Armor and Spiritual Threats | Ephesians 6:10-18a | 03/22/26

All right. Well, great to be with you

all this morning. Um, for those of you

who've been following along, we're now

almost at the end of the book of

Ephesians. We're going to finish right

before Easter.

And of course, if you've read the book

of Ephesians, you know that in chapter 6

is the always popular, always

interesting spiritual warfare chapter.

And when I use that phrase spiritual

warfare or spiritual

conflict with the demonic,

I'm sure different things happen in

different hearts around the room.

It's probably good to just acknowledge

at the outset that spiritual warfare in

the Christian life is often engaged from

the place of two equal and opposite

errors. There are people who learn about

spiritual warfare and it becomes this

all-consuming thing that they get really

into and really interested in.

Everything comes down to what is the

devil doing and what are the the demons

doing and they see the devil and

everything and everything that happens

to them is the consequence of some

demonic intervention in their life and

as a result

they never learn to grow.

They never grow in spiritual maturity.

They never learn to deeply repent. They

never focus on becoming stronger in the

spirit of God by the strength that the

Lord supplies. They only ever look

outside of themselves for the reasons

for their struggles and their spiritual

problems. That's one error. The other

error is in the opposite direction to

think that to be totally rationalistic

about the world that there is no

spiritual forces at work that there is

no demonic influence happening in and

around us. There is no dark forces at

work seeking to oppose the works of God

and the workers of God in the world.

And as a result, when you look at the

world through that lens, it's much

easier for you to fall prey to many of

these things that scripture warns us

about. When you don't have your guard

up, you can fail to recognize when

you're being led astray by a half truth.

Something that's sort of true, just not

all the way true. And it can be twisted

into something dark and destructive.

People who don't ever think about this

aren't sensitive to the subtle

temptations and voices within our

culture around us that accuse us or

oppress us or seeks to scare us because

they're never suspicious of the origin

or the nature of these messages.

Paul in our text today is going to

refuse to participate in either one of

those errors. He does not want to

overstate the influence of demonic

realities, but neither does he want to

shy away from it.

Paul does not want everything to become

about your battle with dark powers at

work in the world. And at the same time,

he expects you to fully understand and

embrace that they're a real thing that

have a real effect on your actual life.

And you need to be prepared to engage it

by the power of God.

But here's the good news about all this.

This warning about spiritual well

warfare

does not come with a tone of fear or

panic

or any such thing. It comes with the

assurance of hope. And that hope is the

main point of my message today. Main

point. All you need, all you need for

spiritual warfare is yours in Christ.

Everything you need to withstand the

devil is yours in Christ. So stand firm.

Please open your Bibles to Ephesians

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6 10.

If we can just take a moment, let me

remind us of where we're at in the flow

of thought in this letter.

Over the last few months, Paul has been

systematically unpacking for us what the

gospel fleshed out in a human life is

supposed to look like.

He has helped us connect gospel

realities to our desire for unity, to

our pursuit of holiness. He's helped us

see that the example of God in Christ

shows us that we ought to live an

othersoriented

life focused on giving rather than

receiving.

We're supposed to take this attitude

into our marriages, into our

relationship with our parents, into our

workplace.

Our

whole existence is meant to be directly

impacted by our union with the risen

Lord Jesus. And because we're united to

Christ, we are to walk in love as God in

Christ has loved us. We're to be full of

the spirit, the spirit whom he has

given, submitting to one another out of

reverence to Christ.

But now that he's set in order this

extremely positive, this very grand,

helpful vision for what life in Christ

is supposed to look like, Paul is

basically closing this letter by

reminding us that there's more going on

here than just this corporate call to

holiness that we've received.

There are also enemies.

There are also opponents.

There are creatures in places that we

can't see and they are working toward

our destruction.

So that being said, let's now humble our

minds and open our hearts for the

reading of the word of God, beginning in

Ephesians chapter 6:10

through 18. The first part of verse 18.

Finally,

be strong in the Lord and in the

strength of his might. Put on the whole

armor of God that you may be able to

stand against the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and

blood, but against the rulers, against

the authorities, against the cosmic

powers over this present darkness,

against the spiritual forces of evil in

the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of

God that you may be able to withstand in

the evil day, and having done all to

stand firm.

