Fight With The Word

I'm going to start by reading the entire passage that we have been studying over the last two months on spiritual warfare from Ephesians chapter six, and we will wrap up our study of this passage today.

God's word reads this way Ephesians chapter six, starting in verse ten.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the evil 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 heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and praying at all times in the Spirit with all power and supplication.

To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

Those last couple verses, verses 19 and 20, remind us that this letter that Paul wrote to the church in the city of Ephesus falls into the category of what we would call the prison epistles or the prison letters.

Paul wrote this.

What he said in verses 19 and 20 wasn't a metaphor.

He was in prison because of his faith and commitment to Jesus.

And it is from that perspective that he writes to us and that he writes to the church and he tells us how we're going to fight against the evil one who is constantly fighting against us.

And today we'll focus on the last part of those verses.

This week, on Wednesday night, I was sitting on the bed in my room and I was watching baseball because I have a problem.

I never get tired of watching baseball, even when my team is done.

But at this point in life, I'm used to them not playing any farther.

Milwaukee Brewers, first baseman Jake Bowers, had one of those weeks that every athlete dreams about.

On game three on Wednesday night in the seventh inning, his team was down to the evil Los Angeles Dodgers.

Who had beaten them in the playoffs the year before the Dodgers beat the Brewers.

His team was down and in an 11-pitchet bat.

That's five foul balls, and he finally got one that he could handle.

He hit a two-run home run to put his team over the top, and they held on to win that game.

The Brewers would go on to win the next day, and they would win that series, and they will be playing in the World Series starting on Friday.

Jake Bowers was given the most valuable player award from that whole series because of his performance both on offense and on defense.

And after that game on Wednesday night, when he hit the game-winning home run, the announcers asked him, they said, Jake, you guys were in this position last year, but you lost.

This year you're winning.

What's the difference?

He says, This year was different.

He says, the belief is simple.

Or the difference is simple.

We believe in ourselves.

Last year we were just happy to be here when we flew into Los Angeles to keep playing the Dodgers for what would have been the last two games.

We felt like we were flying to a funeral.

We were just glad to be where we were.

But this year, we expected to win.

We trusted in the work that we had done and that we expected to win and that we could play with anybody.

And you could see it in the way that they played.

They were loose, they were aggressive, they expected to win.

They weren't stiff or scared.

The moment wasn't too big for them.

They weren't just trying to survive.

You see, there's a difference for us, both in sport and in life.

You know, life, the things that are matters, sports are the things that we just distract ourselves with.

There's a difference between playing to win and playing not to lose.

If you're a football fan, you see what happens when your team is playing not to lose, with all kinds of upsets and everything that happened in college football yesterday.

And many of you know I hail from Atlanta, so all I have to say about playing not to lose instead of playing to win is 28 to 3 in the Super Bowl years ago, that I still haven't recovered from that.

You see, when we start playing not to lose, we play in a pre-vent defense, and everybody in football rolls your eyes and they go, Why don't you do what worked the whole time, getting you the lead?

Why are you changing your strategy?

Why are you allowing the other team to do whatever they want with the ball?

You start playing scared.

You start making different decisions, you stop attacking, you stop doing what you did to get you there, to get you the lead, and you're no longer playing to win, you're playing not to lose.

And that mindset, that perspective, makes an enormous difference.

You see, the way that we think impacts the way that we act.

And the way that we act, it produces the things that become the events in our lives.

And if we're just desperately hoping not to lose, our perspective is going to be skewed.

Too often, we as Christians can approach this world that way.

Or to talk about how we've been framing it in this study, we can approach spiritual warfare that way.

We're playing not to lose.

Just keep your head down, protect yourself, try not to get hurt.

Maybe if we survive long enough, Jesus will come back and get us out of here.

But that is not the picture of the life that God has called for us to live, nor is it the one that He gave us in this letter in the book of Ephesians.

In this study, we've learned that we're to stand in the strength of the Lord.

