Ephesians ch. 6

All right, I think we're recording.

And this is episode seven.

Episode seven.

On Ephesians chapter six, the final episode of our Ephesians podcast.

And I think most folks are wrapped up with their studies at this point.

So they already know any of what we could possibly talk about.

Yeah.

It's just review.

This is just redundancy.

It's an unnecessary redundancy.

It's for fun.

Doge would remove this.

Yeah.

Thanks for going on.

Our church.

Yeah.

But they have nothing to do with our church.

So here we are.

So that's the best reason I've heard.

Yeah.

So Ephesians chapter 6, one of the uh most famous passages, the Armor of God passage.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

It's beautiful.

And we finish out the household code with instructions to parents and children and bondservants and masters.

Okay.

So maybe we should take them in those two sections of parents and children, bondservants and masters is kind of first section, wrap up the household code.

And then we'll jump into the armor of God.

Okay.

The war.

The war.

Principalities collapse.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so as I guess with that, what what culturalized are we tending to believe around these relationships?

It's obviously a continuation of the husband and the wife and the in the whole house.

Yeah.

Affecting parenting, affecting work.

But what are those things that culture has just taught us or we've learned secondhand from being in it and haven't really thought about?

Yeah, I think there's a uh there's a there's a couple of things.

You know, the sense of family in our culture is this is talking about a particular expression of family, um, like parents and children, and it's ordered.

Yeah.

And our culture's tendency is to flatten everything and make and read everything through an egalitarian lens.

And wherever there is distinction, uh try to eliminate it.

And so we try to eliminate any sort of hierarchy, which is unfortunate because that's the way that the world is ordered, and so we end up in an absurd chaos.

So the distinction between children and parents are uh patterns of delegated authority that are built into the most fundamental, undeniable aspect of your humanity because you came from parents.

And that's the only place anyone has ever come from.

Right.

And uh that our culture has sort of like a fundamental denial of that.

We do a lot of our political reasoning from sort of like a brave new world concept.

Like at the beginning of that book, it's in this, it starts off in this human factory.

Okay.

And uh these babies are being grown in pods.

Yeah.

And then they're uh sort of like tended to by the factory until they become uh mature, which is like accelerated, um, to take their useful point and then they become these autonomous sort of things.

Okay.

Uh we sort of think of humans, we sort of do our political reasoning like that.

Like nobody comes from anywhere.

Sure.

You're just up here fully formed from the factory.

Um but you that's not true.

You come from parents who have a real authority over you.

And uh, if you're a parent, you have real authority over your children.

And the way that you interact with those relationships uh is either going to lead to long life uh or to death.

Um and it that so it really strikes against just like the um choose your own adventure egalitarian frame where you're all just kind of these blank slates that arrive and uh then you uh create whatever world you want to be in.

Yeah.

Seems like maybe there's also the the the blank blank slate, but also even if you would recognize that you have a starting point, a family of origin, if you want to call it that, yeah, um people are still trying to create a blank slate, and they're trying to run from that household and that authority and cast it off and get rid of all the things that associate them with that particular household and and those experiences.

Yeah, I think that's so true.

And it it's it, you know, you can see it happen at like every level of society.

So it happens at the interpersonal level where you're being coached to um set healthy boundaries with your parents who you disagree with or whatever.

And it's like, okay, but you know, you have to add exceptions to everything you say.

So of course, all the reasonable exceptions admitted, of which they're of which the that cat the category of reasonable exceptions exists.

So now that we've said that, um there's boundaries.

We'll we'll use language like, okay, we're going to set boundaries, and it's like a cutting off from our past.

Um and practices of dishonoring our mother and father.

You also see it in uh at like a macrocultural level, you know, with a uh uh, you know, like it like tearing down statues, um like what what you do on Columbus Day is say like Columbus was bad.

Yeah.

You know, um those that that sort of pattern um is the same sort of thing.

But you you uh it's in uh reformed Christian circles.

So like the re the way that reformed Christians do this is uh those boomer conservatives, they don't understand how bad the uh compromises that the church has made over the past century.

We do the younger generation, yeah.

And so don't listen to any of your immediate fathers.

Um in fact, in order to signal to the tribe that you're in, you need to find some of the immediate fathers and you need to curse them.

Separate yourself, separate yourself from them.

Um and it's like okay, so we're even under a religious guise, uh, we're really just practicing dishonoring our fathers.

Yeah.

What are your thoughts on I've been thinking about this, even just in terms of a practical level as it relates to nursing homes.

Uh-huh.

And it's like, you know, when our parents get old, we just kind of ship them off and put them someplace and forget about them, maybe forget, you know, visit them once or twice.

Yeah.

But it's it's like that's the expected next stage of life, it seems like.

Yeah.

Once you get to a certain point.

It is.

I mean it there are Again, there's exceptions.

Yeah, exactly.

Of course.

Like there's there's um uh like necessary expertise and presence of care that cannot be ordinarily offered by us civilians.

And praise God that there's some institutional support for those circumstances.

And I think that our uh I think that like uh egalitarianism always creates fragmentation because the mechanism of unity is hierarchy.

And so when you eliminate the mechanism of unity, you atomize um because people are not able to get together in a way that organizes their binding.

Um and so they they atomize apart into, and that's just like another expression of how we atomize across distinctions rather than organize them in such a way where within these distinctions, by participating within them hierarchically, we would be able to maintain that sort of unity.

Yeah.

With that sort of expectation.

So uh, you know, it's like, well, I actually have an obligation to honor my parents here.

That's what I mean by participating in it hierarchically.

Right.

They're above me and deserve this sort of honor.

My life can be laid down for them.

Right.

Um, and uh I think that uh, you know, I it's not necessary to make a blanket statement, nursing home good and nursing home bad.

Sure.

But there is a uh I think that it is a reflection of our uh just this sort of uh denial of all hierarchy that causes atomization of at all at all at all levels.

Yeah.

So it distinctions of age, we atomize.

Yeah.

Um well and in honoring, and you'd you'd think in some sense, when if you're gonna honor someone else, you you have to take on their burdens in an aspect of it.

And you know, that's just uh to me, I I've been thinking about it a lot lately, just um you know, my parents are getting older, my grandparents passed away within a year, it was about a year ago.

Oh but um one of my grandmothers was in a nursing home, and you just go and it's just so sad.

You know, it's just horrible.

It's just a uh I don't know, in a dark place in a in a different kind of way.

Yeah.

Um but yeah, it's almost like with the honoring, we don't we we only want to honor ourselves, so we only carry the burdens that we want to carry.

Yeah.

Um rather than doing duty in some sense or seeing the burdens of other people and helping carry those alongside, whether that's your parents or whether that's even someone older than you uh at work or your boss or whatever it may be.

Um but it yeah, it seems like we just it's like that extension of we don't want to carry other people's burdens.

Yeah.

It makes sense, it makes sense to me.

There's a sense in which it makes sense to me while our our culture is developed this way.

You know, like we've um uh I think that we we uh I'm sure there's a million ways to say this.

So what one way to say it is um we've uh it we've in a sense I'm self-editing because I realize what I'm about to say, it just sounds like Nietzsche.

But we've in a sense like idolized weakness, and it's made us all uh prone to manipulation.

Okay.

And so we've experienced lots of relationships where we've we realize, oh, I've just been manipulated this whole time.

And that, but it was kind of couched in a virtue of like service or honoring or something like that.

Sure.

It's become like a mechanism for our being manipulated.

Well, I don't want to do that, that doesn't feel like real service.

Yeah.

And so we've kind of swung and said, like, okay, I don't want to be manipulated anymore.

That I felt like I lost myself, and if I have no self to give, then I'm not really laying myself down.

Sure.

You know, I'm just being taken advantage of for the cause of immediate peace or something.

Yeah.

And so we've re-taught a virtue of courage for the means of self-preservation.

And that's it, there's an that's important.

That's a really important virtue.

But it has to be married with it.

Only works if it's coupled sort of paradoxically, with self-sacrifice.

Like you we have to be like Jesus, which is we have to have the sense of nobody can take my life from me.

That's good.

Yeah.

It's good if nobody can take your life from you.

Because that means you're taking responsibility for your life.

You consider it as something that is precious, not your own, given to you from the Lord.

Nobody can take my life from me.

But it's not good if it's not married with I lay it down freely.

Um to honor the things that God has called me to honor.

Yeah.

Then it now we're cooking.

Now we're like Jesus, you know, and um you can see how our culture would express both of those virtues when Jesus is out of it.

Because Jesus is the only thing that can hold together a paradox like that.

Um and so when there's not Jesus, you're either like being emotionally manipulated by the world like crazy and thinking it's compassionate, and then you look around and it's like, what the heck do I think?

You know?

Sure.

Or you uh become so self-protective in order to have some sort of sense of self, yeah, that you've become a tyrant in any relationship that you're a part of.

Yeah.

And you're so aware of your demands that every relationship is becomes like this Machiavellian thing where you're just learning tools and tactics to get people to conform to your will.

And that's not that's no way to live.

That's not a relationship with anybody.

Um, but having a self that comes from the Lord that you wouldn't compromise for anything.

You'd rather die uh than compromise because it's not yours, you know, it's from the Lord.

It's a um a gift from the Lord that you're responsible for, like a talent that he's given to you.

Yeah.

Uh, but then being able to lay it down freely for him.

That's how we want to be.

Yeah.

What are your what are your thoughts on the fact like when we look at what we're talking about now is like you know, children trying to get away from or trying to do away and throw off what's gone before.

Yeah.

Um, I mean, you could easily do that with slaves and masters.

Um what are your thoughts on the fact that like the the the Ephesians obviously would be new Christians or relatively new Christians, so they're coming from an uh a worldly way of life into um a new way of life.

And what Paul is telling them is essentially just because you're Christian now doesn't mean that you can cast off your father, or you can um cast off this master-slave relationship because um it's you think that it's bad, or it doesn't, it doesn't uh fall in line with your interpretation of the gospel.