Stand therefore, having fastened on the

belt of truth, and having put on the

breastplate of righteousness, and as

shoes for your feet, having put on the

readiness given by the gospel of peace,

in all circumstances, take up the shield

of faith, with which you can extinguish

all the flaming darts of the evil one,

and take the helmet of salvation and the

sword of the spirit, which is the word

of God, praying at all times in the

spirit with all prayer and supplication.

This is the word of God. God, help us to

see things as you see them and to attend

to them with the degree of focus that

you find fitting for our time and place.

Amen.

Okay. We're going to look at three

things from this text. We're going to

look at the strength of spiritual

warfare. We're going to look at the

characters involved in spiritual

warfare. We're going to close by

thinking together about the armor of God

for spiritual warfare. So let's start

with the strength of spiritual warfare.

Look down at verse 10 and 11 and

consider what they're saying.

First, we are told to be strong. Be

strong in the Lord and the strength of

his might. Second, we're told to put on

the whole armor of God. And third, we're

warned that we need to do these things

so that we'll be able to stand against

the schemes of the devil.

So there are three things that Paul just

takes for granted without explanation

that he just assumes that you need to be

profoundly aware of. The first is that

we need to be stronger.

What's implied there is that apart from

God, you are weak.

Morally weak, spiritually weak,

especially weak in conflicts against the

devils and his schemes.

That's not an indictment of anyone

specific. That is a claim about all

Christians everywhere in all the

surrounding regions of Ephesus and every

church. This is a letter that's meant to

be circulated and it's meant to be

applicable across time to all Christians

in all places. We're all weak in this

area.

Second thing, without the armor that

comes from God, we will not be able to

stand.

So God has tools for us to work with, to

defend ourselves with, and if we don't

make use of them, it seems to reason we

will fail. We will be exposed and

vulnerable and susceptible to attack.

And third,

and very very important to get your head

around, is there is in fact a real

personal active thinking, scheming,

planning devil.

a devil who has actual schemes with the

actual end of doing actual harm to the

faith and witness of the church.

So let's take all three of these one at

a time. First thing I want to consider,

Paul exhorts us to be strong in the Lord

and the strength of his might. He

doesn't tell you to make yourself

stronger.

Paul doesn't say you're strong so stand

firm. He says the opposite. You are not

strong. You need to be strengthened by

the power of God. You are weak apart

from God. It's like he's a vine and

you're like branches that flow out of

the vine. And apart from him, you can do

nothing.

That's the idea here.

One of the first things that God often

does to us in the Christian life after

we convert is he exposes to us a little

bit of our sin.

And it often is very overwhelming in the

beginning. and you're like, "Wow, I

didn't realize how evil I was." And just

last month was my 18-year anniversary in

the Lord. And it's kind of amazing how

he just keeps peeling back more layers.

Um, but one of the first things he does

is he he shows that to you and then

goes, you know, repent of that, turn

from that, walk in holiness in this

area. So, I don't know what your thing

is. Forgive that person who wronged you.

I'm sure there's you all have your own

thing. And you try.

You try to do the thing he says and you

fail and you try and you fail and you

try and you fail

and then you find yourself standing at a

crossroads. How am I going to think

about this? Am I going to keep looking

at myself and go, "Why are you so weak?"

Keep looking at myself in the mirror

going, "Be stronger. What's wrong with

you? Try harder."

Or

or

I can accept God's ver verdict over me.

I'm not strong

and neither are you.

We can turn to the one who by his power

raised up Christ from the dead and say,

"Well, I know you're strong. Maybe you

can help me."

God by his strength created the heavens

and the earth.

God in his power causes the me mountains

to tremble and shatters the cedars of

Lebanon.

God by his power

drives back the sea.

He raises the dead

through his son. He causes an entire

millennia's worth of people to be made

alive in Christ, alive from their death

and trespasses and sins.

Why would I keep looking at the mirror

looking for strength in myself when God

is the one who has told me that I am

weak and need to be made strong in him?

Why would I do that?

Why would I not look to the omnipotent

all powerful God who has demonstrated

physically his strength in concrete

history and go you make me strong.

