Stand Your Ground - Series: STAND AGAINST - Ephesians 6

If you wait to prepare for the battle, when the battle starts, you're gonna be in a world of hurt.

And the reality is, you didn't need a preacher to tell you that.

If you wait until the battle is right in front of you, you've run out of time to get ready.

You've run out of time to prepare.

Rightly stated, you don't prepare for battle when the battle begins.

By then, it is already too late.

If you've ever sat outside and watched a storm roll in, you know what I mean.

Especially in tornado season when it comes in.

Nobody waits until the tornado sirens go off to start wondering where there's a safe place to go.

Nobody waits until the power is out to go run and to grab our batteries.

Nobody waits until the fire starts to figure out where the fire extinguisher or the fire prevention blanket is.

All of that needs to happen before the moment of crisis.

Alright, here's a question for you.

Do we have any nobodies in the room?

I said nobody does these things.

In reality, we do those things way too often.

We see trouble, we see difficulty, we see something coming towards us, and we just wait.

That's the worst that could happen.

The reality is that you and I should prepare before a crisis.

We should prepare before a storm.

But too often we're watching the storm roll in and we're going, I wonder what's gonna happen.

When the power goes out, and then we're looking for things, and even wondering if we have a flashlight and why we left corroded batteries in the flashlight, or I wish we would have charged this so that we could have turned it on in the middle of the storm.

When a fire does start in your house, you have no idea how to put that out or what to do, you start asking ChatGPT how to put out a fire in your kitchen and your internet's down, and it doesn't respond as fastly as you wish that it would.

This sort of waiting for the crisis, for the trouble, for the difficulty to come is at the heart of everything that Paul is talking about as he wraps up Ephesians in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

This is a study we started last week, and we're gonna continue on today and for the next six sermons, talking about spiritual warfare, how we are to be ready for all of the things that are gonna come at us in this life.

Our main text is Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 through 21.

Ephesians 6:10–21

It's those 11 verses that we're gonna cover through our series.

We read all of them last week, but focused on 10, 11, and 12.

And today we only have one verse.

That means short sermon, right?

That's not how preachers work, but right.

But let us focus very carefully on Ephesians chapter 6, verse 13, for our message today.

Ephesians 6:13

Last week we talked about how we're gonna stand strong in the Lord.

Paul begins everything as he talks about spiritual warfare and the defense mechanism that God gives us and the protection that he provides to us.

Paul tells us what to do with what God provides.

Verse 13 reads this way: it says, Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day, and having done all to stand firm.

In this one verse alone, there's at least three different movements or big ideas that all fit together.

God provides, the evil day comes, and then we stand.

Very simply put, what we're to do with this text is to stand firm in God's provision, not in our provision, not in somebody else's.

We're to stand firm in God's provision.

Paul tells us to take up the whole armor of God.

Notice whose armor it is and where it comes from.

It is the armor of God.

It is his, he has built it, he has provided it, he has sustained it.

He is the one who has made it available to you and to me.

It is God's armor, and that is where its strength comes from.

This isn't something that we need to invent to protect ourselves.

It's not something that you create through personal discipline or toughness.

It is the armor of God, and because it came from God, it is enough.

It is more than sufficient, it is adequate for the task.

It goes above and beyond doing everything that God designed it to do.

This matters for us because as we're fighting evil forces all around us that we can't see.

Last week we were reminded, or maybe you heard for the first time, that we don't battle against other people, against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the kings, the authorities, the evil forces at present in this world.

And that is our enemy.

That is our opposition, that is who we are striking against.

That is who we need to make sure we are ready to protect ourselves with the armor of God.

And it's not just what we put on this armor of God.

Paul's telling us to receive what God has already provided.

The when matters too.

As they say, you know, timing is everything.

When you do something sometimes matters just as much as what you do.

Paul doesn't say when the evil day comes, then realize you're in trouble and start looking for reinforcements.