We've prepared ourselves with the truth of the gate-saving message of Jesus.

We're told to guard our hearts and minds.

We're to have this shield of faith around us when the flaming arrows of the evil one are coming.

And every piece of this spiritual armor that comes from God reminds us that God has not left us defenseless in a battle that we can't see.

God has given us things to protect us and to guard us.

And Paul reaches the final movement here as he closes this book of Ephesians and he puts something in our hand and he puts prayers on our lips.

He says, Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and then saying, praying at all times in the Spirit.

So very simply, as we wrap this up, but we keep living it out, what we are called to do is fight with the Word and stand in prayer.

Fight with the Word and stand in prayer.

Let's say that together.

Fight with the Word and stand in prayer.

It's the word, it's the truth that comes from God that gives us our direction, that gives us our meaning.

It gives us our understanding not of just of ourselves, but of this world and of God and how we're to interact with him.

And then we're going to take that truth, what he's given us about who we are and about what he's called us to do.

And we're going to stand in prayer with him.

You see, that moment comes where just standing our ground isn't enough, where God wants us to charge forward, to fight back.

And that's what we're going to do with the sword that God has given us.

Last week we talked about the helmet, and we talked about the shield, how we protect our minds, and how we protect ourselves with the shield of faith that we have that comes from God and its power comes from God.

But there's another connection I want to make there.

You see, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 8, Paul talks about the hope of salvation.

1 Thessalonians 5:8

This helmet of the hope of salvation to protect us.

There's a future confidence that is wrapped up in that imagery about what we are told here.

We know where this story is ultimately going, that sin doesn't have the final word.

Death doesn't have the final word.

The evil one does not have the final word.

Satan doesn't get the final word.

Our final word rests in the hope of Jesus.

And there is hope in our salvation.

But salvation isn't just something that's waiting for us someday.

Salvation is in the right here and right now, every day in how we live and how we interact, and how we treat people, and how we respond and how we think and how we orient our day, should be impacted by the hope of salvation that we have.

In fact, if we back up just a little bit earlier in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8, it says this.

Ephesians 2:8

It says, By grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God.

This gift of salvation that is given to us, we can have great confidence in it because it came from God, who is the giver of all good gifts.

In the work of what Christ has already done to protect our minds with the helmet of salvation and to guard our hearts.

And then what Paul wants to put into our hands is the truth that comes from the mouth of God.

The same God who spoke and the day and night existed.

The same God who spoke and he separated the land from the seas and he created everything that we see.

His word is powerful.

And he gives that to us, and Paul calls it a sword.

When we think about a sword, I haven't gotten any many sword fights in my life, at least not as an adult.

What about you?

You know, we think of a sword, these great big, huge things that we see fighting with on TV, and there's these giant two-handed swords that are big and heavy, and you have to swing both of those.

But what Paul would have had more in mind was the Roman sword that was a lot smaller.

It was made to be used in close hand-to-hand or sword-to-sword combat to be able to be used and controlled with one hand when the enemy got really close.

Because if you got a big four-foot sword and the enemy's right here on you, it's a whole lot harder to swing that and to hit in a way that's going to cause some damage.

This sword that Paul would have had in mind was for close quarter combat.

And when spiritual warfare gets close, temptation gets close, fear gets close, lies get close, addiction gets close, there's a voice telling you to compromise.

It doesn't always shout from across the room, sometimes it's right behind us.

And it sneaks up on us.

Sometimes that temptation sounds like our own thoughts, other times it sounds like choices that we think nobody else sees.

When we're tired, when we're frustrated or lonely or angry or discouraged, or we think it's not that big of a deal.

And there in those moments, in those close quarters with the enemy, when that is when Paul is telling us and imploring us to take the sword of the Spirit.

This isn't decorative armor.

The sword is there because every battle the enemy becomes close enough to cause damage.

And we want to be able to fight back and to defend ourselves.

A sword can be used as a defensive weapon to block the blows that are coming in, but it can also be used as an offensive weapon to go on the attack and to drive back the enemy.