Um but what it actually does is it it speaks to the people in those social situations and social strong constructs, doesn't abolish them, speaks to them, and then tells them how to look at them differently and how to live their life as a Christian in light of the circumstances in which they find them.

You know, they would probably they they their culture w wouldn't have the tendency towards the atomization and the radical egalitarianism that our culture has.

Their culture would have a tendency towards tyranny and a radical stratification so that they're the uh different stations of the hierarchy are incommiserable to each other.

They can't be understood across those verticals or up and down those verticals.

I don't know.

I'm not a I don't live in corporate America, I don't really know what vertical means.

Public school education.

Yeah.

They and so for them there's this like, okay, does this mean I have this new family in Christ?

Does this mean that it deconstructs and frees me from all of the obligations that I have toward my natural family?

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.

Especially if they're not believers.

Especially if they're not believers.

Yeah, for sure.

Which they, you know, these are first generation Christians.

It likely weren't.

Right.

And so uh the answer is it doesn't, strangely.

There's a uh the uh a way to think of it is like the true pattern of the family is the church.

That's the that's the true, the most true expression of the family.

And that's because it's it's like the original expression of the family in Adam before the fall.

Yeah.

Where our head is Adam, he's with God, holds the covenant on our behalf, we receive the benefits of that as his offspring, and we're all united in him as one.

Yeah.

And that makes us brothers and sisters, and we're brothers and sisters in God.

Um, well, Jesus is the new Adam means that we are the truest expression of our family is in the church.

And so that means that folks with who are estranged from their families, from their earthly families, are not missing, but are part of the church, are not missing out on the truest expression of family.

Folks who aren't married or don't have children are not missing out on the truest expression of family.

They're they're it by being a part of the church, they're actually brought in, and it's why we see in Isaiah barren women are singing about their offspring.

That's weird.

It's weird.

Eunuchs are fruitful vines.

No, they're not.

But yeah, they are in the church.

Yeah.

Because it's a spiritual offspring.

And the spirit, we often hear spirit, which we'll get to later in this same section.

We hear spirit, and we think less real.

Yeah.

We should think the opposite.

We should think more real, closer to the source, source of reality.

Umothy his son.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And there's no uh it is uh absolutely real and sweetly sentimental.

Yeah.

It's both.

Yeah, it's like maybe that old grandpa thing, oh sonny type of thing, but also like, no, you're actually my son.

Exactly.

It's it's it's sweet and real.

Yeah.

And so for that culture, this is the revelation where that there is um space within the normative structures for because of what Christ has done for those who, in an earthly sense, do not fit those normative structures.

What our culture, our culture has really grasped the desire to make space for those who don't fit the normative structures to fit.

And we want to make sure that those folks who are marginalized by the normative structures have a place to fit.

And so the way that our culture has sought to solve that problem is by eliminating normative structures.

Um but that's uh it that creates the atomization and the chaos.

Yeah.

You know.

And so uh the the Christian story, you you have to see that there is a there is a norm, which is the the family in Adam, mothers, fathers, children, and In this fallen world in which the norm does not flow equally to all people, in the church, because we are all grafted into Christ, adopted into this most true family, the eternal family, the one that's not just temporal and will go away when we all die.

Uh there's a present experience of that more true thing for even those folks who don't experience it now.

And so there's a uh there's a real wonder to that.

And then you participate in having mothers and fathers in the church who you honor like mothers and fathers.

You participate in having siblings in the church, who you treat as equals, co-laborers, and in having children in the church.

And your children can be older than you, you know, because they just became Christians.

Sure.

Uh, and you may have been walking with the Lord for your whole life.

Uh, and your uh mothers and fathers can be younger than you because they've been walking with the Lord.

Yeah.

And um, but it's the I think the thing that's important for the church to see is it's actually more real.

So the wonder of our families, for those that get to participate in the normative structures of family, which is most people, you understand that the meaning of your family finds its true meaning in its participation in the church.

That uh you as a father, you as a mother, uh, when you're like this microcosm of the church as a household, that's when your family's really meaningful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and and hopefully this will then be I think helpful for us in terms of knowing how to live.

I I don't know if I've said it before, I just uh for you know, when I was a teenager, maybe into college, I just kind of struggled to be like, how how are we different?

We're all we're doing the same things as the people that I see around us.

Um but I think this Ephesian study has really made it pretty clear to me is like practical ways that the that Christians can look different than the world is in their marriages.

Yep, it's in their parenting, um, it's in their work.

Yep.

Um, and if we took those things seriously, then um you know we'd be that city on the hill.

Yep.

Uh in the you know, light and darkness.

We're talking a lot about darkness in this this book, but yeah, um, yeah, hopefully as we as we get into this, that um the difference between the disintegration and the chaos and then the ordered structure and life that the hierarchy gives would will be helpful.

For sure.

And a lot of times the differences don't show until you add time.

Yeah.

You know, they take they take uh looking at the ends of people's lives.

Sure.

To see what remains, what burned off, what last and what didn't.

Yeah.

Um because generosity could be short-lived.

Or yeah, that makes sense.

Cool.

So um, children obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother, quoting fifth commandment.

This is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.

And then instruction particularly to fathers.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Um, so I I feel such just like a particular, like, oh man, don't provoke your children to anger.

We have such a capacity for that as fathers.

Yeah.

Um and I think that the ones who there's a there can be a tendency of like though the folks that really grasp like the spiritual nature of their household can get so um hung up on it as though it's like a piece of their own justification to take this spiritual household and hold it up to God or hold it up to the world and say, see, I'm justified by this.

Yeah.

Look at the obedience of my children, which justifies me.

And then their the disobedience of their children becomes such a personal threat uh to their own standing in their own eyes, or to them perhaps their own standing before the Lord, that they become so angry at their children and uh want to demonstrate their authority over them, the power that they intrinsically have over them by provoking to anger.

Um so I think that looks like uh like nitpicking where there should be patience.

Um yesterday uh my son JT opened uh jar of salsa, okay, poured it into a bowl, and he set the salsa lid down right side up on the uh table, yeah.

Which is something only an insane person would do, because the bottom of the salsa lid has salsa on it.

And so I see it and I go, who set the salsa lid right side up?

So then you gotta wipe off the counter, you gotta set it upside down.

Yeah.

And I look at him and I'm like, why am I talking to my seven-year-old like this?

Yeah.

Like this is a place where it's like, man, just be patient.

Who cares?

Relax.

Yeah.

Um that's no big deal.

It's no big deal.

Um but yeah, that's uh I went to provoke.

You know, not care.

But it there's how many examples of that are there?

Yeah.

Um one of the things that Martin Lloyd Jones said was like the the problem of disciplining, or you could put it, I guess, in the category of raising your kids, lies between two scriptures.

And one of those being, you know, Proverbs 13, 12, you know, he who spares the rod spoils the sun.

Uh-huh.

And then pro provoke not your children to anger.

Yep.

Um, is kind of where where to find ourselves is somewhere in the middle of those things.

Yeah, I think that's really good.

Those things.

Um But yeah, it's it does seem like the tendency for the person in authority or the father is to respond in such a way that's harsh or um impatient.

Um I think of like I think one of the ways to experience that.

Actually, I'm gonna pause on this cliffhanger.

I gotta open the door, it's my office is the hottest place in the entire world.

Okay.

We have to become students in our own lives of the way that God disciplines us, in the way that He handles us, and to become sort of aware of it.

Yeah.

You know when you sin in a high-handed way against the Lord, um, uh that he doesn't let your spirit rest or settle until you've come to him and reconciled or reconciled in a way that you need to.

Okay.

That's a good sort of rule of thumb.

Uh but in all kinds of other way areas in my life, he's just patient with me.

And he's not working every sin out of me all the time.

Yeah.

He does not crush me.

Yeah.

He's patient, and uh I think it's like, okay, I want to be like him.

I want to be like God, how he treats me.

It's long-suffering, incredible patience.

When I look back over the course of my life, I can't believe the things I still don't know or that I still struggle with, and he's not written me off.

He draws close, he helps me, he provides for me.

He's not constantly berating me.

Yeah.

I don't feel like he's I don't feel like he's always looking over my shoulder or hunting, you know.

Sure.

Waiting to punish.

Yeah, not at all.

Yeah, or it or reacting.

I think for me, it's probably like just react reacting to something like the salsa or whatever it may be.

Like I've, you know, I've just told you something to do something three times and you you still you did it again.

Yeah.

Um and then reacting to that moment uh in a way that isn't helpful.

Right.

And yeah, so it's it's it's interesting to think about.

Um it definitely feels like there's a there's a high standard here for us to to actually try to implement and put into place.

Yeah, there is.

Like it's not gonna be easy just because you're a Christian to do this.

Right.

Then you know the other side of it is which is probably worth talking about, is the requirement to take responsibility.

As mothers and fathers, you're the mother and the father.

You're the one who's in charge.

Your voice is the one that matters here.

You're uh like like you know what's best.

Um do that.

Yeah, have them do that.

Seek to teach them to do that.

And a lot of times that's just like pep talks.

Um like we we forget it's like uh you know so much more than them.

And they don't know anything, they just got here.

And so when you're driving up to someone's house to have dinner, hey, we're going to other people's houses, house to have dinner.

What are we gonna do if we look at the dinner and it's not something that we really like?

We're gonna be kind and still try it.

Okay, yeah, that's good.

What you know, what are we gonna have when we sit at the table?

Think we should climb on the table and dance on top of it and kick the food everywhere?

No, you know, yeah.

Um and it's like we forget uh how would anybody need to be told that?

It's like, well, they just got here.

Yeah.

They just have to be they just have to be told.

Yeah.

When I think in forgetting that too, one of my one of my things that I can struggle with is then looking for those moments and making them like joyful teaching moments.

Yeah.

Instead of almost punitive corrective moments.

Yep.

Um, and then that's kind of and because they're kids, they're just gonna be doing things all the time.

Yeah.

And so if if your attitude is that way, then you you kind of have an atmosphere that's like grumpy um in your house, rather than it being filled with joy.

Yeah.

That's something I need I need to work on quite a bit, is just figuring out um how to engage them differently.