But we have all done that before, am I right?

We have waited until we were already in trouble, whether that trouble was our fault or forces outside of us that were not in our control, and we wait until we're in trouble, and then we panic, and then we ask for help, or then we go to the scriptures, or then we stop doing dumb things and say, God, I'm sorry, I wish I didn't live that way.

Paul says, take up the whole armor of God so that you may be able to withstand the evil of that day.

You see, the provision that comes from God shows up before the pressure ever, before we ever feel the pressure.

God's provision for us to be successful in this battle against the spiritual forces of evil is there before we ever realize we're under attack, before we ever feel the pressure.

The preparation should come before the moment that you need it.

And God gives us that to us before the battle arrives.

To say it another way, God provides what we need before we know we need it.

Have you ever been there?

Sometimes God provides what we need before we even know what to ask for, before we even knew it existed.

God was already working for your good and for my good and for the good of all people who love him, even when our minds don't know what we need or our hearts rebel against God and we're not doing what we should.

God is doing everything within his power to get us ready, to be successful against the enemy that is before us, because we don't always know what tomorrow is going to bring.

Do I have any planners in the room?

Anybody have your calendar and your schedule planned out and everything synced out, and you know, when you're going and where you're gonna be and how you're gonna get there.

That's great, and I like to plan too.

And we look at our calendar, my wife, Jessie, and I look at it and we figure out what's going on, and are we double or triple booked somewhere and we try not to do that?

What are we where are we responsible to be?

What are we committed to do?

How are we going to keep those commitments?

And then we come up with a plan to conquer and to do that, and to remember that everyone wants to eat dinner every night too, which is frustrating, right?

People want to eat, and I'm people too, and I want to eat.

But the reality is, as good as we plan, and some of us are fantastic planners, some of you are fantastic planners, we don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow.

There was so much outside of your control.

There was so much outside of my control.

In fact, the things that I can control are very small.

Because my power is very small.

My knowledge, my wisdom, my foresight is very small.

Sure, if things happen normally, we can predict what might happen.

And having a good plan is much better than not having a plan, but we rarely know what tomorrow will bring.

We don't know when tomorrow comes, when that temptation that we thought we had dealt with is gonna hit us even harder, or when that discouragement is or discontent is gonna settle in, or when that wave of grief is going to overcome us or and paralyze us, or when doubt creeps back into our minds, or when a relationship will fracture, or when that moment of spiritual pressure will come at us from an angle and from a person perhaps that we didn't expect it to come from.

But do you know who is never surprised by any of those unknowns in this life?

God.

He is never taken off guard, he is never surprised, he doesn't wait until we're in crisis to decide that we need his help.

He has done anything and everything for us, and he has already provided.

That is why Paul tells the believers in the city of Ephesus, which is the audience along with us of this Bible book and the book of Ephesians, to take up the whole armor of God.

Not a part of it, not your favorite piece, not you just determine what your blind spot is, and you put on that armor from God, and you can do without the rest of it because you'll be fine in your own strength.

What's a nice way I can describe that way of thinking?

Anybody have any ideas?

Like that.

Like that's just not wise.

That's foolish to go, I well, I've got this part under control.

I only need God in this area.

Or this part.

Or maybe the place where I maybe have a weakness, but I think I have it okay.

And that is why we will slow down in our pace going through Ephesians 6.

That is why our main verse for today is just that one verse within the context of this passage that helps us to know how we're to live when the days are evil.

When it seems like everything before us is going wrong and spinning out of our control because it is.

We recognize our source, our truth, our power, our foundation comes from one who's not surprised or taken back or overwhelmed by any of it.

That is why we're to take on this whole armor of God so we can look at these things piece by piece in the weeks ahead.

We can talk about truth and righteousness and the readiness of the gospel that moves our feet to action and faith and salvation and the word of God and prayer.

