Battle Ready: "Stand Firm" Ephesians 6:14-15 Pastor Daniel Reese

I keep volunteering to be a part of this and I keep getting rejected.

I see why now.

If you have a Bible, Ephesians 6 is where we're going to be.

So last week we finally got to the part of our series through Ephesians that describes

why we titled this series, Battle Ready.

All of us that are followers of Jesus have been enlisted into a spiritual battle against

Satan.

We are at war with him.

When we discussed last week, he is a powerful enemy.

One that we cannot defend on our own.

The only way that we can defeat him is to make sure that we are prepared for the battle

by being strengthened by God and by putting on his armor.

Although one of the ways that we prepare for the battle is understanding our enemy.

We discussed that last week.

The Bible makes it clear that once we are engaged in the battle, we stand firm.

Not by concentrating on what the enemy is doing around us.

Not by concentrating on what the enemy is, how he is affecting us.

But rather by concentrating on what we are doing.

Although God makes his power and his armor available to us, we need to take the steps

to actually put it on and use it properly.

Let me make one general observation that must be the foundation of everything that we'll

talk about.

The armor is a symbolic description of Jesus Christ himself.

Paul makes it even more clear in another one of his letters.

In Romans chapter 13, he says, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision

Romans 13 · chapter mention

for the flesh to gratify the desires.

That command in that passage in Romans 13 is exactly the same command that is translated,

put on in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 11.

Ephesians 6:11

When we are commanded to put on the armor of God.

So I'm quite confident to suggest to you that the command to clothe ourselves with Jesus

is actually a direct parallel to the command to put on the armor of God.

Therefore, in describing the full armor of God, Paul is actually describing to us how

to put on himself.

So as we look at our passage this morning, I want us to see the different aspects of

Jesus, different aspects of who he is, and then we're going to cover some of those aspects

this morning.

We're going to cover verses 14 through 15 this morning.

I'm going to invite Delaney up to read.

I heard she's a good reader, and so she's going to read our passage this morning.

I invite you to stand as we honor the Lord's word together.

Thank you for 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.

Hold on, I'm going to pray.

Father, thank you for your word, and I pray that your word will seep into our hearts this

morning.

I pray God that you will just open our eyes to see your goodness and through how to prepare

ourselves for this battle that we are in.

Thank you for Delaney and how she's leading us this morning in worship and just by reading

her word, pray bless her, but do not pray.

So I'm so thankful.

Maybe you are too.

I'm so thankful sometimes that we don't use phrases that were once used to describe everyday

acts.

Our English translation here says that we are to fasten our belts.

A more accurate wording from the original would be, would say, girding the loins.

When I'm getting dressed in the morning, I don't tell Sina, I'll be right up.

I just got to gird my loins.

Maybe she would like that.

I don't know.

I'll keep you updated on that.

I'll try that this week.

But Paul's readers would have had a very clear picture of what he is trying to communicate

in this passage.

In his day, men normally would wear long flowing robes.

Even the Roman soldiers would wear a long tunic.

And when they got ready for some kind of vigorous action, they would take and tuck their robes

or tuck their tunics into their belt so that they wouldn't get in the way or nothing would

impede them.

So the idea of girding the loins would have conveyed to Paul's readers the idea of preparing

for battle by getting any impediments out of the way.

This is what the belt does.

In fact, the phrase girding the loins came to be used in the New Testament as a picture

of preparedness.

In 1 Peter chapter 1, Peter writes that we should prepare our minds for action.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

It is the same phrasing that Paul uses.

Gird up the loins of your minds.

In Luke chapter 12, Jesus is teaching his disciples how to be prepared for his second

Luke 12 · chapter mention

coming.

And he uses the same phrase, let your waist be girded and your lamps burning.

I believe that Paul is very careful here to describe the armor in exactly the same order

that a Roman soldier would put it on in the same order that we need to put it on.

Unfortunately, our idea of a belt makes that harder for us to understand because usually

our belt is one of the last pieces of clothing that we put on.

But what Paul is describing here is actually more like a girdle.

The belt of the Roman soldier was made out of this thick leather.

It protected the abdomen, it protected the lower back and actually provided support for

the lower back in order to help him stand as he carried all this heavy armor around.

The belt also had these clips on it that were used to carry the sword and fasten the breast

plate into position.

The belt was not just an adornment.

Some of you ladies, like Sina had a belt on the other day, I was like, what's the point

of that thing?