When Paul says be strong in the Lord he

is referring to your union with Christ.

The way that you do that is by drawing

near to him by praying to him by

listening to him by obeying him by

asking him to strengthen you in

communion with him and by repenting when

you fall and coming back for grace in

order to be restored.

That's how you draw upon his infinite

strength.

This is my first big point in spiritual

warfare. Strength is not going to come

from you. It's just not. Strength is

going to come from God. So, be strong in

him and by the strength of his might.

Second big point, the armor is not

something that you're supposed to build.

The armor is not something you're

commanded to forge or construct for

yourself. It's not something that you're

going to go buy from a teacher somewhere

for the very low price of $99.99.

This is something freely given to you by

God.

You are called to take up this armor and

use it. Put on the whole armor of God.

You're told it's here for you. And it's

I will describe it in a few minutes, but

the point is it comes from God, not from

man. You're not going to build it. It's

something you're going to receive.

Both the strength for the warfare and

the armor for the warfare come from the

almighty.

And the last big point is about

spiritual warfare itself.

There's an actual devil with actual

schemes trying to actually inflict

spiritual violence on us.

And this war, this battle isn't

predominantly made against you as

individuals, though that can happen.

It's made against us. This is all in the

plural.

This is the devil doing war against our

congregation.

But let's talk about that for a few

minutes.

What is biblical spiritual warfare?

Well, maybe not surprisingly, it's not

like what you see on TV or in horror

movies.

The first example of spiritual warfare

in scripture is in the garden of God

when a serpent comes to the woman and

asks, "Did God really say?

Did he really say?"

The first shot fired in this battle was

an attempt to sew a seed of doubt

about the word of God.

The heart of the devil's question is,

"Is God really good or is he actually

holding back from you?"

In the book of Zechariah,

you have this courtroom scene where the

high priest is clothed in filthy

garments and it says, "Satan stands

beside him accusing him before the

throne, announcing in front of everyone

all the sins of the priesthood and why

they're worthy of judgment and

condemnation.

That's the other thing the devil does.

He condemns.

He enumerates all the reasons why the

people and the priesthood ought to be

condemned and judged before the Lord.

Later on in the book of Revelation, the

devil uses widescale social persecution

to try and force and pressure the church

to deny Christ.

But much of what the devil does in this

world is about deception. It's about

accusation and it's about fear.

This is actually how you discern the

difference between the voice of God and

the voice of the enemy. The voice of God

always brings moral clarity.

So if I'm doing something wrong, both

the devil and God might say you're doing

something wrong. But God will make it

super clear what it is and really

obvious h how I'm supposed to repent and

he will show me a clear path back to the

place of grace.

The devil seow is confusion.

The devil, the demonic wants to drive

you further into darkness, further into

chaos, further into a a sense of this

accusation that this sin is so great I

can't be forgiven. I can't be restored.

He's aimed at breaking your fellowship

from the Holy One.

He wants to keep us afraid of being

open. He wants to keep us in the fear of

being rejected.

The devil wants to isolate you from

others and keep you from focus to to

keep you focusing on your flesh and on

your fear and on the deceptions that we

tell ourselves.

God is always seeking to bring you out

of those things into light into freedom.

And what I'm suggesting is that most of

the way the devil does this stuff

is not really by trying to scare you.

If we are inattentive,

we can accidentally end up taking this

stuff in through the stuff we watch, the

stuff we listen to.

if we're not paying attention to it.

We can read things and listen to things

that seow doubt and fear in our

relationship with God and ask cause us

to ask did well maybe did he really say?

It's important to understand these three

things. Strength isn't going to come

from you. Help is going to come from

God. and you need to stand firm against

a real enemy who is seeking to harm and

destroy our faith. Let's now transition

to the characters involved in this

spiritual warfare.

Paul says, "We do not for we do not

wrestle against flesh and blood, but

against the rulers and against

authorities and against the cosmic

powers over this present darkness and

against the spiritual forces of evil in

the heavenly places."

One of the biggest mistakes that we make

in our Christian walk is thinking that

spiritual warfare is against other

people.

When Paul says it's not against flesh

and blood, he means other people like

you and me.