But before we spend time on any of them individually and in detail, Paul wants to make sure that we understand the bigger picture that God has already made provision for the battle.

Our God, the mighty, almighty creator God who spoke, and everything came into existence, has prepared us for the battle before we're ever on the battlefield.

God has made the provision for us.

So the question is not, will God give me what I need?

The question for you and I becomes, will I take up what God has already freely offered to me?

Because in any relationship, there's always three parts.

Three.

There's always three.

There's my part, there's my brother Luke's part.

Right?

But then in that relationship, because we are both believers, there's my part, there's my brother Luke's part, and then there's God's part in that relationship.

In my relationship with my wife Jesse, there is my part, there is Jesse's part, and there is God's part.

And any of our relationships together, there are three working components in there, and God is always going to do his part.

God is always going to be ready.

God is always going to do what he has said.

I don't need to be God.

Just like I can't be my brother Luke or I can't be my wife Jesse.

I just need to be me, and I need to be responsible for my part, what God has given me.

What Paul is telling us is that God has done and will continue to do his part.

He has made the provisions available for us, and are we willing to accept those, to take up the things that God has given us?

Paul says, we're to take up this armor so that we may be able to withstand the evil day.

The evil day.

That phrase in and of itself can sound kind of mysterious.

What is that evil day?

Is Paul talking about one specific day?

Is he just pointing everything towards one thing?

Or is there some big end times event?

Or like, what is Paul talking?

What is the evil day?

Like we can read and there's grammar there, and it says, the evil day, that sounds like one thing.

What is Paul talking about here?

Well, I do think that there is this an ultimate sense in Scripture, and there is that evil has an end, and there is a final judgment and the end of the conflict that is coming.

I don't think that's the main point that Paul is making here, that he says that you can stand firm in the evil day.

One of the reasons that I say that is if we go back just a little bit in Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 and 16, it reads this way: when he's talking about how we're to walk in love with one another and how we're to live with other believers and how we're to live with non-believers, Paul says this in Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 and 16.

Ephesians 5:15 Ephesians 5:15

He says, look carefully then how you walk, not as to the unwise, but as the wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil.

The days that go before us have this opportunity, it has this propensity, it has this longing for evil, for destruction, for scheming, for trying to go against God's plan.

It always seems as long as there is breath in our lungs that we have the opportunity, evil can be right before us.

And we have to choose what we're gonna do with our actions, with the things that we say, with the things that we do, with the thoughts that we allow to enter our brain, and that they we then believe to be true.

There's no shortage of evil that is around us, and that is why God has provided this provision in the armor of God for us.

Paul isn't speaking to Christians as though evil only belongs in the distant future.

He says the days that you're living in are already evil.

And that's why when he says here on that evil day in verse 6, talking about spiritual warfare, or in chapter 6, he's talking about those moments when evil is all around us and the battle is raging, and that evil day of temptation hits harder than we expected, or more so than we anticipated, or we weren't quite ready, or as ready as we thought that we were.

It may be one day that compromise suddenly looks easier than obedience.

It may be the day that fear takes over your thinking and it paralyzes you, and you can't act or even move.

It may be the day that you're exhausted, discouraged, and spiritually dry, and the enemy knows then to press that button of doubt, fear, and anxiety.

It may not look dramatic to anybody else, but you know.

You know when the pressure rises, you know when it gets harder to stand.

What Paul is telling us, what God is teaching us, is that we're to be ready before that awful day comes, before that hardest moment arrives.

And I think one of the tactical mistakes that we make in this battle of spiritual warfare is that we wait too long to rely on the provision that God has already given us.

If the roof in your house is leaking from a storm, you can certainly go up there and take some emergency measures to keep water maybe from coming in, but you're never going to be able to repair it while it's downpouring.

The only way that you're going to be able to fix it and make it structurally sound so that it doesn't leak again.

Barring catastrophe is you have to wait until it's dry and then you have to fix it correctly and properly, and you have to know how it works and what caused the problem.

