's given us to do daily battle with until we are with him.

And it's the full armor, notice.

You know, some people are great at holding up a shield of faith.

Probably know some people like that.

But are really bad at putting on the belt of truth and combining those two things.

You know, some are great at wielding the sword of the spirit.

They will carve you up with Scripture.

But they're really bad at wearing the sandals of the gospel of peace.

Put on the full armor of God.

Again, here's the purpose of the armor.

Look at the second half of verse 13.

So that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything to take your stand.

Not wait to be attacked.

And then we grab armor.

That's not what we're talking about.

It's up to us to be prepared, to take that stand and to not cower and run.

And we can stand in confidence.

We should be standing in confidence when it's for the Lord and it's against the enemy.

Now, before we start looking at each individual piece of armor here, Ephesus would be familiar with Roman armor.

They're part of the Roman Empire at this time.

And Paul is chained to a Roman soldier as he's writing this.

He could probably even sit there and ask this guy, how do you prepare for battle?

What's that shield do?

Why is it so big?

Why is it shaped that way?

Why do you have cleats on the bottom of your sandals?

You know, stuff like that.

So I wanted to put up a picture here of Roman armor.

This is the I didn't realize how hard it was to find accurate Roman armor on the internet.

This is as close as I could find.

The shield would actually be bigger, the sword would be a little bit shorter, the tunic would go down a little bit further.

Believe me, this is the best I could do.

And then right here, it wasn't really a solid piece of a breastplate, strips of metal that would go all the way around the torso and overlap so that they could have range of motion and moving back and forward.

But I think it's good enough for our purposes here this morning.

And that's the illustration that we're going to be using.

But look at verse 14.

Stand therefore with truth like a belt around your waist.

The belt would both protect your abdomen and other sensitive areas, and also it was really what held all of this together.

That's what truth is.

That's what truth does.

You know, we see the term in the Bible, and you've probably heard it before, and the Romans used to do this as well, and that's to gird up your loins, girding up your loins.

You know, they used to wear these tunics, like you can see back there, but a little bit longer, that were really not ideal for battle.

They could get in the way, they could get caught on things, they could be a tripping hazard, things like that.

So in preparation for battle, they would actually take their tunic and then from the front, they would tuck it through their legs, they'd pull it up the back, and then they would shove it in their belts like that, just to get all of that out of the way, kind of making like shorts almost for themselves, just to free up their range of motion.

They used to do it when they were doing physical labor and things like that as well.

But you can't do that without a belt, can you?

And Paul calls it the belt of truth.

It's saying we need to be saturated with truth before the battle.

And it's the first piece that he says to put on.

Spiritually, that's the truth of God's word we're talking about here.

And in Ephesians 4.21, it says outright, the truth is in Jesus.

And Jesus is God's word.

In John 8.31, it says this if you continue in my word, you really are my disciples.

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

The way that we start and we prepare for battle is to saturate ourselves in the truth of God's word.

And as I mentioned, every other piece will have something to do with truth.

And we'll be pointing that out as we go.

This is all held together.

Everything we're talking about from this point forward is held together with truth.

Now let's look at the next piece of armor at the end of 14.

It says, Righteousness like armor on your chest.

So this would be to protect your vital organs.

This is maybe the most important piece of protection.

Not weapon, but piece of protection that would literally be a lifesaver.

Where does our righteousness come from?

It's a children's ministry answer, guys.

It's okay.

Jesus, okay, good.

Who saves our spiritual life?

That's Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5.21 says, He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

We need to wear Jesus like armor on our chests.

Paul said in Ephesians 4.24, put on the new self, as we just talked about.

The one created according to God's likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.

We're to put on our righteousness that we receive from Jesus like a breastplate.

Now, spiritually speaking, how does this work?

Is my time up?

Is that already?

No.

How does this work, spiritually speaking?

Well, the enemy wants to lie to us.

Maybe you've been lied to in this way.

He wants to say things, he wants us to believe things like, you're a filthy sinner.

There's no way that God would ever accept you and love you and take you on as his own.

You'll never see heaven.