It's not holding up your pants.

It's for decoration, right?

But the belt with the Roman soldiers was an absolutely essential piece of equipment.

It held everything else together.

So it's actually not surprising at all that the first piece of armor that we are to put

on in preparation for our battle with Satan is the belt of truth.

As we saw last week, Satan is a liar.

And his main weapon against us is deceit and schemes.

The truth is the primary weapon that we use to stand firm against his lies and deceit is

truth.

But without truth, everything else falls apart.

Everything else is almost useless.

The breastplate of the Roman soldier was typically made of bronze or iron backed with leather.

But some of the more affluent officers in the army wore a coat of chainmail.

The leather backing would attach to the belt to keep it in place.

That's why the belt was actually the first piece of armor the soldier would put on and

why we need to begin with our belt of truth.

Truth holds everything together.

The breastplate covered the soldier's vital organs, including his heart, including his

bowels and much the same way that many police officers wear a bulletproof vest to protect

those vital organs today.

The symbolism of the breastplate would have been very noteworthy to Paul's readers.

The first vital area it protected was the heart.

To Paul's readers, especially those who had a Jewish mindset, which many of them did,

understood that the heart represented their thoughts or what we would commonly refer to

as our mind.

The breastplate protected the bowels, which represented the seat of one's emotions.

We don't see that very well in many of our English translations, but both the Hebrew

and the Greek words for deep compassion literally means bowels.

Even today our emotions can give us a gut feel.

You know what I'm talking about?

Or we can have an ache in our stomach because of some set of emotions that we are feeling.

We need the breastplate of righteousness because those are the two areas where we are most

vulnerable in the attacks of Satan, our heart and our emotions.

That's what the breastplate protects.

Satan wants to cloud our minds and our thinking with false doctrine.

He wants to cloud our minds with lies and deceit.

He wants to manipulate our emotions and twist and pervert our affections.

So Paul makes it clear that the way we defend ourselves against those attacks is to make

sure that we have on the breastplate of righteousness at all times.

So let's take just a few minutes to understand how exactly we do that.

So the root word for righteousness is defined as straightness.

Now this idea in our culture has lost a lot of its meaning.

A few months ago I go to the lumber store to the lumber yard because I need to get some

2x4s for a project that was commissioned to me by my wife for our garage.

I needed 15 2x4s to complete the project.

Now for those of you that have been to a lumber yard, do you think I walked into the lumber

yard and grabbed the first 15 boards that I saw?

No.

I bet I went through 50 boards before I found enough to get the project done because most

of them were warped.

Most of them were not straight.

But here's the thing.

As I was going through the wood, I got my seventh one, maybe my eighth one that was straight,

but then I began to compromise because I got tired of moving wood around.

And so I would justify getting a crooked one because I could cut off the crooked part or

it was good enough.

For those of you that have bought wood, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

As I was collecting my wood, my standards began to drop because I was frustrated with

how much work it took to find the straight wood that I wanted.

Do we not do that as a society?

Our standards start to drop and we begin to accept things that are not righteous.

Our culture even distinguishes different things in this way.

I've been married to Sina for almost 18 years.

I thought that would get a round of applause for me, but whatever.

Probably more for Sina, yeah.

But I've been married to Sina for almost 18 years.

So because I'm not gay, I'm referred to as straight.

Now when they call me straight, are they talking about how righteous I am?

Probably not.

But in a way, biblically they are because that's how God intended for us to be.

When it comes to righteousness, the authoritative standard is God himself.

Therefore biblical righteousness means to live a life that conforms to the holy character

of God.

I came across this definition of righteousness that I ran across this week.

It says in short, the righteousness of God is all that God is.

All that he commands.

All that he demands.

All that he approves and all that he provides through the gospel of Jesus Christ, the perfectly

righteous one.

We have to protect our vital organs.

We have to protect our emotions.

We have to protect our minds as it's anchored to our truth.

Now when I was growing up, I had this thing for shoes.

I didn't have to pay for them, so why not?

Every time I got a new pair of basketball shoes, the only surface that those shoes were

allowed to touch was the court.

My older shoes that I used to use for basketball, I'd walk in from the parking lot or wherever

I was and then when I got to the basketball court, I would change my shoes and put on

my new basketball shoes.

Then those old shoes that I used to walk through the parking lot eventually got demoted to

like yard work.

Nowadays, there are specialized shoes for everything.