But yeah, uh you have to, I think it starts with trying to view them maybe as as as God views children.

Well, one thing my dad did that I thought was really good is he would always say he'd always use this phrase, hey, let me show you a trick.

And I that as a kid, I would loved that.

Yeah.

But it would be like, hey, let me show you a trick.

When somebody's talking to you, if you uh use like a loud voice when they ask you a question and you look them in the eye, man, you'll see people light up and that and they'll feel like, yeah, I'll I'll really talk to this person.

Yeah.

And that's a great trick for a situation like this.

And then it's like, okay, yeah, I feel like I kind of got something in my back pocket.

Yeah.

Yeah, let me show you a trick.

Like when we're sitting at dinner, yeah.

Uh if you climb on the table, then it nobody can really talk.

We can't, we don't get to hear each other.

But um it's kind of tough.

But if you can learn this one, you can you know just stay in your chair and uh then you'll notice like everybody starts talking and it becomes a more fun place to be.

I loved that.

I do that, I like to say that to my kids too now.

Well that's interesting.

I mean, that's kind of a way in teaching like wisdom as being worth more than rubies.

Yeah.

So almost like a way of giving treasure for versus the other way is kind of like you're taking from the kids in some sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's cool.

Yeah.

Um there's this, I think there's a component of this um fifth commandment that Paul is talking about, um, that is really expounded well in the larger catechism, the Westminster larger catechism.

Uh as it is a I'll just read it and you'll see how expansively this is applied.

Yeah.

It says by father and mother in the fifth commandment are meant not only natural parents, but all superiors in age and gifts, and especially such as, by God's ordinance, are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.

So this means that by father and mother is meant anyone who's over us.

Um be it governing authorities, that's where the principle, like the principle of submitting to governing authorities is the fifth commandment.

That's where that principle comes from.

Yeah.

The principle of honoring the elders in the church is a fifth commandment principle.

The principle of honoring your boss or honoring the elderly is the fifth commandment.

Yeah.

Um says superior in question 125, why are superiors styled father and mother?

Superiors are styled father and mother, both to teach them in all duties toward their inferiors, like natural parents, to express love and tenderness to them, according to their several relations, and to work inferiors to a greater willingness and cheerfulness in performing their duties to their superiors as to their parents.

So that means when you hold a place of authority, you should hold it like a father or mother, which is not to crush your children, it's not to uh labor over tools that you need to get to perform for you, it's to it's to love them and uh lead them in such a way that would uh uh allow them to work willingly and cheerfully.

Yeah.

Um so it's this great constraint on what rightly held authority is meant to look like.

Sure.

Um it goes on and says, what is the general scope of the fifth commandment?

The general scope of the fifth commandment is the performance of those duties which we mutually owe in several relations, as inferiors, superiors, or equals.

So there's a recognition that the relations that we are a part of are relationships of inferiority, superiority, and as equals.

And we uh we interplay in all of those sorts of things.

Um and there's even a sort of dance like in normal life, like when you enter into someone's area of expertise, you ought to engage with them as an inferior would.

Yeah.

Uh even if they might be uh in uh in other ways inferior to you, or in most of the time just mere equals.

Um that it's God honoring.

And you can see like why would that lead to long life?

Well, this is like the mechanism of education, and it's the ability to receive it and the ability to give it.

And then that creates a like functioning society that would then promote like long life in the land.

That's why it's so associated.

That's why this commitment has that direct promise tied to it.

Yeah.

So you can see it's it's almost obvious, of course.

Yeah, this would lead to long life in the land.

If those relationships are rightly ordered, man, this is gonna last a long time.

Sure.

Because the kids will be taken care of by the parents, parents will be honored by the children, wisdom will not need to be rediscovered or written off each generation, but will be able to be passed on and grow.

Yeah.

Well, maybe um I don't know, maybe we should spend some time talking about the instruction piece of this.

Because we've talked a little bit about discipline and um being with your, you know, correcting your kids or your attitude, the father's attitude to that, not provoking in anger, but it says to bring them up in discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Um and we I know we just had a men's night on family worship, but just wanted to see if you wanted to touch on that and talk a little bit about what that might mean for Christian households.

Yeah, so there's so you uh you we should think of it as like what would we want our kids to catch as they're a part of us, uh as they're a part of this family.

And you want them to catch that like central to our understanding of the world is our worship of the Lord together.

Now if they if they don't experience that in a tangible way as a part of your family, then it I don't know how you'd I don't know how you'd catch it.

And it would be like built into your heart that reality.

We in a sense we'd kind of undermine that reality.

Yeah.

Um, in our own families if we don't provide tangible ways for that to be experienced.

Well, we see that in Israel too, in terms of they can just go one generation and then forget the Lord or lose the the the Bible and then rediscover it years later.

Yeah.

Um yeah, there's almost like there you have to like parents have to actively be doing something here.

Like you can't just leave this to school to teach your kids or even Sunday school or church, or even if you know if they're listening to sermons.

There's probably there's an aspect in which parents are gonna have to take that home and explain things and help their kids under understand and um start viewing the world this way.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

So that they would see like, oh yeah, this is what a this is what a life together looks like.

What is it that holds us together as a family?

Oh, it's worship of the Lord.

Yeah, you know, this is the binding agent.

It's that there's something above us that we all look towards.

Um mom and dad look toward Jesus too, just like I do.

Sure.

That's what that's what holds us together here.

Oh man, that's what holds everything together, isn't it?

Yeah.

That's quite an insight.

Yeah.

Um, for someone to catch.

And so, yeah, there's like that positive example.

Well, then you give them a model for doing it whenever they grow up and have their own families versus you know, if you don't spend time talking about the Bible with your kids or um doing family worship when they go to have their own kids, they m you know it's almost like if if they are interested in the Lord at all at that point, they're having to rediscover all of that for themselves to teach themselves.

Yep.

And so it's just starting from ground zero versus um laying a foundation and essentially giving an inheritance to your grandchildren through what we're we're teaching our kids.

Yeah.

Uh because my spiritual disciplines, like practices, personal practices, were developed when I was like the most autonomous I could ever be, you know, in college.

Yeah.

By uh campus ministry that was teaching us all to um go have personal quiet times.

So beneficial, wonderful practice, been incredibly meaningful in my life.

And I think uh, you know, an essential ingredient in the Christian life.

But to only have that as a father or a mother and not incorporate our children into that or provide them with an experience of that together in some way is sort of shirking off the reality of the role that we've been placed in.

You know, it would be like if I as a pastor, uh all that I learned in a week of study of a passage, I wrote down in my personal journal and shared between the Lord and I, and then kept it secret on Sunday morning.

Yeah.

When I was supposed to preach it for us as a church.

Yeah.

You'd be like, man, that's I love that you're getting this sort of closeness um and intimacy with the Lord.

Uh but if you're not sharing it with those that you've been placed in this role to share it with, man, it's not that's not the fruitfulness that I intend for this.

Right.

This was a real issue in um I'm reading this book uh by St.

Gregory the Great called the Pastoral Rule.

And there's this really strong monastic culture at the time when he's writing.

Okay.

And this really thick contemplative tradition in the church.

But there's also persecution had just Just recently lifted in the Roman Empire, and there's not an so there's all these new converts, uh, and there's nobody to take care of them.

And then these monasteries are full of people that are really chasing this personal contemplative um experience of the Lord and insights with the Lord, intimacy with the Lord.

And St.

Gregory is like, that's great.

I love that we're cultivating this and developing this.

Look at all these sheep that are starving.

Yeah.

You need to leave this contemplative space and enter into the space of service and bringing others in and caring for them.

Um and you you need to have both.

Um, and if you're if you're just doing the one right now, then you're neglecting the what the Lord has called us to.

Right.

So he's trying to basically recruit pastors, which they're they needed from these contemplatives who don't want to leave the contemplative space to for the you know ordinary work of other people's lives.

Yeah.

Which is crazy.

Yeah, that's kind of that's interesting.

Yeah.

The the interest also we can be like that as parents.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like my kids interrupted my quiet time.

Yeah, you're annoying.

So I didn't have a good quiet time this morning.

Yeah.

Good quiet time.

Yeah.

What are you talking about?

Yeah.

Well, that's I think the other side of that too is so you could have a parent who spends time in their Bible and knows understands their Bible and never shares it.

But then you could also have a a Christian parent who comes to church but never spends time in their Bible.

So then you have the kids coming and asking, Hey, why do we do these things?

Or what about this story that I learned in church?

And you're not able to actually speak to it.

Yeah.

So almost by um way of implication here, what he's telling parents is that you have to know these things.

Yep.

Um, you can't just sit back and let things happen to you.

Yeah.

And what that's what we see in Deuteronomy when they talk about um, or even I think um not Deuteronomy, but in the Exodus story, when at the Passover, they they're even just talking about the Passover dinner and saying, when your kids ask you why we do this, you'll be able to tell them the story of the Exodus.

Yes.

Um and so we have to be able to give an account even even to our kids, not just to unbelievers.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

So it's that simple Christian thing of like, yeah, this great thing that I have, I have to share.

And um I I think I've I'm not gonna get the quote exactly.

Carolyn Kellum always used to say this, and I really like this quote, used to.

She just moved away.

We'll probably be back.

She probably still says it.

But she says, um uh you discover the wonder of the gospel in giving it away.

I think that's beautiful.

Yeah.

So you gotta have it, and then you gotta give it away.

And we're better than your your kids.

Kids, yeah.

It's like one of the easiest, least judgmental places to start.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Alright, should we move on to work?

Yeah, yeah.

Bondservants obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ.

Not by way of high service as people pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.

I love that verse, knowing that whatever good anyone does, you'll receive back from the Lord.

Yeah.

Like there's a lot of getting ripped off in your labor, it not being accounted for, and not the goodness of it not being recognized or seen, yeah, or even rewarded appropriately financially, you'll the Lord will see all of it.

Yeah.

And one day you'll see, oh, I actually uh everything was justly given.

Apportioned, yeah.

What's interesting too, and we've especially since you just read the um the larger catechism, and it equated work relationships with honor your father and mother.