You're not worthy.

You're a filthy loser.

You sin too much.

Your salvation is not secure.

The way that we defeat those lies is with truth.

On my own, no, I'm not righteous, but Jesus is.

And he gave me his righteousness.

And that's the righteousness that God sees in the only righteousness that matters in regards to my eternity.

We need to wear that righteousness front and center and with boldness and put it on daily.

You know, there's a difference between me saying I have a shirt in my closet and putting a shirt on.

Thankfully for you this morning, I did both of those things.

But isn't there a big difference between that?

Of owning a shirt and saying, Yeah, I have one in my closet, but then actually putting it on so it could do its job.

We need to put on these things.

Now look at verse 15.

And your feet sandal with readiness for the gospel of peace.

Gospel simply means good news, and that's the good news of Jesus Christ.

The gospel is that Jesus reconciled man to God.

He made a way for there to be peace between the two after we sinned and we caused that separation in the first place.

This is the foundation that we as Christians stand on.

The gospel.

Not standing still, but going forth into the world with the gospel, with readiness.

Jesus said, Great commission, go therefore and make disciples of the nations.

Go.

It starts with that.

Go.

In Isaiah 52, 7 it says, How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the herald who proclaims peace, who brings news of good things.

Good news.

Who proclaims salvation?

Who says to Zion, your God reigns.

You know, Roman soldiers would wear sandals that basically had cleats on them.

It gave them a good grip, you know, a good foundation for both marching but also for holding their ground in battle as well.

We need to be able to hold fast.

In that peace that we have with God while proclaiming peace with God to others as well.

Now look at verse 16.

In every situation, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Now, in these times, usually at the beginning of a battle, some armies would light their arrows on fire and then just launch a barrage of these arrows towards the enemy.

So even if they didn't hit their target, it would cause chaos all around the people that just see these flaming arrows coming to them.

And if it didn't hit anybody, then it was lighting fires between them and all around them.

So if it wasn't hitting somebody, it was at least causing a distraction in hopes of making the soldiers get distracted and then put their guard down only to be hit by the next arrow.

If the enemy of our soul can't get to you or me, he's gonna try and light a fire between us.

He's gonna try and distract us so that we will, he's hoping that we will put our guard down.

So we need to take up, it says here, the shield of faith to quench these attacks.

These Roman shields were large, larger than the picture that I've been showing you, to where they could be knelt behind and it would protect their whole body.

And if they were made of wood, which a lot of them were, they were usually covered in an animal skin, and then before battle they would soak them in water so that if an arrow hit, it would actually quench the fiery arrow from the enemy.

The other thing, too, that's kind of interesting, is the Romans could also interlock their shields in a way which they called the tortoise, which makes a lot of sense, that would allow them to put a wall in the front, they would gather together, wall in the front, wall on two of the sides, and then the guys in the middle would hold it up on top of them and kind of forming a roof.

And this was done so that they could protect themselves, but also they could make advances on fortresses and armies and things like that, like a tortoise, and they would just slowly move and nothing could penetrate them together.

And this was done with other soldier old other soldiers.

I think that kind of shows us that our faith was not meant to be lived alone.

We can interlock our faith with other Christians and make advances together in that way.

And as we're talking about faith, you know, and shields and all of that kind of stuff, I think we're talking about both kinds of faith here.

You know, there's the saving faith, faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, and there's faith in regard to our confidence being in God.

Can't have the second one without the first one, though.

You know, and that's the confidence kind is having faith that you can do all things, that God can do all things, and we can do all things through him.

Having faith that he's gonna deliver on his promises, faith that he's bigger than our circumstances, things like that.

Both kinds of faith extinguish fear and extinguish panic and allows us to keep our guard up against the enemy.

So, first I want to talk a little bit more about confidence in our salvation.

Ephesians 2.8.

For you are saved by grace through faith.

And then in Romans 5, 121, the one that's on your paper, it says, Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand.

And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

I think that's both kinds of faith that we're seeing there, the saving and the confidence faith.

Now, I want to talk a little bit more about the confidence faith, though, in God and who God is.