One of the most miraculous things about

the gospel is not that God has the power

to defeat his enemies.

The power to defeat enemies is real

power. It's real strength. It's

demonstrated in the real world all the

time. But I would like to contend to you

that that's not real power in God's

economy. You know what real power is?

Taking your enemies and transforming

them into friends.

That's power.

The gospel can transform people who want

to kill the Lord Jesus into people who

are willing to die for the Lord Jesus.

And because that's the true power of the

gospel, our warfare is never against

other people. Even people ins snared by

the devil. Even people who have decided

to declare me and you as their enemies.

All of our enemies in this world are not

to be viewed as enemy combatants.

They are lost children ins snared by our

true enemy. They are imagebearing

children of God who are under the

influence and power of the evil one.

That's why Jesus tells us to love our

memory our enemies and to pray for those

who persecute us.

Look, I understand

that there are people who do wicked

things in this world. There are people

who do things and you look at them and

you look at their actions and they are

morally reprehensible and it makes you

sick to your stomach. But I want you to

think about something.

That guy was me 18 years ago.

That person, man or woman, I don't know

why I said guy, but that person

can be transformed like that from an

enemy into a friend.

That person that you're despising for

how evil they are could be the next

pastor of this church.

I'm not joking.

Stranger things have happened.

You know,

we don't wrestle against flesh and

blood. It's it's so easy to despise

people who are trapped in cycles of

brokenness and bondage to sin.

And I understand it,

but we're not supposed to do that. Those

are people who are ins snared. Those are

people who need freedom and help and

healing. And you possess in your mind

and in your heart the message, the power

that can actually save them.

We don't wrestle against flesh and

blood. Who do we wrestle against? We

wrestle against rulers and authorities

and cosmic powers and spiritual forces

of evil in the heavenly places.

What are all of those?

The scripture is vague. It seems to

imply there's like this hierarchy of

demons maybe, but it's tough to take a

strong view because there's just not

enough information.

Biblically, Satan is the the leader of

this group and his lackey are enumerated

here and they are almost definitely I

can't say with absolute certainty but

almost definitely fallen angels

creatures created by God to be servants

of mankind who rebelled against God with

the devil and whom God judged and placed

under judgment until the day of

destruction.

These are spiritual invisible creatures

who now live under Satan's influence

and make it their aim to work from the

unseen realm against what God is doing

in the world to try to destroy it and

corrupt it.

These creatures, it says, are in the

heavenly places. The heavenly places

probably refers not to the throne room

of God, but to the spiritual realm that

somehow overlaps this realm.

But it's important to see here the

characters involved in the battle.

There's us, God's church. There are

people, flesh and blood, that these dark

creatures seek to use whom Paul says we

are not at war with. And then there's

the devil and his friends, the devil and

his followers, his rulers, his powers,

his forces.

And finally, there's God who gives us

this armor to stand firm against them.

And I think it's really important and

helpful to sometimes stop and remind

ourselves

about the asymmetrical nature of this

warfare.

The word asymmetrical means it's not

equal. It's not two equally opposing

forces and we're waiting to see who's

going to win.

We're standing out here a second ago and

no one understood why I said this, but I

was thinking about the asymmetrical

power of God. And we're all praying. We

finish praying and there's a roly pololy

walking right in the middle of us. And I

said without any context, imagine the

collective power of all of us against

that roly pololy.

And Matt Hagen was like, "What are you

about to do?" Or Matt Hoffman was like,

"Don't don't do it, man."

But I was thinking, you know, think

about us small creatures against that

smaller creature. The devil, all his

minions are a creature like us.

And then there's the uncreated one.

powers, authorities. Sounds like a like

a pretty big force, right?

What's bigger? That force or the

universe?

That looks pretty big and pretty strong.

You know what else is pretty big and

pretty strong?

The power required to hold galaxies

together.

That's pretty strong, too.

That is in fact asymmetrical strength.

That is power imbalance to the highest

possible degree.

And that power imbalance does not

alleviate our need to be prepared. It

doesn't deliver us from our need to

withstand and stand firm against the

deceptions and accusations of the devil.