Yeah.

And the promise in honor your father and mother is that it will go well with you.

Yeah.

And the promise here is that the Lord will return it back to you.

Um, so it's almost like it's telling us how this promise of it will go well with you will actually happen to us.

Yep.

Um, the Lord will give it back.

That means we're always working in faith that the labor that we're doing will be recognized by the one who's always looking, who always sees, um, and he will make sure that it is uh apportioned justly.

Um and so even our labor to our bosses is really the way to actually do it is as it's labor before the Lord.

Um because that's the that's the structure that he's placed us in now.

And some folks might think, okay, are we just making a weird jump from masters and bondservants to our economic structures?

You know, it's actually not so far in terms of the bondservant structure of this time.

Um I think it's important that we translate it bondservant to not equate it with uh the type of slavery that we had in our nation.

Um sometimes it's sort of just like any economic system.

Sometimes it was unjustly done and other times it was justly done.

Clear injustice would be kidnapping, yeah.

Um uh uh providing no opportunities for exit, uh dishonoring family structures that God had created by separating families, those are sinful, awful structures.

Um within those structures, this can be entered sinfully with tyrannical masters uh or insubordinate servants.

Um but we're looking at a a structure of slavery which is not so different than a salaried worker.

Sure.

Um Well, the other thing, even if it even if it is different, you know, he's it says whether bondservant or is free.

Yeah.

So in some sense, the free person is still put in the place of bondservant here in terms of the way that they're supposed to act.

Yes.

Um and you know, again, uh it seems like it goes back to that we were saying earlier is rather than Paul coming out and saying that slavery is bad, masters free the slaves, what he does is he tells them how to act towards one another in such a way that would probably create the most wonderful version of this particular social construct that could be imaginable.

Yeah, that's right.

To the point that non-Christians would be looking at them and saying, like, what is this relationship here?

Yeah.

Yeah, this feels beautiful and wonderful.

And look at this respect and generosity and the um uh at the end of his life, George Washington freed his slaves.

He put it in his will.

And that was probably too late uh for the structure of slavery that he had.

And it was even from his writing, it seems like it was a uh he was like a freakishly principled man.

And this was one place where he like couldn't uh uh he lived with an an internal inconsistency.

Because he really disliked the institution of slavery.

Interestingly, one of the main reasons that he disliked it is because he thought he thought of it as extremely economically inefficient.

And that's excuse me.

Now we're both sick.

There's uh he's like, I have to pay for everything in these people's lives, the whole of their families, everything that's going on, and they have no incentive to work for me.

Well.

Yeah.

And there's no way to enforce an incentive.

So it's bad labor, very expensive.

So he just had just sort of like this practical read, which was like, this is a horrible way to structure things.

And that's why Mount Vernon was never profitable.

He was like George Washington was poor his whole life.

Interesting.

Uh but it shows how like the the injustice of an institution like that in a sense like leads to poverty.

Yeah.

You know, this sort of this type of poverty for everybody.

Uh which I thought was interesting and I hadn't I hadn't known before.

No, I didn't I didn't I mean I I think I've heard things, but it's not something that's like stuck into my memory around that.

Um I I read that and thought, oh, that's interesting.

But it now there's a um uh but I I think that yeah, this sort of this sort of structure, this honoring that could have been offered by the servant, or this honoring that it can be offered by us in our labor as to the Lord means that um uh you can uh labor well in ways that even might to the outside look like, man, are you just like a pushover who's allowing yourself to be taken advantage of and might slot into our culture's vision of like what weakness looks like?

Yeah.

Um and it actually be very strong, yeah.

And generous to the Lord.

I have a story for you.

Yeah.

Um, so one of the things I in my readings, Martin Lloyd Jones talked about a newspaper article um back when he was alive uh about Stalin, essentially.

And um, he says he remembers reading the newspaper, and the laws and rules concerning Christianity in Russia were suddenly relaxed by Stalin because um he had made the observation that Christians were the most reliable work people in all of Russia.

Wow.

And so he knew he could rely upon them to do their job, and he went much easier on them.

Yeah.

Um, and so and even in that like that terrible situation where likely they were no better than bondservants, um depending upon what their labor was, but the way in which that they were laboring acted as a witness.

Yeah.

Um even at the highest level of government in society, um, to where like he could recognize that.

And someone so bad as Stalin can see like I'm working the numbers on this.

Yeah, there's something different about these people.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

I thought that was crazy when I read that.

That is crazy.

And then this verse nine, this had to be just like a bomb going off.

When he says, masters do the same to them.

Unbelievable.

Yeah.

Unbelievable.

That's uh I I think that's sort of what we have to grasp about this dance of the fifth commandment, which is this interplay of hierarchy and uh how you deal with inferior, superiors, and equals.

Yeah.

Because there's this sense in which in this aspect of the relationship there's a clear inferiority and superiority, and that's real and ought to be operated within.

And in this but now you're both in the church, and you're brothers and sisters in Christ.

And so there's this plain equality between you.

Uh which is uh it just had to be um like in in Plato's Republic, he talks about the ordering of society, and he uh says that there's people are just made of different things.

Some people are made of gold, some people are made of silver, some people are made of bronze.

People that are made of gold should be in charge of everything.

People that are made in silver, you know, and so on.

Uh and so uh what the understanding there was that the inferiority and superiority was just plainly intrinsic.

There's no circumstantial aspect to it.

Okay.

And so the slave was like a different species of person uh than the master.

Um this is different than that.

There's a fundamental humanity, an equality of humanity.

And within that, we okay, there's a fundamental equality of humanity, but this does not mean all people are the same.

Because some people are superior in skills and giftings and wisdom, others are inferior, some people are superior by station, others are inferior or by office.

Yeah.

Um well, but if we're all fundamentally equal in this other sense before the Lord, how is it not a violation of our equality to uh honor an equal as above us?

How is that not just plainly humiliating?

Um, and like a denial of who we are intrinsically before the Lord?

Well, it's not a denial because what you're honoring is the Lord who has gifted the person who's over you.

You're honoring the Lord who has placed the person above you in the station that is above you.

And so you're able to submit to them not as just a mere submission to them, which would be humiliating and in a sense a sinful uh abdicating of the uh treasure that God has given you.

Yeah.

But it is an honoring of of what the Lord has done and where the Lord has put you.

And so ultimately your knee is just being bowed to the Lord.

And there's no dishonor in that.

Uh that is that is the right place of a human.

Yeah.

Well, and I think when you even look at that, look at this this scripture through that lens, it makes sense why he calls out the different things that we might be prone to.

So like as bond servants or workers, um, if we're only looking to please men and to be people pleasers, and we're not looking to God, or if we're not looking to God, we're we're gonna turn out to be people pleasers.

Right.

Which then will affect the way that we work, and so that we'll only work whenever someone's looking.

Or or but if if we look to God, then we'll work well all the time.

Um, which is what he says to like to do it with good will.

And so yeah, I mean you you have to have that authority structure in in order for this to make sense.

Yep, that's right.

And then, yeah, the instructions to the masters, stop your threatening.

If I stop my threatening, what am I gonna do?

How am I gonna uh it's like the same as provoking to anger that the fathers are told for their children?

Yeah.

Um well, you're going to have to love them and care for them, seek to cultivate their skills and capabilities and see that they would be honored rightly for the good labor that they do, um, be rewarded uh in just ways.

Like you should treat, like if God doesn't miss anything and rewards justly all the good work, your your eyes should be open to do that uh as the master in that regard.

Um why?

Well, the one who's their master is also your master.

You're a bondservant as well, like them.

Yeah.

If you forget that, you won't be a good master.

You won't be able to do this.

Right.

Um yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

Show up to heaven's gates, I was the master, so he was the slave, so that's got to weigh a little bit in my favor.

And God says, I don't care about that.

I don't show partiality with men.

Yeah.

You all stand before me as men.

I don't care.

Yeah.

I don't care.

Well, when you kind of I don't know if I mean maybe you just said this, but I missed this.

But this is like the the par the parable of Lazarus and his employer, essentially.

Exactly.

Is he is he an employer or is he as maybe he's just a beggar?

I don't know.

He's just a beggar up front, the rich man and Lazarus.

Yeah.

But it seems like you could apply this to that situation.

I think so.

Um because they would have been in these totally different stations.

And the hierarchy would have been there.

Yes, and like a like thinking of each other as different species.

Yeah.

That are incomiserable to one another.

Right.

Yeah, and in in on earth, like one thing makes sense to man, but then as soon as you die, you know, Lazarus goes to heaven and he goes to Hades or Sheol.

Yep.

Um and I and it almost then seems to even think, well, in order for us to get this right, not only do we have to have God as the highest um you know point of authority that we're looking to, but we also have to understand that our current situation is just temporary.

Right.

Right.

Uh all will be revealed, all will be made known.

This life is to be laid down, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

That's our purpose.

That's our spiritual worship.

You can do that from anywhere.

Yeah.

Cool.

So it seems like that wraps up the household section?

Yep.

Okay.

Do you want to start off the armor of God with maybe I don't know, cultural lie around spiritual forces, the devil, whether they exist or not.

Yeah, well, maybe let's just read that first section, and then so we can get a sense of where we are what we're talking about.

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.

Okay.

So that's a that's a that's laying out of quite a place to be.

Well, it almost it almost feels like a shift in mental in mentality in one sense.

Um, but it it seems like maybe not when we consider kind of those three enemies that we were talking about, the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Uh-huh.

Um, like everything that we've been talking about so far has been like the world and the flesh, like the the thing, the relationships and the things around us, the passions and the lusts that we have, and how to deal with the with those, but this kind of shifts into maybe that last enemy there.

Yeah, and it's it's Paul's just zooming out and he's like, okay, what's going on here?

And it it's almost like coming back to where he's been talking throughout the rest of the book.

Yeah.

Because it's been like, what's the church doing?

Well, it's demonstrating the wisdom of God to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.

Um there's this uh like what did you get in Christ Jesus?

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

It's like that, remember, this is the reality of where these things are happening.