In my opinion, it's getting a little ridiculous.

I read about a guy that has golf shoes, which is understandable.

You got to have those certain spikes and things like that.

I read that he has this set of shoes that he only wears on the greens.

Now I don't know what kind of advantage that gives.

He'd wear one pair of shoes as it's going through the fairway and then it gets to the

green and changes his shoes for the greens.

I don't know what advantage that is.

Some of the golfers can help me out with that.

I can put just as badly with shoes as I can barefoot.

As Paul continues his description of the armor of God, it's not surprising that he now focuses

on the shoes.

These shoes are highly specialized shoes.

The Roman soldiers wore these heavy leather shoes called caligay.

These shoes were bound by thongs over the instep and around the ankles and the soles

were thickly studded with hob nails which provided a way to reinforce the shoes and provided

some traction so that they could be used as an enemy when you're trying to kick the enemy,

like when you're going to pull out your Chuck Norris kicks, they could use those things.

Those shoes were worn by the ordinary soldiers and they were so essential that those soldiers

came to be known as a caligate.

Germanicus, who you don't know, was the adopted son of the emperor Tiberius and one of Rome's

most beloved generals.

When he was among the soldiers, he began to put the caligate on his son and then his son

was appropriately named Little Boots.

So when the boy later became emperor, he was known not by his formal name but by his nickname

Caligula.

This is perhaps the most difficult of all the pieces to understand.

This is the only piece of armor that Paul describes in this passage where he doesn't

actually identify it directly.

We have the belt of truth, we have the breastplate of righteousness, we have the shield of faith,

the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit.

But if you look at verse 15 carefully, you'll find that Paul doesn't call them the shoes

of peace.

In fact, if we take this phrase literally, we are actually to sandal our feet with readiness

or preparation and not the shoes of readiness or the shoes of preparation.

I've heard this passage taught so many times, I'm sure you have as well.

But I want to potentially clear up some confusion on what the shoes of the gospel of peace are.

This is not a passage to use when you're trying to defend that we should be ready at all times

to share the gospel.

I mean that's true, we should be ready to share, but this is not what this passage is

talking about.

It's not what Paul is referring to here.

In this context, we find that Paul is writing in this section to believers who are engaged

in spiritual warfare with Satan and his demons.

There is absolutely nothing in this section to indicate that Paul is referring in any

way to sharing the gospel with unbelievers.

That certainly seems to be confirmed by the fact in the instruction to put on the armor

begins in verse 14 with the command to stand, which is also consistent with the three other

uses of that verb in verse 11 and 13.

As I've tried to make clear from the very beginning of our study on spiritual warfare,

our responsibility as believers is not to take new ground.

It is to stand firm and to hold the ground that Jesus has already taken.

The word translated readiness or preparedness, depending on what translation you have, is

a word that is used both in classical Greek and the Greek version of the Old Testament

to picture a firm foundation that would certainly be consistent with the main purpose of the

shoes of the Roman soldier, which was to provide him with a sure-footed foundation as he engaged

in battle so that he could stand his ground.

For the follower of Jesus, which is most of us in this room, that firm foundation is described

here by Paul as the gospel of peace.

Now I don't know about you, but my initial reaction when I was going through this passage

is the idea of peace here seems to be out of place when we're talking about war.

How can one be at peace but at war at the same time?

In order to answer that question, we need a proper understanding of what Paul means by

the gospel of peace.

When most of us think peace, we tend to view it as a dictionary definition of the absence

of war, the absence of conflict.

Therefore we have a hard time understanding how peace can be an essential piece of armor

in the spiritual battle that we are engaged in.

But the biblical concept of peace does not in any way contradict its use as spiritual

armor.

The concept of peace in both the Old and New Testaments is not merely the absence of external

trials or tribulations, but in Hebrew the word is shalom.

Shalom means completeness, means wholeness, it means to be at rest.

The Greek word also incorporates those same concepts.

It means to join together that which has been separated.

That's this idea of biblical peace.

In just a moment after we briefly look at the gospel, I want to come back and see how

the gospel of peace joins back together what has been separated in our lives.

But first we need to understand that we stand firm on the gospel and not for the gospel

in this context.

We stand on the gospel, meaning these preparedness is for us, it's not for us to go spread the

gospel in this passage.

The gospel is a Greek word that means good news.

I think most of us know that.

The Greeks as well as the Romans use that word to describe the proclamation of important

events like the victory over enemies.