If we wait until the problem is already right here, it is exceedingly difficult for us to build strength there.

We become very interested in preparation after the battle starts.

We start to pray harder or more diligently or regularly when we feel like there's no other option and everything has fallen apart.

We open our Bible and we read God's Word when temptation already has gotten a foothold in us.

We reach out to community after we've already been isolated for months and cause lots of damage to ourselves and our relationships.

We wait and ask for help when we're already exhausted, and in that moment we feel like it is too late because we have no energy or power or might left.

Why do we wait so long?

Before admitting what everybody knows to be true.

We do not have the power to stand on our own.

We cannot fix this by ourselves.

The only thing that we can do really well by ourselves is mess it up.

We excel at that.

Paul's command isn't wait until the evil day comes and then panic.

It's take up the whole armor of God now.

Don't wait.

Take up the whole armor of God right now.

Why?

Because the days are evil.

The days that you face, the moments that you face, the spiritual forces of evil with Satan and his army all around us are evil and they're actively coming after us.

And we are not to wait.

We're to take up the whole armor of God now.

Prepare now.

Stay close to Jesus now.

Live in truth now.

Practice righteousness now.

Know the gospel now.

Build your faith now.

Remember your salvation now.

Know the word now.

Pray now.

Not later.

You can pray then too.

You can always pray in the moment.

You can pray when a future event comes, but you can never go in the back and prepare again.

The day will come when you discover whether or not you prepared before it was time to stand in the battle of the forces of evil.

And you will know if you did what you were supposed to do.

And too often what happens is everybody around you will also know if you were seeking the Lord, if you are putting on the full armor of God, or if you're just giving it lip service, just pretending because it was the polite thing to do.

Paul uses two forms of the same basic idea in this verse.

He says that you might be able to withstand the evil day, and having done all to stand firm.

This picture is not a passive idea, but it is an active one that we participate in with God.

To withstand means there is pressure coming against you.

Something is pushing, something is opposing, something wants to move you and change you, and then you resist it.

And Paul says, after you have done that, you stand firm.

That is why Paul also said in his letter to the Christians in the city of Rome in Romans 12, he says, Don't be conformed to the world around you, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The world around us is actively trying to change us.

And what is actively trying to change you are the spiritual forces of evil that are all around us that hate God and hate your family.

And God has called for us to be ready.

And after all of the things, to stand firm.

The attack comes and we stand firm.

Not because of our power, but because of God's power.

Not because of our defense, but because of God's defense, God's armor that we have put on, that He has allowed us access to have.

My goodness, why wouldn't we use it?

Putting on the armor of God doesn't mean that we're never tired.

It doesn't mean that the battle didn't hurt.

It doesn't mean that you were never afraid.

It doesn't mean that you were never struggled.

It doesn't mean that the pressure didn't maybe shift you some, but it does mean that you, by God's power, are still standing in that fight.

In that spiritual victory more than we realize.

We tend to think that spiritual victory in our life, it looks dramatic, some huge breakthrough, some major moment that everybody else can see.

And those happen and those will happen.

And we do need to celebrate those, but we can also celebrate the little moments, the smaller private ones that other people don't see.

Sometimes a victory looks like this.

You still believe.

And you still pray.

And you still see God.

And you still want to know him better.

And you still want to be surrounded by his people.

You still refuse the temptation.

And you still trust God even when things don't work out how you wish that they would, and it seems like he is distant and doesn't care.

But you still choose to trust and to follow him.

And when you're still standing, that is not a small accomplishment.

That is everything.

And that is what Paul is talking about here.

The key is where you are standing and why you are standing, not by your own strength, not by your own power, not by your own confidence, not by your own ingenuity, but you're standing firm in God's provision.

Stand firm in God's provision.

When the evil day comes, what are you standing in?

Your experience, your personality, your charisma, your intelligence, your ability to solve problems, your emotional toughness, your past success.