And we want to like re-emphasize that sense of like, yeah, the spiritual means more real.

It doesn't mean less real.

Yeah.

Um and so uh I think that it is a uh he's like bouncing out of the household codes, and he's like, remember what all this is doing, and why this why you feel like man, you're a salmon swimming upstream.

Uh it's because the the powers of the world are against these ordinary operations, and they're trying to scheme in ways to undermine the good structures that God has put in the world.

Yeah.

Um living the Christian life won't be easy.

It won't be easy.

You will have to be strong.

It will take dying to yourself, it will take bearing a cross.

So you you have to be you have to be strong in order to live the Christian life.

Um uh you know, uh where do what so how?

Where strength in the Lord.

Yeah.

Uh it's the strength of his might that we use, um, which is uh like everything else in Christianity, it's this paradoxical strength.

Like it's a strength in our weakness, which drives us to dependence on him to.

To receive and and use his strength.

And then you trust his strength will be enough, so I'll be strong now.

Um that's very important to like not stop midway at any point in the story.

It's not it's it's not just be strong, it's be strong in the Lord.

If it's just be strong, uh you'll uh swing between pride and despair constantly.

That's a fire drill.

Um we can pause.

We'll pause.

And we're back.

No fire.

No fire.

It was just a drill.

Close one though.

Yeah, for sure.

For sure.

I barely pushed that two-year-old out of the way to get out of the door.

I saw you do that.

Yeah, you look like George Costanza.

That's hilarious.

Um what was uh let's talk about the cultural lie about demon and demons and stuff.

Right.

Principalities and powers where the where the battle really is.

Okay.

The cultural lie is that there isn't those aren't there.

He doesn't exist.

Yeah, he doesn't exist.

There is no spiritual place for these types of battles.

Yeah.

Legend.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um it was a way that anxious pe ancient peoples explained things that they couldn't explain.

Now we can explain those things and we don't need those categories anymore.

Right.

Um interestingly, I think that view is already passe.

Like I think that uh it's more and more rare that there's a person who's like, yeah, there's not uh principalities and powers guiding these things.

Yeah.

Do you think though that it's probably not back to thinking about the devil as like a person and an enemy of God, but maybe more along the lines of just an evil force or generic evil forces?

Yeah, I think it's very hard for us to make things make the jump too personal, that there's an agent, a personal agent who is uh seeking to attack us, or and personal agents that are seeking to do that.

Um but I think that people are grasping for language to explain the uh uh like uh the the the absurdity in which uh like groups of people operate.

Yeah.

Um which are the the tools that we thought we could use to pin those things down, which would have which were just like sociological tools or like psychology.

Psychology, yeah.

If we get enough people in aggregate, then we'll be able to uh they'll be simpler and we'll be able to understand their motivations and the way that they'll work.

Um or if we uh uh uh understand people's incentives, then we'll be able to describe them as self-interested, rational actors and be able to anticipate the moves that they'll make.

And then it just seems like, you know, it seems like uh people are doing evil things to do evil things.

And I need a category for that.

Yeah.

Um and a and a reason.

Like people look like they're being taken over by demons in the way that they're acting or submitting themselves to things that are above them.

Um and that is the I I think that it I think that there's just like practically it's like, you know, that's actually a better explanation.

I mean, and sometimes it's it honestly seems like it's the honest explanation of or the only explanation.

Yeah.

Um yeah, there's enough YouTube videos out there on like demon encounters that are you know, they're not faked, and yeah, it's just not explainable in an even from a psychological or scientific standpoint, yeah.

Um there's just not a real answer that we have for that.

Um outside of the spiritual.

Like the the idea that it's like um for us, it's just our world, you know.

We grew up in it of just materialism, that matter is all there is.

And we uh so which is which is satanic, you know, that is a mechanism of Satan.

Materialism is satanic.

Yeah.

Um because it leads to death and meaninglessness.

Um which is a good way to tell if something's satanic.

It doesn't produce life.

Yeah.

Yeah, the fruit of the spirit.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Um and there's a uh but but really we're a part of like this incredibly small minority of people in world history who ever would have thought that there wasn't evil, powerful, personal agents that uh move people to do things.

Yeah.

Um, that find their body uh in people aligning themselves with them and worshiping them.

Yeah.

Yeah, in some ways it feels like as Christians today we even even if the the vibe shift is changing, in some ways it feels like we have more in common with the ancient Greeks or the Native Americans in their outlook on life than we do a lot with than we do with modern culture.

Yeah, it's really true.

And so the thing that Christians are going to need to learn is uh it's not uh like believing in a spiritual realm is morally neutral.

Yeah.

Uh there's uh it's not it's not that like we're the ones who believe in a spirit realm, um, and then the materialists are the ones who don't.

That is, I guess it's not it's overstating it to say it's morally neutral.

Um because it is true.

There's got to be some moral component to believing true things.

And if it's true that there is a spiritual realm and it's false that materialism says that there isn't, then it's you know better to believe that there's a spiritual realm.

Um but uh it's not it's not enough to just say, okay, there's this there's a spiritual realm to see that as progress, because what it will what it will be is is it will we'll just see more and more strangeness and weirdness um and people more plainly submitting themselves to satanic patterns and satanic symbols and um uh the uh and and seeking to gain power by cultivating deals with Satan and his demonic forces.

Yep.

Um and so what the Christian is is the ones who are able to discern, oh, there's good spirits and evil ones.

And we should think that people are guided by spirits.

Yeah.

Sounds so weird.

Well, and and to have that outlook, in some sense, you have to as Christians, we you have to kind of understand, almost have a theology or a definition of the devil, like who he is, what he does, what he's capable of.

Yep.

Um, in order to understand that.

I I think that was probably the one of the most helpful things for me in my reading was um just thinking about that a little bit more than I don't I don't know that I spent much time thinking about the devil.

Yeah.

Other than like, yeah, I think uh you know, I believe in demonic uh possession, I believe he's got power, but I don't I don't know that I really ever thought about it to the point where as a Christian, you know, Jesus talked a lot about the devil.

Yeah.

So if you believe Jesus, yeah, in his words, you have to believe that there's a devil.

Um the doctrine of sin can't be explained outside of it, outside the devil.

Right.

Um, but then I I think the the interesting thing to me was just thinking about the power that he has um in terms of like he gets called the God of this world, Jesus calls him the strong man who keeps his goods in peace, um, a great dragon, a roaring lion, um Prince of the power of the air.

Prince of the power of the air.

One of the things Martin Lowin Jones said was the ultimate proof of the in of his power and confidence and the ability of the devil was the fact that he just like nonchalantly doesn't didn't hesitate to go up and tempt Jesus.

Yes, like the Son of God.

Yeah, like he thought he actually could go to Jesus and tempt him and win in those moments, which is crazy when you I you know that I just never thought of that from that perspective.

And the offer that he makes.

Yeah, that I'll give you this stuff.

The means he could, yeah.

It was his.

Yeah.

Well, and then um he kind of had this little exercise of talking about like how how does he manifest his power?

Um and he had mentioned like that he has a certain power over nature, which is that we see in Job where he's able to cause lightning to strike and cause a fire, right?

Um, or send a wind to blow and kill and cause destruction.

Yep.

Um they have there's maybe some sort of element of power over like animal creation, given that Jesus casts the pigs and the swine and they're able to inhabit them and cause them to do things.

Um I I don't know.

I mean, I'd be curious what you think about this because I'd never thought about this before, but he suggested that some of those storms in the New Testament on Lake of Galilee was a direct attempt of the devil to actually try to kill Jesus.

Wow, I hadn't thought of that.

But that's pretty wild.

Crossing yeah, crossing the lake.

You know, uh yeah, I thought about that.

Um but then there's all those things that I think we're more familiar with around like him being able to get into our mind and speak these lies.

And even that he's the accuser.

Accuser of the brethren, yeah.

Um he instigates false teaching, he can cause depression, um, encourage pride, do all the uh I think we're more familiar with those, but I think what was uh interesting for me was in some sense of seeing his power in these other areas almost increase or heightens the way I look about how he might attack my mind.

Yeah, for sure.

Um in terms of he's like he's really powerful and we need to take this seriously.

Yeah, and we should think of sin as like acts of worship to him.

Yeah.

And worship that like forms our hearts to love him.

And that and then that makes us hate God.

Um and that's repulsive.

Um there's like a it because it's one way to see it is like, why does he have this power?

Well, in a sense, he tricked us into giving it to him.

Because who has dominion over all creation?

You know, who's the prince of creation?

Yeah.

Who has all the kingdoms and everything?

It's Adam.

Uh this is all his, this is given to him.

And then he uh does this trick where he causes instigates disobedience to God and the obedience to him, so we treat him as Lord, um and the whole world's upside down after that.

And so it's like the wrong Lord.

Yeah.

Um and he has this incredible power, the slavery, captivity.

Now, it's not slavery and captivity for the Christian, right?

We're freed, and his power is no longer effective for us.

Now we can be seduced and participate in it, and he's very crafty and wicked and cruel.

Um, there's nothing he won't do.

Yeah.

When we could even be unprepared or um naive as well, and and be impacted by him.

Um but like you said, like the ultimate, ultimately, like this this shouldn't be bad news for us as Christians, just more of like a way to open our eyes in terms of the way the world works and the way that we're participating in it.

Yeah.

I mean, ancient peoples would have had a, you know, there's a god of war.

And and you think it's like, okay, I kind of get that, but then then you think of like what war is, how you know when you're in a war or at war with someone, and we talk about war, we say war breaks out, and you you you you maneuver delicately with someone you might enter a war with because you know it's like this type of thing that could just take on a life of its own.

Yeah.

And then you're in the war, and then you have to submit to the rules of what war is.

And the God that rules over that thing, man, you don't want to have to live in that one.

Yeah.

It's very very brutal and horrible.

Uh, but uh but the reason that it's handled so delicately on the front end is because we realize that it's almost like it's almost like you might provoke a personality that would force your submission to it.

And so ancient people were right, like, yeah, there's a god of war.

Um and so like tread lightly uh around those those those types of things.

Yeah.