And that's why we are able to fight with the sword.

Fight with the word that comes from God.

That is how we fight our battles.

That is how we have strength.

That is how we can have ultimate victory because the power isn't in you.

Well, it's not from you, it's not from me.

But as Christians, it is in us, the Holy Spirit of God promised to every believer to be in us so that we can have God's word and so that we can understand it.

Paul is very precise with the language that he uses here.

The truth was the belt.

Righteousness was the breastplate, faith was the shield, salvation was the helmet.

But what he doesn't say here is that the sword equals the spirit of God.

He calls it the sword of the Spirit.

And he tells us that the sword is the word of God.

The Spirit is the source of the Word, and the Spirit is the one who gives the Word its effectiveness.

You see, my friends, we're not wielding our own cleverness, our own ideas, our own solutions, our own plan.

At least we shouldn't be.

We're not trying to come up with an argument that's impressive enough to defeat darkness on our own because we just simply don't have that in us.

God has spoken.

And the Spirit of God uses the word of God to expose sin, to confront lies, to convict hearts, and to bring truth into the places where darkness has taken hold.

And one of the things that we established in the beginning of this series, and we read it again, and I've mentioned it a lot, as we have studied it, people are not the enemy.

The enemy will use people, and sometimes the enemy will use us.

But people are not the enemy.

The enemy is the spiritual forces of evil that are all around us in this world, and we have to remember who our enemy is.

That matters, and it's so important because Paul has given us this weapon.

God has given us this weapon of his word, the Bible, that we have access to.

We have access to his truth.

And we have this mighty, powerful thing right at our fingertips and in our hearts, and we need to know how we're supposed to use that.

And one of the things that God does in his word is that scripture doesn't give us permission to attack other people.

We're not to use the Bible as a club to humiliate somebody else or win an argument or prove how spiritually mature we are.

But what the sword, this word of God does is it cuts through lies.

It cuts through falsehood, it cuts through deception and temptation and everything that sets itself against what is true and holy and righteous and good and trustworthy that comes from God.

And sometimes the first thing that the Word of God will cut is me.

When we're paying attention to what God has said and to what God has provided for us, the word of God is sharper than any double-edged sword, able to divide joints and arrows, soul and spirit.

And if it can attack others, it can cut us as well.

We're always to be open to what God is teaching us in His Word.

So before I use the Word against the lie that's out there, I need to let it expose the wrong that's in my life, my pride, my bitterness, my excuses, my compromise, my sin.

And allow the word to do a work in me before God uses it to go do a work in somebody else.

What our enemy would love to do is for us to know the Bible well enough to sound religious while never letting the Bible change us.

The pursuit of following Jesus is about transformation, not just knowledge accumulation.

We do need to know what God has taught.

He went to the trouble and the work of giving that to us, his inspired word for us to know how we're to live and how we're to know about him and where we came from and ultimately where we can go and how we can have peace and hope in a world that is lacking it all the time.

But what it is called to do is to transform us, to make us different.

As we lay our will down and we turn it over to the Father, the Word helps us in the battle.

Paul calls the sword this word of God.

And he uses a very specific word there for the word word.

It's not the normal word logos that we read in the Bible, and not to build a whole biblical theology around the one specific word that he uses here, but this is not a picture of God's word lying unused on a shelf.

This is a picture of God's word being brought into the moment, the truth believed, the truth known, the truth proclaimed and obeyed and acted out.

And that's exactly what a story that we see Jesus did at the very beginning of his ministry in the wilderness.

When he went out into the wilderness for 40 days and he was tempted by the evil one, and Satan tempted him, and with every response, Jesus answered Satan because Satan was twisting the word of God to use it against Jesus, but Jesus knew the word of God because he was the word.

And he said, No, no, no, no, it is written.

And he responded to Satan, twisting God's words with the proper use of God's words.

He directly brought the word of God into the moment of battle.