But is very important to keep in mind as

you fight. If God is on my side, the

devil cannot win. He can't. He's not

strong enough. He's already been mostly

defeated at the cross when Christ took

from him the fear of death. He used to

use the fear of death. Do this or I'll

kill you. But Jesus at the cross

transformed death into a door.

And all he can do now with death is send

me to be with the one whom my soul

loves.

That's all he can use death to do now.

But what he can still do is lie to me.

He can still discourage me. He can still

try to distort the truth in my thinking

and in my behavior.

You know, I I read the Puritans are so

interesting on spiritual warfare. They

have all these pathy sayings. There was

this guy, I can't remember what book it

was in, but he said um did I write it

down here?

Darn it.

He says something to the effect of like

the um the devil would rather destroy

your faith than your flesh.

He'd rather harm your faith than your

flesh. If he can harm your faith, he can

get you to doubt God and he can turn

that into all kinds of evil. What can he

do if he hurts our flesh?

Drive us closer to him?

He would rather us doubt than die.

If he can get you to doubt, he might be

able to wreck a good thing that God is

making in the world. If he causes you to

die, he sends you to the one you were

made for.

With standing and standing firm in this

text are perseverance words. They're

words about not getting knocked off the

way, not getting to the place where you

want to quit.

There going to be attempts to sew seeds

of doubt and trouble your conscience

with the memories of past sins. There's

going to be real attempts to create

discord and disunityity by appealing to

our flesh, by the manipulation of our tr

of the truth into something monstrous

and distorted. And the call that you and

I have been given is to stand firm

against these things.

To refuse to distrust our God because

his son has died for us. to refuse to

live in the shame of past sin because

the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all

unrighteousness.

To refuse to hate our brother no matter

how much our flesh wants to because

Christ died for both him and us.

In verses 11 and 13, we're called to put

on the whole armor of God. Not part of

it, not some of it, all of it.

That's who's involved. You, the devil,

the ones the devils would seek to use,

and God himself. And this is

asymmetrical warfare. Let's now close by

considering what the armor actually is.

Now,

for those of you who grew up in church,

you might have a complicated

relationship with the armor of God. I'm

seeing this now with my own children

where they're learning children's songs

about it and there's props and there's,

you know, which is great. I'm glad

they're learning about it. But I think

you can accidentally begin to associate

this with like nostalgia and kid things

and lose sight of the context that this

is about

actual meaningful perseverance of your

faith in the face of demonic assault.

Where I want to start is with the

observation that this armor this armor

is a corporate reality.

We're exhorted to do all this stuff

together. All these commands that are

about to be given us are all plural.

It's all to you plural.

That means this is something we're

called to do as a group. I'm not just

supposed to be concerning myself with

the belt of truth, but also all of you.

We together need to stand in the truth.

And if we do, we together will resist

the devil. This is not about any of us

isolated on our own doing this apart

from everyone else.

That's why it's so important to be in

regular fellowship with each other to,

you know, there's times I was talking

with someone earlier about how, you

know,

I know a lot. I have a lot of scripture

memorized, but sometimes I'm really

struggling with something and it just

takes someone else outside of my own

head to remind me, hey, here's what

God's word says. And that completely

changes my view of the of the situation

and enables me to go engage it with

holiness.

I need that. And so do you.

Now, all that being said, it's good to

know what this armor is or what it

represents. And maybe you'll surprise be

surprised to hear, maybe you won't.

Views have differed across time about

how to properly interpret what the armor

is.

So for instance, if you go back to the

very early church, guys like St.

Augustine thought that to say put on the

armor of God was like roughly equivalent

to what Paul said earlier in Ephesians 5

about putting on Christ. After all, the

truth is in Christ. Righteousness is in

Christ. Um all these things that are

described in the armor you could say are

in Christ. And so effectively what he

the way that he and many others thought

about it in the beginning was we are to

reflect upon our union with Christ and

try to let the realities of that union

of that reconciliation the fact that I

am now at peace with God to inform how I

do everything to inform how I treat

other people, how I think about myself,

how I think about my work and so forth

and especially in how I make war against

the devil.

Later on during the medieval period a

guy like Thomas Aquinus would have said

we ought to really think of the armor

more like virtues.