So I have a definition I want to show you here.

This is the word that we see in the Greek, and it says, relating to God, the conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ.

Again, I think it's going back to truth again.

The truth and conviction on our part of who God is and who we are in Him is the faith that will quench the fiery arrows of the enemy.

We need to hold up those truths and those beliefs and those convictions like a shield.

When the enemy is tempting us with fear and panic and lies, and lies about God not loving us, lies about how bad our current circumstance is, whatever it might be, that's when we need to hold up faith.

To allow those truths and those convictions that we have deep inside that we hold about God to quench those fiery darts of the enemy.

Now look at verse 17.

Take the helmet of salvation.

Now in Thessalonians, Paul calls it a helmet of the hope of salvation.

And I really like that hope element that's involved in there.

Again, Ephesians 2.8.

For you are saved, salvation by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is God's gift.

Our salvation being by grace through faith is all the hope that we will ever need.

Please hear me in that.

Our salvation being by grace through faith is all the hope that we will ever need.

You know, we could lose everything else in this world and still have a reason for hope.

Easier said than done, though, isn't it?

And we need to wear that helmet to help protect our minds from the enemy.

If you want to go back with me to Genesis real quick again, how did Satan choose to attack Eve?

Her mind, right?

You know, God doesn't have your best in mind, Eve.

He's keeping something from you.

He doesn't want you to become like him.

You know, he wants to lie to us and to trip us up so that we start to doubt the goodness of God.

When what more goodness could we ask for than salvation through Jesus Christ?

So, why don't you think about this for a second?

What's the opposite of hope?

Despair?

That's one of the words I have down here.

Pessimism?

Discouragement?

Now, our salvation and the hope of our salvation and what is to come is the reason to always have hope.

Where's Paul writing this from?

You remember?

Prison, right?

He's chained to a Roman guard at this time.

He's probably lost everything in the world, maybe than other his, you know, than his maybe his tunic or maybe a couple other small possessions that he has.

Does it sound like he's lost hope here as he's writing this?

Does he sound like he's super down and discouraged and questioning God?

1 Peter 1, 3 through 4 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Because of his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

Our salvation gives us a reason to always have hope.

And hope's about the future, right?

It's always about looking forward.

Look right at that verse again.

What is our future in Christ?

It's eternity with him.

In an inheritance that is imperishable and undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for us.

That's the truth of what lies ahead for each believer in Jesus Christ.

Paul says to wear that hope as a helmet guarding our mind.

Now look at the second half of verse 17.

And the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

You know, we're really looking at two things here: the Word of God and the Holy Spirit that are working in unison.

You know, the word at the end of verse 17 is Rhema, not Lagos.

As we talked a lot about when we're talking about the role of husbands in Ephesians 5.

You know, Rhema is the word that's usually used for something spoken.

The definition says something uttered by the living voice.

Now, Lagos is usually used for speaking of scripture or the canon of scripture.

Why am I pointing this out?

Well, 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17 says, All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

All scripture is God breathe.

It's inspired by the Holy Spirit.

And if we'll take the time to know it, to know scripture, the Holy Spirit will show us how to handle God's word properly.

How to properly wield it like a sword.

You know, I've seen people wield God's word improperly.

You know, enough to know that people can memorize scripture and then quote it improperly or apply it improperly.

It's called the sword of the Holy Spirit for a reason.

And the use of Rhema here is for a reason as well.

Jesus told his disciples in John 16, 13, when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.

For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears.

He will also declare to you what is to come.

You see, the Holy Spirit wants to speak to us and guide us and counsel us, as Jesus said here, into all truth and lead us into God's will.

You know, that's been so much of Ephesians, to live a spirit-filled life.

And then Paul's telling us how to practically live that out.

Ephesians 3.16 and Paul's prayer for the church in Ephesus, he says, I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his spirit.

So when we're filled with the Holy Spirit, and when we've been bathed in the truth of God's word, the Spirit of God speaks truth back to us.

And he will show us how to apply that truth, both as an offense and as a defense.

Swords are used like that to protect yourself and as an offense as well.