Now, having a big giant sword, I'm sure some of you has have a sword at home, maybe more guys than girls, but you never know, right?

We like to collect things sometimes.

But a big giant sword hanging on the wall isn't going to do us a lick of good if we don't know how to use it.

And if we can't get to it when there's a threat.

The Word of God is designed so that it is right there with us, so that we can use it whenever the enemy is around us.

And he's very clever, and he's very sneaky, and other times he's very bold and he will announce what he is doing and challenge us to come after him.

Which is why God has told us about his word and how we're to hide his word in our heart, so that we may not sin against God, so that we will know right from wrong, so that we know how we are supposed to behave.

We have to be willing to pick it up and to know how to use God's word.

This next fact will come as no surprise to you.

In all the studies that have been done, both historically and more recently, the number one factor for people who are growing in their faith in Jesus is Bible engagement.

Spending time in the Word of God regularly and allowing that to form our minds and our hearts and to shape our actions.

We have more access to the Bible than any generation that came before us.

We have printed Bibles, study Bibles, Bible apps.

I have, I think, six Bible apps on my phone.

I don't know why I have that many on there.

We have audio Bibles and reading plans and sermons and podcasts and thousands of resources at our fingertips.

Access to the word of God is not our problem.

Applying the word of God and allowing it to engulf us and to surround us and allowing the word of God to get into us and change us is our biggest problem.

Because everybody's, every day, somebody is telling you how you're supposed to live your life.

Every day there are voices that are telling you what is true, about what will make you happy, about what you should fear, about what matters and about what doesn't matter.

And some voices are loud, some voices are persuasive, and some voices are subtle, quiet, just as destructive.

Sometimes things are repeated so often that we they eventually start sounding true to us.

And that is why when we fight, we are to fight with the word of God that does not change.

And then Paul reminds us and he tells us he doesn't just stop with the sword, he moves immediately into prayer.

He says, pray at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.

And what I don't think Paul is doing here is giving us another piece of armor here, but we what he is showing us is how armored Christians live.

How all the time and through all things, prayer is not another piece of armor.

Prayer is how the armored Christian lives.

It is our source to God.

A soldier in a battle can't lose contact with the one giving direction, with the one that is in control, with the one who has the knowledge of what is going on, the one who knows the plan.

And we can't afford to do that either.

Christian writer Oswald Chambers wrote it this way about prayer.

He said, prayer is the battle.

Another said this about prayer.

He called it a wartime walkie-talkie, not a domestic intercom.

A wartime walkie-talkie, not just a domestic intercom.

Both of these images fit this passage of prayer and what Paul is talking about, and what I come to understand about our access to God through prayer, it's not just something that we tack onto the end of the end spiritual work.

It is the spiritual work.

Prayer is a dependence when we are on the battlefield.

If we just look at how the language is used right here, Paul says, pray at all times.

We're called to pray with all prayer and supplication.

We're to spray to pray in the spirit.

We're to keep alert and to be paying attention.

We're to pray with all perseverance and for all the saints.

And to me, that doesn't sound like an occasional religious habit.

That doesn't sound just like a routine that I just hit play on and I just do this prayer that I've memorized and it never changed.

But what it becomes is us sounding like a way of life, having this language of prayer, talking to God.

And notice how beautifully the passage comes full circle.

We began in verse 10 that it says, Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his power and his might.

And he ends with his focus on prayer.

And those are so connected together because his power and his focus and his might and his way come from our connection to him, and we can't know his way if we're not listening.

I need to be willing to listen to what God has to say.

We don't win spiritual battles because we become spiritually impressive.

We stand because God is strong.

We fight with his word.

We pray in his spirit.

Another one of the details that happens here is this language that I find especially challenging when Paul says to pray with all prayer and supplication.

There's this broader word that's used for prayer for communication to God, but the word translated here supplication or request is used in the New Testament specifically for requests made on behalf of someone else.

So Paul is reminding us, and God is telling us, our prayers are not just self-focused.

At least the healthy ones shouldn't be.