So we ought to be trying to become more

righteous. We ought to become trying to

be more faithful. We ought to be better

at using the word of God. And he would

have thought of it more in terms of

qualities and characters that we receive

by grace from God that were meant to

sharpen and strengthen by the spirit's

help so that we become people who are

more like this.

Cultivating a love for righteousness, a

faithful, practical, righteous living.

In other words, the armor wasn't so much

about focusing on our union with Christ

and everything so much as it was about

his grace at work in our lives forbing

these virtues.

Later on, 500 years or so later during

the reformation, John Calvin came along

and he wanted to say that the armor of

God are these spiritual realities given

to us by God in the gospel for our

defense against the devil.

The truth, the belt of truth is

doctrinal truth that guards us against

Satan's lies. The breastplate of

righteousness is both our justification

in Christ and our sanctification by the

spirit. The gospel of peace, he would

say, is our assurance of our

reconciliation with God. And faith, the

shield of faith is our firm trust in

God's promises, especially in trials.

After that, the Puritans came along and

they emphasized the individual

application of these ideas. That was

kind of their big shtick is you

personally doing this.

And what's interesting is I look back on

all that stuff and I' I've read through

it and I don't really feel like I

disagree with any of any of it. It just

seems to be kind of looking at a similar

teaching through different lenses

or at different levels. I'm not sure

it's like an either or you have to pick.

I think that multiple things can be

going on at once here.

For instance, the individual application

that the Puritans would have suggested

isn't really meant to be at odds with

the corporate realities. It's not like

they're two. It has to be one or the

other. It can be both. We can work on

cultivating it in ourselves and helping

each other as a group put on the armor

of God.

these this whole gift of armor is a gift

of grace

and we're able to make use of it by

grace.

Let's think through a few practical

considerations of how to do this. You've

probably heard people talk about how

most of this armor is defensive. belts,

breastplates,

armor for your feet, shields, helmets.

Those are not offensive weapons. Those

are given to you to protect you from

being attacked.

The implication of that in my mind is

that you and I are not supposed to leave

this room and go looking for trouble

with the devil.

We're not being trained for war. We're

being trained for heaven. And this is

about self-defense on the way there. I

think is the I think

we're being taught to defend ourselves.

And of course, there's one obvious

exception. The tool that you're given to

fight back with against the enemy is

God's word.

And I don't think Paul means throw your

Bible at him.

I think Paul means memorize his promises

and be prepared to use it in the day of

temptation

that you may be able to strike back

against the devil's lies.

All of us are going to face times in

this world, in this life between now and

glory, where you feel alone,

where you feel exposed and vulnerable

and helpless.

And you'll be tempted to think in that

moment that there's no one you can turn

to, no one who will help, no one who

will understand.

That is a common place that the enemy

strikes.

You're alone.

Nobody cares about you.

God has forgotten you.

It's really important in that day that

you have a big strong gun to shoot back

at him called Hebrews 13:5. That's where

Hebrews 13:5

God promises, I will never leave leave

you. I will never forsake you ever.

Matthew 28, I will be with you always,

even to the ends of the ages. That is

what God has promised. And so that is

what I will believe. independent of how

I feel, independent of what I'm tempted

to think in my flesh, I'm going to trust

the word of God more than I trust my own

feelings.

When you feel guilty or ashamed of your

past sins,

sometimes the enemy will come and heap

on the coals and say, "You are the

worst.

You are a failure.

You tried and tried and tried. I guess

this is just who you are.

That's how he talks.

Do you recognize that voice? Have you

heard that before?

It's really important when that day

comes that you have words in your heart

like, "If we confess our sins, he is

faithful and just to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all

unrighteousness."

1 John 1:9.

1 John 1:9

It's important in that day to have words

like, "You would not delight in

sacrifices or I'd give them. You will

not be pleased with the burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken

spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh

God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:17.

Psalms 51:17

It's much harder for the devil to

convince you of these things when you've

memorized the places where God has

literally said the opposite thing is

true.

It's like a weapon to shoot back with.

It's really good to have some of these

passages memorized for the day that real

genuine evil happens when real genuine

tragedy comes because it will.

It's going to happen at some point.

It happened at our Morgan Hill campus

last year when a sweet little girl died

drowning in a pool.