Those things might help in ordinary life, but we are not fighting an ordinary enemy.

We are fighting a spiritual enemy.

Paul doesn't say, stand firm because you're strong, I believe in you, you can do it.

He says, take up the whole armor of God.

That means our confidence comes from the God who supplies, not what we can produce.

And the good news is that sooner or later all of us find the end of our own strength.

And sometimes it comes a lot faster than we think that it would.

We hit the moment where our experience is not enough, where our willpower is not enough, where our personality is not enough, where we can't talk ourselves out of fear, and we can't simply just try harder.

Impulse says, You don't have to.

Because God has already provided you what you need to stand.

And not just to stand, but to stand firm.

That doesn't make us passive.

We still have to take it up.

We have a part to play.

God's going to do his part.

We need to do ours.

Paul gives a command: take up the armor, use what God gives, live in what God provides.

Don't confuse participation with God with self-sufficiency.

We are not the one that are providing the good things.

It is God that supplies.

We stand in what He supplies, and that is the rhythm of spiritual health.

Standing on the promises and the provisions of God.

And this very simple phrase in one verse, and I've already said it a couple times, but I want to highlight a part of it.

It says, take up the whole armor of God.

The whole armor, every part of it, not just the parts that you think that you need, but every part.

Because spiritual warfare is not one-dimensional.

The enemy lies and is the father of lies and deceit, so we need truth.

Sin is going to continually attack your lives and your relationships, and that is why we desperately need righteousness that comes from God.

Fear and instability seem right around the corner.

So we need the readiness of the gospel of peace to move our feet, to stand on the firm foundation of Jesus.

Doubt comes and we need faith.

Accusation comes and we need the assurance of our salvation and who we are in Christ Jesus.

Deception comes, and that's why we need the Word of God, the truth that stands and doesn't change.

God doesn't flip-flop, He doesn't change his mind, and through it all we pray, and God's provision becomes more complete, at least from our perspective.

And that is where we go in our study and in the weeks ahead.

But we have this reminder again to trust in the one who provided it to us and to take it up and to take up the whole armor, every piece of it.

You don't need to know what kind of day is coming tomorrow in order to be prepared to live today.

The Bible has already told us the days are evil, lurks right around the corner.

Sin is just waiting to pounce, either in your life or in the life of somebody close to you that's going to directly impact you.

But God already knows.

And God has already provided.

So take up what He has given, this whole armor of God.

Live in it, practice it, know it, use it.

There will come days where standing is hard.

There will come days where standing seems impossible, when the pressure comes, and there will be days where evil feels more present and alive and powerful than normal.

And when that day comes, it is Paul's goal for his Christians in the city of Ephesus.

It is God's plan for us to be ready to stand firm in God's provision and to keep standing.

You could have come up with that if you had read Ephesians 6.13 this week.

God's word teaches us and it sharpens us.

And He wants us to know it.

He wants us to know what is right and true and noble and good and trustworthy and excellent and to think about those things.

Don't wait for the battle to begin.

Don't wait for the crisis.

Don't wait for the temptation.

Don't wait for the evil day because we are already in them.

And God wants to sustain us with what He has provided.

Take up what God has already provided.

And when the pressure comes, stand.

Stand firm in God's vision.

Let's pray.

God, thank you for your word.

Thank you for teaching us and for showing us your way.

God, as we come together, when we become familiar in regular routine with coming to church, we we feel like we know what to expect.

But God, I ask that we don't sell you short.

May we not think that we already know the answer.

May we not pretend that we know exactly what you're doing, God, that may we be open to the way that you are moving, the way that you are working, the way that you are invested in our lives, getting us ready for this battle that is raging around us.

Father, may we take your truth from Ephesians 6 and live differently, standing in the power of your love.

God, may we put on this whole armor so that we are ready to fight the battle, knowing that you will sustain us through it.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.