When they got a new emperor they would send out the gospel.

When it was the emperor's birthday they would send out the gospel.

The New Testament writers appropriated that secular word and applied it to the best news

that anyone could ever hear.

That Jesus Christ has come to bring peace.

That's the gospel message as we know it.

That's why Paul encourages his readers to be ready for battle by making sure that they

have a firm foundation on the gospel of peace.

The gospel of peace is to operate in three different areas of our lives.

The first one being it brings us peace with God.

That's how this works as you saw earlier.

The idea of peace requires the joining together of what has been separated.

That's where this peace comes from.

At the beginning of Ephesians we were there last year of chapter 2.

Paul describes how we were separated from God at one time.

We were dead in our trespasses and sins.

We were his enemies.

We were subject to his wrath.

We had no peace with God.

Jesus is the peace that brought both of those things together with him.

Once again we find that putting on the armor is actually a matter of clothing ourselves

with Jesus.

In order to put on peace we put on the one who is peace, Jesus.

When we place our faith in him he restores our relationship with God and he gives us

peace with God.

This is why Colossians chapter 1 tells us that God was pleased to make his fullness

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

dwell in him so that he could reconcile all things to himself by making peace through

his blood shed on the cross.

The only way we could have peace with God is not by being a good person.

It's not by being religious.

It's because Jesus loved all of us enough to be the sacrifice for our sins.

And because of that we can have the peace of God.

I'm convinced that Satan loves to get us to worry about things that distracts us from

the battle and causes us to put down the armor and then we are vulnerable to attack.

So how do we deal with worry and appropriate the peace of God?

We pray.

We pray.

And what does Paul say that we should pray about?

Everything.

We pray about everything.

I found this to be a pretty good rule of thumb when it comes to applying this passage.

If something is significant enough for me to worry about then it's significant enough

for me to pray about it.

Worried about your health?

Pray about it.

Worried about your finances?

Pray about it.

Worried about your kids and the pressure they're going to face as they go to school?

Pray about it.

Like you get the idea.

If it's significant enough to take time out of my day to worry about, it's significant

enough for me to take time out of my day to ask God to do something about it.

I believe this is one of the greatest benefits of following Christ.

While your world is potentially crumbling down around you, there is this sense that everything

is going to be okay because we know the one that holds it all together.

That's the peace of God.

Jesus tells us not to be anxious.

But think about our culture right now.

How is Satan attacking us?

Anxiety is up at an all time high.

He tells us not to worry about tomorrow.

But how many of us are worried about our future or our children's future?

With God there is peace.

I think of it like a parent-child relationship.

I have very independent children, which is a good thing.

But it also comes with its own set of issues because they don't ask for help.

They just do things.

And there are times that they come to me, come to us, and they're overwhelmed.

They're stressed.

They're crying.

Life is really, really hard.

There are times that they come to us and we can just kind of talk them down and help

them see the big picture, help them kind of think through things logically.

But there are other times that I have to take it a step further and I need to step in.

And so I'll tell them at times, hey, I'll handle that for you.

I'll take care of that for you.

I will allow them to go to bed or relax and I will go handle whatever it is that's bothering

them.

Sometimes it's easy.

I just need to run to the store and get something else.

Sometimes I just need to fix something.

Sometimes I need to have a conversation with somebody.

I don't fix all their issues, but when it becomes overwhelming, I want them to say, hey,

my dad's going to handle that.

When they understand that they have a problem and they understand that their problem is

now my problem, there is peace because they know that I have the abilities to take care

of the problem that they don't.

I can handle it for them.

They trust that it will be fixed.

We need to live with that mindset, that our God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things

has far more abilities than we do.

He can handle anything.

He is already in tomorrow and we need to be reminded that He's going to handle any issues

that come up because the enemy wants us stressed out.

He wants us worried.

He wants us paralyzed by situations, but the gospel of peace is a reminder that we can

be at rest because God is in control.

Finally, we can have peace with others.

The gospel of peace gives us peace with others.

The church is an amazing place because you have all these different personalities in

this room.

We have all these different interests, but somehow we can all get along together and

we can all enjoy one another.

What is funny about me living here now is that I used to work at a John Deere dealership

in Texas.

I was around a lot of farmers and I was around a lot of mechanics that worked on their tractors.

I'm not exaggerating every single day.

I would hear one of them complaining about the engineers that came up with how these

things work because it made no sense to them.