Um yeah, it's it's we should think of ourselves as uh able to be taken advantage of if we're not strong in Christ by the deceptions of the devil.

And those are uh seductions of like illusions of secrecy, that's uh all the things that lead to death that tear apart your relationships that um cause you to lie, um these are manipulations of Satan.

And so when they're resisted, uh you're taking ground.

Yeah.

And it's meaningful.

Yeah.

That's why there's there's uh if you if you were to think it was just um uh a flesh and blood battle, then it would make sense.

Like if we just get rid of all of the those people, then we'd be fine.

Right.

But you wouldn't.

Like it would come up in some terrible other way.

Yeah.

Uh because that's not where the battle is.

And God already got rid of all the people for us once.

Exactly.

Like we know what happens, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Um and I think that you just to have that vocabulary as Christians is really important.

Um as things get weirder, uh, it's going to be so important for Christians to just like remember your Bible.

Uh, this is in there.

Um I I spoke with someone in our church just a couple of weeks ago who had an experience that seemed plainly demonic.

And it's like, and then what we do is like, was it, was it not?

What does that mean?

What's going on?

Um and uh I heard Jonathan Pageot actually say this really helpful thing where he was like, for that sort of like discernment, like, was this just in my head or was this really there?

And he's like, first of all, who cares?

Who cares?

He makes very not much distinction between whether it's in your head or not.

Um those are both real places.

Yeah.

Um and secondly, uh, because what do you know about the manifestation of spirits?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh and then he was like, well, what do you think it was a cat that you saw?

It's like, well, I know it wasn't a cat.

It's like, okay, then do you think it was your friend that you saw?

No, I know it wasn't my friend.

Yeah, it's probably because you know what it is.

Yeah.

You know what that experience is.

Yeah.

You know, like we it's not like there's um an like it's still the world, things aren't infinite here.

It's still within creation.

Right.

It's not a and like when somebody dresses up like the devil, you're not like, what's that?

What are you dressed up like?

Yeah.

You know, like we know what these things mean.

Yeah.

What they are.

Yeah.

No, it it it definitely is helpful.

Um I and I think you've said it over and over again.

It's just coming to think that this is the most real part of the world in which we live.

Yeah.

Um, because then because it because that we do the opposite.

That's why I think we are like, is that was that really the a demon or not?

Because we think that the natural world is the most real world.

Yeah.

And so the things that come in and out of that, those are just they're unexplainable phenomena.

Yep.

Um, whereas if we if we looked at it the other way around, um, we you know, I think we'd we'd start to see it more and more, probably.

Not in the sense that like you're inviting it in, but being able to recognize, okay, this is a tactic, this is a scheme, this is um something that's coming against me, not not my own thoughts, not um, you know, some you know, some habit or whatever it may be.

Like, because in as a Christian, as your heart, as you grow and your heart starts to love Jesus, and you still have what you might consider an evil thought, like that that's you know, that comes from somewhere.

Yeah.

Um, and then if you hate that thought in some sense, like that's you know, it's an evil attack of the devil.

Yeah.

And so it's just learning to be able to differentiate those.

And I think what that does is that one, it helps us um understand.

Well, it helps us, I think, hate hate ourselves less, especially as Christians.

Yeah, for sure.

Once we've been redeemed um by Christ, like we don't have to view ourselves as terrible pieces of trash anymore.

Totally.

It's just not true.

Like, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.

The old things have passed, behold, new things have come.

Right.

Um, it helps you view yourself differently, which I think then can help you fight differently.

Yeah.

Um, and view those things differently.

And you know, it affects everything else.

And you know, this whole section that comes after this where he lays out, hey, remember the battle that you're in.

Expect attacks here.

Your marriage is behind enemy lines, and there will be seductions that are fed to you from uh, you know, like a uh like some like psychologist on an Instagram reel saying like, you know, the reason she's not having sex with you is because she doesn't she doesn't care about you and whatever.

And it and it's like, oh man, now I'm mad at my wife.

Yeah.

You know, and it's like, what do you what nothing happened?

You didn't do anything, yeah.

You know?

Um and it's like, yeah, that seems like a scheme of the devil.

It seems like a good scheme to run on marriages.

Um there's uh like and then when it whenever you see like we're suddenly all thinking the same thing, like isn't it weird that that happens that we're all just like bam, I think this now?

Yeah.

Um yeah, man, we're we're there's big spirits out there.

You're gonna have to be strong uh to not just be tossed around.

The the other thing in this is I think we often tend to think of the the devil as I don't know, maybe attacking the world in some sense.

It's like that's his domain and his dominion.

Yeah.

But in reality, yeah, he doesn't care.

They're already lost.

Um That's why people that's why non Christians are like sinning and look happy all the time.

Yeah.

And it's like you try it.

Right.

You know, like whenever there's like a like somebody in the church who is like, I know they're a Christian, but then like you see like this pattern start.

Yeah.

Like it, I part of me is just like, I'm not worried.

Yeah.

Like I know them, I think they'll be miserable.

They're not gonna like it.

God just doesn't let us like it.

Yeah.

You know, he's like, you're just you're gonna hate it, and uh God's just gonna be like, yeah, this is right.

You're seeing what it actually is.

Right.

Like, sorry, Christian, you experience reality.

That's right.

And I don't allow you to live in lies.

Yeah.

Because I'm the light.

And do you and I'm in if you're in me, you're in the light.

Yeah.

And so when you sin, when you're when you're living in this sin, what you're gonna experience pretty shortly thereafter, if not right then, is uh uh this isn't this isn't good.

It's gross.

This is gross.

It's like Elf having the uh the perfume sprayed in his neck at the mall.

Yeah, yeah.

Um well and and the thing when you think about too, the number of Christians in the world compared to the rest of the world is so small.

Yeah.

Um and then you know, where God even does things with like the army of Gideon where he pairs back that number.

Um so it's like the remnant almost so it becomes so small.

Yeah, like 8,000 people in Israel at the time of uh Elijah, as maybe that's around 8,000, I guess.

Um, but when you think about that, that's a very concentrated group of people for the devil to torment.

Yeah.

Um, and then not only him, because he can't be everywhere, he's not like God, but it the Bible does tell us the third of the angels fell with him.

Yeah, and we don't know how many that is, but seems like it's probably a lot.

Yeah.

Um where you know, a man could have multiple demons in him in the Bible.

Right.

Um Yeah, so that means there's like at least a couple to spare.

Yeah.

It's like we're we're playing, we're not uh I don't know, it's like evil.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

And not that it that excuses us and our own passions and our own um It's power plays, maybe it's like hockey.

But yeah, I mean I I think we we probably we have to get back to viewing it as like there's a real enemy uh against us.

Yes.

Yes.

Um what do we do?

Pray.

This whole armor of God thing is a call to prayer.

Um it's like you will remain a fool, bewitched by the schemes of the devil, if you don't pray to God.

Because you won't be able to discern.

Yeah.

And you won't be able your eyes won't work.

You won't be able to see things as they are.

Like if you aren't if you aren't engaging with the Lord in the spirit, um you're not going to be of much use against the principalities and powers in the world.

You'll just be very easily seduced by them.

And it will seem utterly rational.

Or at the very at the very most, maybe you're aware of them, but then just powerless.

Yeah.

Which seems worse.

Yeah, that doesn't that seems terrible.

Yeah.

It'd be a horrible Thursday.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God.

The reason I say this is because it he starts up with take up the whole armor of God.

And I think that verse 18, where he says, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication.

I think that's the how you do it.

I think that's how you take up the whole armor of God.

Yeah.

Um What's His armor?

It's his armor.

Talk about that.

So the armor of God that we're about to go into, it's God's armor.

It's God's armor.

I mean He puts it on first.

He puts it on first.

I mean, He's given it to us.

It's not something that we have to now go fabricate.

Right.

Um I think in some sense we do have to like He tells us to be strong.

We have to take these things up.

So there's an element in which we have to do these things.

We're not just sitting back and watching God fight all our battles in that sense.

Yeah.

Um, he's telling us to participate, but he's giving us everything that we need to to do that.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

I want that to be stuck in people's minds.

Everything he requires of you, he freely gives to you.

Yeah.

This is another instance of that.

It's not like, hey, all these people that I've redeemed that I love so dearly that I gave my own did not spare my own son so that they might be saved and redeemed and called back to me.

I've left them in a terrible war.

And I've given I've given them nothing.

Yeah.

No, that's not the move.

Yeah.

So his armor.

So what we put on, stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth.

Alright, so if it's a spiritual war, we should expect spiritual tools of war.

The belt of truth.

So I've heard two different analogies of this.

Uh-huh.

Of one like this armor's like priestly garments, in a way.

Um, but then there's the the Roman soldier.

Yeah, I've heard both as well.

Um I kind of think the Roman soldier makes more sense.

Because Paul's in prison looking at a Roman soldier.

And it's a a fight.

A fight.

Um and now he um I think James Jordan calls them um warrior priests.

Yeah.

Like the Levites killed people when they got close to the temple and things of that nature.

Um, but uh yeah, I kind of like the the Roman soldier analogy for this a little bit better.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um and so uh the what I had down for about truth was like the belt gathers your your garments together um so that you're like you're ready.

Yeah, it's all held together by this.

Yeah.

Truth is if if there's not truth, then it unravels.

Yeah.

Um, and you're um, yeah, you're you're not able to to move anything together.

So the belt of truth.

So what what would be we could I to me like I almost can't understand anything unless I think of its opposite.

Sure.

So it's like, what would a belt of lies be?

Like like what if we were trying to be held together by lies?

It's like you can see it's like, oh, there's too many threads to try and maintain.

It's uh um even just like practically in your own life, like remembering all your stories, trying to hold things together by lies.

It's like, oh no, that's not gonna work.

Yeah.

Um uh but the truth is what would hold things together.

So ways, how do we participate in truth?

Well, when we have hidden sins, we confess and repent them to the people that we've sinned against and to the Lord.

Uh when we've uh manipulated others or outright lied to others, we we bring the truth into it.