What we are called to do is to pray and to cry out to God and to not just pray for ourselves and not just to offer God thanksgiving and praise for what He has done, but we're to make all supplication and request for other people and for other believers.

If you were to audit your prayer life, how much of your prayer is just about you?

Unless about the kingdom of God or people around you who aren't yet believers.

Spiritual warfare isn't just about protecting ourselves.

Part of our responsibility is to hold up that shield of faith to protect other people.

Paul tells us to keep alert, to stay awake, to know what is going to happen here.

When somebody else's faith is weak, somebody who is following Jesus close to them can help remind them about what is right and true and help them carry the word of God.

When someone is walking through grief or addiction or fear or sickness or spiritual attack, the church doesn't simply say, I hope you make it.

We surround one another with prayer and with the truth of God's word, and we pray at all times in the Spirit of God, and we fight these battles with the word of God, not with our own strength.

That is why all of these components are so important that they come together.

Because we're to stand guard together with one another.

We're to step out of here for just a moment and go back to a story that happens in the Old Testament early on in the nate in the history of the nation of Israel, the people of God.

Where Samuel was called as their leader.

It's right, they hadn't called their first king, who'd be a man named Saul, but Samuel was still the one who God was communicating through, and Saul hadn't taken the throne yet.

So he was this leader that everybody looked up to for God's people and the people of Israel.

And in 1 Samuel 12, 23, Samuel says this to the nation.

He says this to the people.

He says, Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you.

Samuel took his responsibility to pray with God for other believers so seriously that he knew it would have been sinful for him to not pray for God's people.

It was his responsibility before God.

What if we believed that about one another?

What instead of saying, I'll pray for you, we actually did it?

What if we were there with the people praying for one another, for your marriage, your kids, your family, your recovery, your grief, your temptation, and knowing that there are people who will pray for you?

And I will tell you here, friends, at this church, there are people who will lift you up in prayer if you give them the opportunity, if you give them the chance.

There are some mighty warriors of God who pray constantly, and that we can be encouraged by the way that they pray, and we can shape and deepen our prayer by relying on other believers to pray with us and for us.

Standing in prayer means praying, even when you're tired.

It means praying when you have not yet seen the answer.

Sometimes we pray for weeks and months and years and decades, and we continue to pray because prayer is that greater spiritual work.

Perhaps we still find ourselves saying, God, you haven't answered this the way that I wished, but I am still going to choose to trust you.

I still believe that you hear me.

I believe you're at work even when I can't understand and I can't see.

So that is why we fight with the word.

And when we fight with the word, we're going to stand in prayer because God has given us prayers in his word.

When we don't have the words to pray, there's prayers in Scripture that we can take and that we can offer over to God.

As we started, I pointed out the obvious to us that there's a difference between playing to win and playing not to lose.

For eight weeks we talk about standing and about standing because of what matters.

And standing doesn't mean hiding, it doesn't mean retreating, it doesn't mean playing prevent safe things, hoping that we can just make it until the clock runs out.

It's about being ready to attack.

Three years ago, I had an opportunity to travel with some other believers over to Israel and to tour some of the holy land.

It was a fantastic experience.

Never spent 12 hours on a plane before.

That's not overly fun.

But in our journeys, we went to this ancient city of Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus spoke these words, and we can record, we can read in Matthew chapter 16, verse 18, where he says, And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Matthew 16:18

Jesus to Peter, talking about the gates of hell not being successful.

And he said that in Caesarea Philippi.

The city is also known as Pan, and Pan is a pagan god that people would worship and they would offer sacrifices to Pan.

And as we were there in Caesarea Philippi, we went to this carved-out place on the mountain, and here is a picture of what they referred to in the first century as the gates of hell.

They believed that spiritual evil forces came and went from here.

There were these carvings in this mountain where they would offer sacrifices, and many believed that this was the boundary between this world and the gates of Hades.