Here I am living in John Deere country with all you've engineers that create all these

things.

I'm sure that there is a constant battle between those who design things to work and those

that actually have to work on these things when they're broken.

But somehow when the gospel of peace does is it allows people who are very different

to come together because it's the shed blood of Jesus that unites us all.

We have school administrators and teachers worshiping together in this place.

We have engineers and mechanics worshiping together in this place.

We have really, really thoughtful people and those that can't remember what day it is worshiping

together in this place.

We have those that don't say two words out loud because there's others who will speak

enough for everybody.

Being together in this place.

That's the beauty of the church.

And it's all possible because of the gospel of peace.

You and I, I can't say it enough, right?

You and I are in a constant, constant, constant spiritual battle.

And if we are anchored to the world and not to truth, we're more susceptible to attack.

When we're not walking in righteousness, the way God designed us to be, our emotions can

get the best of us, right?

That's why the Bible is pretty clear that the heart is deceptive.

Our emotions will lie to us when we're not anchored to truth, when we're not protecting

our mind, when we're not protecting our emotions, those things can get out of whack real quickly,

can't they?

And when we're not standing firm on the gospel.

Not for everybody else, but for us.

I don't know about you, but I have to preach the gospel to myself constantly.

I have to remind myself that God gives me peace.

He gives me peace with him.

He gives me peace with others.

He gives me just this overwhelming sense of peace so many times, but tomorrow I'm probably

going to forget it and I have to be reminded.

When life gets overwhelming, I have to remind myself the gospel, the gospel, the gospel.

So I don't know how you walked in here this morning.

I don't know where your anxiety levels are this morning.

I don't know where your finances are this morning, where your health is this morning.

Maybe you have a wayward child.

Maybe I don't know.

But I want you to hear God say, I'll handle that for you.

I'll handle that for you.

Because his abilities far outweigh our own abilities and he will bring you peace.

So I'm going to pray for us.

We'll wrap this shindig up.

But just be aware.

Be aware.

You're going to be tempted to believe this room and sometime later today, you're going

to be tempted to believe a lie.

You're going to be tempted to react to some situation because somebody has offended you.

You're going to be tempted to spend the rest of the afternoon or this next week just worrying

about whatever situation that you are dealing with right now.

And just remember that's how the enemy is going to attack you.

He's going to constantly lie to you.

He's going to constantly deceive you.

And so let's clothe ourselves with Jesus because he is the truth.

He is the definition of righteousness.

He is the one that brings peace.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray.

I pray that as we just kind of prepare our minds and hearts to finish out this day, that

you will protect us.

You will protect us from the flaming arrows that are being thrown at us.

You will protect our minds.

You will protect our hearts, that you will protect every aspect of our spiritual walk

with you.

God, I pray for the news of the gospel, the truth of the gospel to pierce our hearts

each and every day.

I pray for salvation to come to this place.

For anyone that is trying to do it on their own, God, I pray that you will whisper to

them that you will handle it, that you can handle it.

Help us see you as a loving father that cares for us.

So God, we're not taking ground here.

We're just standing firm on your truth.

God, as we worship, I pray that you will speak that truth to our hearts, that we will be

able to stand firm on your gospel.

That's in your name, you pray.

Amen.

I believe one of the best ways, I've just said it a few minutes ago, one of the best

ways that we can fight against the enemy is to pray about it, is to ask God to help us.

So I'm going to invite our prayer team to be available.

I'm going to invite our elders, if there's any in the room, to just kind of be available.

If we can pray for you, if we can join in the battle with you, then I highly encourage

you to come and receive that ministry this morning.

Amen.

I'll be right down here if I can do anything for you.

Amen.

That's all you matter.

The inside is filled with you.

I might die, but the heart is filled with you.

That's in your name.

Amen.

Lord bless you and keep you

Make his face shine upon him, the great gracious

The Lord turned his face toward you

And did you face

Amen, amen, amen

Lord bless you and keep you

Make his face shine upon him, the great gracious

The Lord turned his face toward you

And did you face

Amen, amen, amen

Amen, amen, amen

Amen, amen, amen

Lord bless you and keep you

family and your children and their children and their children.

May His presence hold you for you and behind you and beside you all around you.

And within you, He's with you, He's with you in the morning,

In the evening, He's coming, He's growing, He's sweeping, He's rejoicing.

He is for you, He is for you, He is for you, He is for you.