We seek to know the truth of the Lord so that we're not manipulated by the lies of our culture, those sorts of things.

Yeah.

When we see beliefs that we have come in plain contradiction with the scriptures, we believe the scriptures and we doubt the claims that we have.

When we feel ourselves trying to twist the scriptures to accommodate things that we would like to hold so that it doesn't disrupt relationships that we're a part of, then we choose to believe the scriptures and disrupt those relationships.

That's the truth.

Yeah.

That would be a way to hold to the hold to the truth.

You can feel yourself unravel when when um uh you in your quiet time plainly believe something, and then talking with somebody later, you pretend that the scriptures aren't clear in such a way that we could know.

Yeah.

And then you become ineffective in your fighting, you still stumble over yourself.

Yep.

Yeah.

Um those are yeah, then it's a unraveling.

So truth.

All right, so stand therefore, fasten on the belt of truth.

Yeah.

See how prayer would be essential for that?

To have the eyes that could discern, to gaze upon the Lord, to recognize that he is seeing you clearly and plainly.

He already sees you in all the truth, so you can be truthful with him.

Yeah.

And and Jesus said, you know, if you continue in my word, then you're my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and then you know, the belt gives you the freedom to move and to fight and to um yeah, to to be sure footed.

Having put on the breastplate of righteousness.

What do you think of that?

So I had Do you like that or do you not like that?

The blessed breastplate of righteousness.

I mean, what uh like what's your I mean, yes, I like it.

Okay.

Um I I I haven't thought of the this this way before.

Um but thinking about like the the breastplate protects your heart, your lungs, all your various organs.

And in the ancient cultures, they believed that the organs were the seat of your affections.

Yeah, yeah.

Like your your mind.

Personality, emotions.

Yeah, well, your emotions.

And so um there's a sense here in which you don't want to be a lily livered.

Yes.

That Martin Lawrence Jones uses that expression.

Really?

Yeah.

Um, but there's a a sense in which we should use that.

Yeah.

Um like it the righteousness that Christ gives us helps protect those things.

It helps protect my emotions, helps protect my affections, helps protect because if if if I'm relying on my righteousness, um those things are just gonna get destroyed.

Uh I'm not gonna be able to fight effectively when my perceived self-righteousness is attacked, my reputation is attacked, I'm um thought of differently than the way that I think myself.

That will also then play on my emotions, and maybe it causes pride, maybe it causes like dejection and spirals and kind of um, and then it will also affect my will in terms of like it will lead me to do the next thing that I'm gonna do, and I'll be acting out of that rather than acting out of the righteousness of Christ.

Um man, that's so good.

That's the best interpretation I've heard of that.

Really?

Yeah, I just think that's excellent.

That seems very true to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

His righteousness is like this incredible emotional guard.

Uh protecting the our affections and desires and passions.

Yeah.

And then it effectively allows us to fight with our fellow members in Christ, brothers and sisters.

Yeah.

Because without those protected, then it almost kind of turns you on each each other.

Yeah, it's true.

And against each other.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

Uh yeah, so like fight alongside.

Fight alongside, yeah.

Yeah, because then you could effectively like you could be back to back and you'd both be protected.

You could be facing each other, you you'd still be protected because you have that you know uh breastplate all around you.

Yes.

As shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

Uh the gospel gives us peace because we have peace with God.

And that becomes uh like a an experience of peace in our hearts, and nothing paralyzes like anxiety.

It's like the purpose of anxiety is for Satan to keep you from moving forward.

Yeah.

Um, to keep you from participating in what God has called you to.

Don't start building, don't keep contributing to this.

Don't what's the point?

Yeah.

This is all gonna go really bad.

In fact, everything you touch goes really bad.

And this is gonna get even worse.

Like if you get involved, it's just gonna be worse and you're gonna experience how bad it is.

And that's not that's just uh robbing our readiness.

Sure.

So the gospel like shoes, you're quick.

Yeah.

Well, you can you could go on all sorts of places and not be hurt.

Yeah.

Um he talked a little bit about how they used to basically make these spear points and kind of like bury them in the ground just enough to like the tip of the spike was sticking up out of the ground.

Uh-huh.

And if you didn't have like really thick, like soldier-like sandals on, it would be feet.

Yeah.

Um, but then they also like their their sandals had these like nubbings on them, almost like cleats, in a way that like gave them a firm grip that they could stand.

Wow.

Um, and to where you're saying, like, if with anxiety, it's um if you don't have if you don't have the peace that the gospel provides, you don't have that firm footing, yeah, in a sense.

So like when you're attacked, you don't have anywhere to take a stand on the truth.

Yeah, you're not ready.

Because you need to be able to say, like, yeah, but Christ died for me.

Yeah, I'm in him, he rescued me.

Yeah, this is done.

I have peace with God.

Um, and now you're ready.

Yeah.

The Lord already made the greatest sacrifice for me, so him calling me to enter into this is not to hurt me or to harm me.

I know the depth of his love towards me, he'll carry me through.

Right.

And then you can walk over those things and move forward to the next thing.

Yep.

Or is it otherwise if you're if you're paralyzed in that, you're not going anywhere, or you're just getting pushed back or down, or yeah.

Um you've you have no way to resist the attack.

Then in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

So um he kind of separates these um elements of the armor in two categories.

One is more Martin Lloyd Jones.

Yeah.

Um one is more like the items that you attach to your body, in a sense, to where almost like you're preparing for the engagement.

Uh-huh.

And then offensive.

And then like the shield, the the helmet, and the sword are all more um elements of your armor that would indicate you're actively engaged.

Yeah.

Um, and so one of the things he talks about the shield is we think about shields as being these tiny little things that you kind of hold up on your arm.

Yeah.

But the Roman soldiers had four foot-long shields, they covered their whole body.

Like they could make an impenetrable wall.

They had a lining of metal in them.

So when those fiery darts came, they were, even though they were made out of wood, they were fireproof.

Oh, wow.

Um, so that they didn't have to worry about them catching fire, catching fire.

Yeah.

Um, but he talks, and we I think we talked about this a little bit in the Westminster podcast of like what faith means, and faith not just being blind faith.

I just I'm just called to believe this just because.

But that like faith is actually grounded on the revealed truth that God gives us.

So in this sense trust.

Yeah, trust.

So in this sense, he talks about faith being the ability to quickly apply what we believe in order to repel anything the devil attempts to throw at us.

Yep.

Man, I think there's nothing like LOL no.

Yeah.

Yeah.

As a uh, like, that's not true.

Just someone quickly shut that down.

Exactly.

Like, no, that's not true.

Um this is uh a lot of times Christians get seduced into debate.

Yeah.

When there isn't a debate, it's just like no, wrong.

Yeah.

The end.

We're done.

Right.

Thanks for stopping by.

Yeah.

I don't need to argue with you.

Yeah.

Yeah, and especially in our own hearts.

Yeah.

You know, like, well, this, you know, um this sin has r uh really cultivated my humility.

Yeah.

And I know that there's like uh like if you find yourself negotiating in any way on behalf of sin in your life, um it just points to the subtlety of it.

Yeah, exactly.

It's like, stop.

Yeah.

You know, this is not a um Adam should not have stepped in with Eve and if gone actually serpents.

The uh Eve just shared we would not to uh eat it or even to touch it, we can of course touch it.

And I'm not uh arguing such a um i uh irrationally um uh difficult constraint, as perhaps you may have perceived.

And I think that once you understand what the constraint actually is, then um uh Satan would have just won the debate.

Yeah.

You know, because he entered it on Satan's terms, and Satan would have just been like, no problem.

Sure.

You know, like I can I can what Adam should have done is just killed him.

Yeah.

Should have just killed it.

Nope, that's bad, don't do it.

Yeah.

Stop, that's wrong.

Um because he had enough.

He he had enough information, even if he didn't have all of it, he had don't eat.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You said eat.

So no.

Yeah.

We don't we don't do that.

So like if you uh if you especially with regards to sinful things, like if you um find yourself trying to hold things and you're you're using ways of understanding it like the intentions of the heart or yeah, something like that, um I you should think to yourself, oh, I'm probably just lying to myself and need to kill this.

Yeah.

And this is done and and wrong.

Yeah.

You know, like um that's very uh that's like the shield.

Yeah.

Because uh otherwise those the yeah, like you think of a flaming dart, it hits and pierces in, like in a subtle way, but then it grows over you.

You know, the fire would come over you.

Um that's the way those things are, you know?

Yeah.

Well, and it seems like that not only would it have to you'd have to use this for sin, but you'd have to use this for your own assurance uh as well, to just because even the devil went to Jesus and said, Are you really the son of God?

Yeah.

He didn't go and say, No, you're not.

Oh man, he went and insinuated um or uh implied based on his question to get him to maybe spiral and be like, Well, am I really the son of God?

Totally.

Which is what we would do.

Am I really in Christ?

Is there really any yeah, is there any of this real?

Is there any hope of salvation?

Is there any did this really happen?

Is he really saved me?

Do I really believe?

Do I really trust in Jesus?

Is there any um yeah, and you start searching your yourself, your own strength to justify yourself before the Lord.

Yeah.

It's like perfect opposite thing to do.

Right.

It's a shield of faith.

Right.

What he he says it's true.

Good enough for me.

Yeah.

I believe him.

He says if anyone who comes to him, he will in no ways cast out.

Yeah.

Jesus, I'm coming to you.

Right.

You won't cast me out.

Yeah.

To all who received him who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.

I receive you, I believe in your name.

Child of God.

Child of God.

Done.

Well, and that's again, that's like our directional focus is faith is focused on God, not ourselves.

Yeah.

So if it's if we get into the thinking about intentions of our sin or like um subtleties of our salvation, we're not we're focusing on ourselves.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I I think like uh don't underestimate killing.

You know, this is a war thing.

Um like your your sin you can kill it.

Um That's it.

That was the whole point of my point.

That was great.

We you gotta we gotta remember that.

Yeah.

How many of a salvation Uh so uh I really had mainly just the helmet protects the mind spiritually, like y you would we would think that God cares about the way in which the Christian thinks.