So it was at this place, where pagan sacrifices were offered to a false God that doesn't exist, that Jesus took his disciples and he says, On this rock, this truth of Jesus, I will build my church, and these gates that you see right here will not prevail against it.

That is what God is calling for us to do.

That is how God is calling us to live.

You see, gates don't advance, they try to keep something from getting in.

Jesus didn't picture us as the church backed into a corner, barely hanging on while all of hell and the spiritual forces of evil attacked us.

He said, I will build my church and we will prevail.

God has given us this great confidence because Jesus is the one who's doing the building.

Jesus is the one who has already conquered sin and death.

Jesus is the one who went to the cross and rose from the grave.

We're not fighting as though the outcome is uncertain.

We stand and we move forward because our confidence is in him.

We stand in the power of Jesus.

So for two months we have stood and we have prepared and we have guarded and we have trusted.

And now Paul's us to take this word and to fight with this word and pray.

We're not called to play, not to lose.

We follow a king who has already won.

The king has already won.

And we all have to make a decision in our lives about what we're gonna do with Jesus.

This God man who claimed to be Savior, who claimed to be God, who came to this world and lived this perfect life.

And for some of you, the decision today could be taking the most important step that you have ever taken.

And you're gonna surrender and lay your life down and turn it over to Jesus.

And the way that the Bible consistently points the picture of what that looks like is you're gonna confess Jesus as Lord and lay your life down in the waters of Christian baptism.

And through that work, God's work in baptism, he saves us.

And he washes away our sin and he connects us with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

And when we come to the end of ourselves and we recognize that it is not about me, but it is all about him, and God, I don't have anything left to give.

And I'm gonna trust you with my life.

What God does is that He demands a response from us.

Jesus died for your sin.

He buried, He was buried and rose from the grave.

And baptism, it's not just a graduation ceremony for people finally who got their lives together.

It is us recognizing that I cannot do this on my own, and I need power from on high, and I need a savior, and I cannot save myself.

And if you've been putting that decision off, stop.

I'd love to talk with you more about that.

Maybe you believe, but you've never surrendered.

Maybe you're interested in Jesus, but you've thought, maybe, well, someday I'll do that.

The normal response to following Jesus is to lay that down and to get wet, to be immersed into the body of Jesus and to have your sins forgiven by God's mighty saving work.

Jesus doesn't call you to almost follow him, he calls you to surrender him.

So as we finish up our study here, but we're not ever gonna put this away, are we?

We need to remember what God has taught us in his word in Ephesians chapter 6 about how we're to fight against the evil forces that are all around us, yet we are fighting with power that comes from God.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

And we're gonna win because we are on his side.

And Ephesians 6 tells us that ultimately it is God who gives his people everything that they need to stand.

It is his truth that holds us steady, it is his righteousness that guards us, his gospel that prepares us, his faithfulness that shields us, his salvation protects us, his word in our hands, his spirit is with us, and prayer keeps us dependent on him and on one another because we are not designed to do this by ourselves.

We can stand in his strength and carry his word and carry one another's burdens and keep moving forward because Jesus is the one who is building his church.

And when we have done everything, stand and stand firm in what God has done.

Not because we are strong enough, but because the Lord is.

So we will fight with the word and we will stand in prayer.

Let's pray together.

God, you challenge us and you teach us, and you have given us what we need in this life.

You have shown us what it looks like to follow you.

God, in all of our mess and all of our imperfections, and the ways that we fall short, and the ways at times we will choose to do evil.

God, you still want to work in us and through us.

God, I pray that every time that we encounter the Word of God, we are changed by it.

God, give us this deep desire, this appetite to hear from you.

May we have this longing, God, to hear from you and to know your ways so that our life here becomes different.

God, we may we proclaim what you have done.

God, may we stand in the strength and the victory of Jesus, fighting off the enemy with the sword of truth that comes from your word.

God, thank you for not leaving us defenseless, but giving us everything that we need for spiritual victory.

And in Jesus' mighty, powerful, loving name, I pray.

Amen.