The Holy Spirit wants to carve up the enemy.

And he wants to carve up the lies of the enemy.

You know, have you ever noticed that Jesus didn't go into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan until the Spirit descended on him like a dove.

And Scripture says, and it rested on him at his baptism.

Luke says after that, then, so after the baptism, Jesus left the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.

Filled with the Spirit, led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

And then we see Satan tempted Jesus, and he even tried to use Scripture against Jesus by twisting it.

That's scary.

Satan memorized Scripture so he could apply it wrong by taking it out of context.

And he tried to get Jesus to do what he wanted by quoting Scripture back to him and twisting it.

How did Jesus respond to those three temptations?

He was filled with the Holy Spirit and he answered with Scripture in context.

That's exactly what God desires from us to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to defeat Satan's lies and temptations with God's word, with the truth of God's word.

This is how we walk in victory.

By putting the whole armor of God on.

There is power in the belief, faith, and conviction of the truths that are symbolized in each piece of the armor that we see here in our text this morning.

So I hope you can see that now.

How each piece of that armor points to these truths that we find in Scripture.

And points back to those four points that we had in the beginning.

You know, having belief and conviction and the assurance of our salvation through our right standing with Christ.

And not just having them in the closet, but putting those things on daily.

And I hope you can see how each piece points to Jesus and has to do with believing the truths of Jesus.

That He is truth, as we saw in Ephesians.

That He is our righteousness.

He is who we have faith in.

He is our salvation.

And he made a way for the Holy Spirit to be in us.

And also how he is God's word.

All of that is in those pieces that we've been looking at.

And then the third thing is, you know, I hope that we can see how Paul's really summing up the book of Ephesians here.

This isn't just some random thing at the end.

Like he's going through Ephesians, and at the end he's like, okay, now here's how you you go.

Here's how you put it on, here's how you live this out.

You know, and then the last thing, um, I hope we can see that we play a part.

That this requires activity.

Battle is a reality for each one of us.

It requires activity on our part.

Not to muster up strength on our own, but to become more dependent upon God and allowing Him to fight our battles for us.

And this is why I printed this half sheet, because I really want to challenge each one of us in a way to prepare us for battle, to have these sheets.

Printed them like this, so hopefully you can keep them in your Bibles if you want to.

But I want to challenge you this week, each and every one of us, each morning, to put on the armor of God.

Not as a checklist, but to read these verses and other verses if you want to as well, and then believe them with conviction and faith, and then to wear these scriptures into battle.

You know, one week, and let's just let's see what happens.

If we all do it, I'd be really curious uh next Sunday to find out how that went for you, and maybe how that changed your perspective as you went into each day.

If you have kids, great thing to do with them.

What better way than to bathe them in these truths as well?

And if you want, like I was saying, like next week, I would love to hear maybe how that changed your perspective or or whatever it might be, but just try it for a week and see what happens.

Maybe it'll be something that you want to continue to do as well as you bathe yourself in these truths, as you walk out that door, whatever you're going to do that day, and see how God might want to use that.

What better way to start our day, right?

Would you please pray with me?

Lord, you are so good.

And we thank you that even though we sinned and we rebelled and we did so much against you, that you loved us too much to just leave us in this kingdom that is Satan's right now.

You loved us too much to leave us in that darkness.

So, Lord, I pray that as we recognize your mercy and your grace and all that you've done for us and all that you've done through Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins, Lord, we thank you that you didn't leave us there, that you didn't leave us here on this earth with no tools.

But you've given us the hope of our salvation.

You've given us these pieces of armor to help us in this battle until we get to be with you face to face.

So, Lord, I pray that we would take this series, but we would also remember that we're fighting from a place of victory, a battle that is already won, a war that is already won.

And Lord, when we fail in battle, when we forget to take some of these things in and we mess up, we thank you for your forgiveness.

We thank you for your grace and your mercy once again that uh that your mercies are new every morning on us.

But help us to be faithful, to put these things on, to step uh into battle with the tools that you've given us, relying on your strength and not on our own.

Show us how to do this well, we pray.

In Jesus' name, Amen.