Um and that since this is a war, like we shouldn't grow weary and doing good.

Yeah.

Like um, you know, you think of war soldiers, they get fatigued, um, sometimes they go into hysteria, sometimes they see things that aren't there or whatever.

Like we need to protect our mind so that we can stay sharp, so that we can be vigilant and look out um and be proactive in how we we take our defenses, but also so that we don't grow tired in doing that.

There's also an a glory in crown element being placed on your head, and that that that the highest glory that you take is salvation, that you've been rescued by the Lord, and that it's his glory that you march forward with.

Um so I think there's both I think there's both those elements there.

Sure.

Uh with the helmet of salvation.

Um yeah, guarded guarded thoughts, protected what he's what he's given to us, he protects.

Um and the this glory that's just been given to us, like our rescue.

And like imagine walking into a battle and it's like you're guaranteed salvation.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

Well, and then one day, when you think about it in terms of the crown, um you think about the saints casting down their crowns before the throne.

Like you could think of that in two ways, then one would be like we're it's submitting to to Christ as king over all, but two, there's a would be another sense in which now we don't have to fight anymore.

Yeah.

Um yeah, he did it.

He did it.

Yep.

Yeah, or especially when we're when we you know when we die and we're at that day, like the battle's over for us.

Yeah.

At that point in time.

So maybe our crown for the moment is a is a helmet.

Yeah.

Um, but we'll we'll get to cast that down at some point.

Yeah, totally.

And then the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

That one's a bit easier to interpret.

Helps with the killing.

Sure does.

Yeah, it shows you by what means you're able to do that.

Yeah.

You know, it's the it's his word, the word that brought everything into existence, the word that calmed the storm, the word that assures your heart.

Um, surely I'm cast out by the Lord.

Look at me wrestling with the same old sins.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Yeah.

How is she going to handle that?

Yeah.

Well, and even thinking back to all the things that we were talking about in terms of how powerful the devil is.

Yeah.

Um, you know, we're given the promise, resist the devil and he'll flee from you.

But why would he flee from me?

Yeah.

I would I need to use the word of God in order for him to actually flee.

Yeah.

I mean, Jesus does.

Jesus does.

You know, when when Satan is tempting him.

Oh.

Oh.

What is the will of God for you?

That you would abstain from sexual immorality.

Yeah.

That helps to have that one in your back pocket.

Um, I wonder what the will of God is for my life.

That you would abstain from sexual immorality.

Yeah.

I um I haven't read all this book, but uh it's been a couple years since I actually bought it.

But I listened to it started with with a John Mark Comer book.

Um, I think it was The Live No Lies.

It was one of those.

Yeah.

But he talks about how he found this book of this monk um who basically took I don't know if it's six months or a really long time.

I think maybe John John Mark Comer took six months, but he he would practice silence and solitude and listen to his own thoughts.

Uh-huh.

And whenever he noticed like these lies or these attacks coming in, or these at least untruths, um, he would find a scripture verse that would deal to that thing.

And then anytime he had that thought come back again, he had a scripture verse to go to it right away.

Um that's a wonderful prayer practice.

Yeah.

I mean, I for a while I was praying at the end of the day, you pray through your consolations and desolations.

Yeah.

Like when did you when were you consoled by the Spirit?

What were the circumstances?

What were you thinking?

And what were you when were you did you feel desolate by the Spirit?

And then um uh then i it in the same sort of way.

You go like consider scriptures that would speak to those.

What how can I give gratitude and rightly before the Lord, and then how can I um confess or um uh take my sadness before the Lord or whatever it may be.

And it's just like a way of like intentionally practicing right response to the circumstances that we've been placed in.

Yeah.

The interesting thing about that book was the monk would um would write, he wrote these things out, and so basically he would he'd write them to the demon of like lust or to the um he wasn't just framing it as like this is my own thought.

And you know what's in what's what's interesting about that practice is you'll realize there's not 10,000 of repetitive lies that you're coming back to.

It's like a dozen, yeah, maybe less uh things that you're latched on to.

And then I think it's the kindness of God, uh, but it takes reflection like that to be able to notice them.

Yeah.

Uh that it it's the kindness of God that I think he restrains Satan in such a way where the war that he's allowed to wage to us is pretty targeted.

Um so that we're able to focus on this particular aspect, uh, be it lust or pride or um self-righteousness or um fear or whatever, you know, whatever maybe.

One of the seven deadly sins.

One of the seven deadly sins, yeah.

And then you're able to uh um pray to the Lord, Lord, help me with this.

Lord, I know you will and He will.

Yeah.

He really will.

He'll give you opportunities, He'll He'll really help you with that.

Um that's the way we we put on the armor, but yeah, the having the Word of God and the promises of God, man, that's the offense.

Um so how do we put it on?

Praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.

So praying in the Spirit means you're living life in the presence of God.

You understand that all that you're doing is in the presence of God.

And uh supplication means you're asking.

Lord, give this to me.

Give me the helmet of salvation, give me the uh gospel of readiness and peace.

Like, man, I'm so anxious.

We've got I look at uh it's finally the weekend, and I look and it's like this is just gonna be just as much chaos as the week.

And um uh this kid's sick, and uh I got invited to these two different things, and uh what is worse than being invited to things?

And there's I get that.

And uh so we've gotta like you know figure out okay, how are we gonna negotiate this?

And what are the what should we do?

And what yeah, and then um uh so all that all that's coming down, all right, Lord, give me the readiness of the gospel of peace.

Don't paralyze me in this strange anxiety.

Um I know I'm secure in you, I know you go before me, I know that I'm not going to miss out or uh mess things up so badly that you can't recover them.

I trust you.

Uh so just to get to that supplication point, you just ask for that.

Um keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

Man, that's a cool thing to do.

Pray for one another.

Um Yeah, Lord, I know Aaron's wrestling with this, Lord, help him strengthen it.

He's got this thing coming up, or I see this great thing.

That's uh that's cool.

Yeah.

Well it it seems like then that's like that's how we wage war for one another.

Yeah.

Like you can't you can't take on all of my things.

No.

But you can you can pray for me.

And you can do it with the sword.

You can do it with all these things that we just talked about.

And then Paul asked for himself, pray for me, that I may declare it boldly.

That's how I ought to speak.

Um this mystery of the gospel.

I'm an ambassador in chains.

What an image.

Yeah.

Uh he himself knew he needed that prayer.

So I'm sure we do.

Uh I think all of the household code that we are talking about requires the uh in in those order like those ordinary places, like your marriage, parents, children, um, friendships, work, masters, uh that's the those are the places we're talking about where you need this armor.

Yeah.

That's where this armor happens.

That's the battlefield that you're on.

Um so you need it for there.

Those are the points of attack.

Lest we get too lost in the metaphor and forget where where the battle takes place.

Uh, it's right in that, it's right in those places, right where you are.

So you need this armor for there.

And that's also like, don't be surprised that those places are are places where it feels like a war zone where you need armor.

You do.

Those relationships are behind enemy lines.

You need armor there.

And the only way that they can possibly work is by the strength of strength in the Lord, by his spirit that he freely gives us.

It's the only hope that those things can work.

So suit up.

Yeah.

Well, it's interesting then in this last part where he says, Um, like I'm I'm writing to you so that you know how I'm doing, and I'm gonna send, I'm gonna send like a messenger.

Yeah.

And so like I'm picturing something in Banda Brothers where they're sending like a one unit to another unit to like relay the word or get it out or in in some senses, like this is kind of what we're doing when we meet with one another.

Yeah, in our in our parishes, and we're like giving it sorry, I'm disgusting.

Yeah, just mic'd up and gross.

I need a shower.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, in a sense, when we are like meeting with each other one-on-one, families, parishes, whatever it may be, and we're sharing our struggles and our victories with each other, we're participating in this battle together.

Yes, exactly.

He says, so that you may know how I'm doing and what I'm doing.

Yep.

Um, because there's likely an element there in which Paul's faith is going to encourage their faith.

Yep.

Um, him, he's gonna be fighting better because of their like how their faith is doing, they're gonna be fighting better because of how he's doing.

Yes.

Man, that's so true.

One of my favorite parts of Lord of the Rings is that the a lot of the stories that happen, or a lot of the way the story is told, is um you're with one group for their adventure, and then the groups get back together and you hear the other adventure by them just telling the story.

Yeah.

I love that.

That's cool.

I I think so too.

And so it'd be cool to uh think of our lives like that.

Hey, we're getting together with these folks, let's hear their story.

Yeah, what's God been doing in your life lately?

Where are the struggles?

Where's Satan attacking?

Where do you feel like Satan's attacking lately?

That's a maybe that question needs to move its way into our um, you know, just more ordinary vocabulary for to gain awareness.

We probably even pick up trends.

Like it, man, it's so often that like strangely, like I'll just hear the same thing from five people in the church in a two-week period.

Sure.

And it's like, oh man, that wasn't um on my radar, and yet it seems to be kind of happening.

Yeah.

Breaking out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, and then we can pray uh against it and to be suited up for it.

So let's do that.

Cool.

Thanks everybody.

It's been a wonderful time going through Ephesians with you.

Next year, we're doing Romans.

So uh we're gonna do it in two different um uh sort of uh semesters, so chapters basically one through seven uh in the spring, and then we'll take a break over the summer and we'll pick up in the fall, and they'll be uh uh eight-week um sort of times.

Uh one eight-week session in the fall, or excuse me, in the spring, and then another eight weeks in the fall.

And I'm so excited for that.

Cool.

Roman study and college personally changed my life.

Like I don't think I would be, um, I certainly wouldn't be a pastor without it.

I wouldn't wouldn't know it was the means that God uh really blew my mind about the gospel and what Jesus did for us.

And I'm just praying that that happens for more and more folks in our church.

So if man, I think if you see the gospel in Romans, you see what it had what it is that Christ has accomplished, how he's purchased our justification, how we receive it by faith, the promise of life in the spirit.

Um man, you can't shake that one off.

You won't want to.

You won't want to.

You'll really like it.

So that's all.

Thanks, everybody.

Thanks.