It's really important to have the word

of God ready for the kinds of

temptations that an event like that

could introduce into your soul.

I lift up my eyes to the hills. Where

does my help come from in something like

this?

My help comes from the Lord, the maker

of heaven and earth.

Who can separate us from the love of

Christ?

Shall tribulation like this separate us?

Shall distress

or persecution or famine or nakedness or

sword? As it's written, we are being

killed all the day long. We are regarded

as sheep to be slaughtered.

No. In all these things, we're more than

conquerors through him who loved us. For

I am sure that neither life nor death

dot dot dot will be able to separate us

from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

That stuff is for the day of adversity.

That stuff is for the evil day, Paul

calls it in Ephesians 6.

Those verses are weapons against the

voice of deception when they come. The

voice of accusation and despair in the

dark days.

And we're called to arm ourselves with

all of these things.

We're called to believe the gospel that

through Christ we are made righteous.

And now we are called to pursue

righteous living with all of our heart.

We're called to trust in Christ who is

the truth who teaches us truth, helps me

walk in the truth by his Holy Spirit.

I'm called to put on the readiness given

to me by the gospel of peace. I think

that's readiness to run back to God

after we fail. Readiness to draw others

back to God when they fail. to strive

for peace with my enemies.

I am called, you are called, we are

called to take up the shield of faith,

that is hope in his promises.

We're called to believe that they're

true, and to use them to resist the

vicious attacks of the enemy.

We're called to take up the helmet of

salvation, which is the hope we have of

future glory, of resurrection, of

glorification, of eternity with God.

We're called to take up the sword of the

spirit, which is the word of God, and to

rightly understand and use it to resist

the lies and deception of the enemy.

And most of all, most of all, we're

called to do that together

as a family in the Lord, to help each

other, to remind each other, to pray for

each other, to call each other back when

we wander away from these really

important things.

We have to help each other feel our

connection to the anchor who is Christ

who has gone in the veil before us. We

have to help each other understand that

we are unbreakably connected to him that

he is our everything and that he's with

us in everything.

Paul closes with prayer. I'm going to

spend a lot more time on prayer next

week, but obviously you can see the text

end ends in prayer. And that is the

underlying practice which establishes

which enables which draws our attention

to our union with Christ. And it's in

prayer that we are most aware of these

spiritual realities. Prayer is

fundamental. But I'm going to spend more

time on it next week.

Now having said all this,

the power of spirit spiritual warfare

comes from God. Two, the characters of

spiritual warfare, us, the devil, those

the devil uses, and God himself. And

three, that the armor itself is this, I

guess, theologically rich combination of

things that basically summarize the

fundamental duties of the Christian

life. We're called to be about these

things.

Having said all that, it's worth noting

that of all the things that Paul has

called us to focus on in the letter to

the Ephesians, of all the applications

that he has sorted through since the

beginning of chapter 4, church unity,

pursuit of holiness and maturity, a

desire to put off our old self as

Gentiles, the desire to be one as he is

one in Christ, the desire to be faithful

husbands and wives, to honor our

parents, to be faithful at work. At the

end of that long list is spiritual

warfare.

So it's important because it's on the

list, but it's also the last thing on

the list.

What I'm saying is

I think if you do all of that other

stuff,

if you pursue unity with each other, if

you try to put off your old self, you

try to walk in holiness, you try to like

love the people in your life, speak well

to the people in your life in a way that

reflects Jesus, if you forgive each

other, if you put away all wrath and

clamor, all that stuff that Paul's been

saying, if you focus on doing that,

you're going to basically be ready to

for this day.

I don't think it has to necessarily be

its own separate thing that you're

focused on. It's important. It's on the

list of important things, but it's also

last on the list. And so that's kind of

what I mean when I prayed in the

beginning that we would focus on these

things in due appropriate proportion.

It's important.

It's also not the most important thing.

God is the most important thing. His

gospel in Christ Jesus is the most

important thing. And it's amazing how by

getting those things right, somehow all

this other stuff

works itself out appropriately.

What I believe Paul was saying is this.

All you need for spiritual warfare is

yours in Christ. So stand firm. Let's

pray.