Armor of God (Part 8) - Pastor Greg Addison - July 28, 2024

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

A beautiful set for us to sing and give praise to the Lord.

We know we say often here that anything that's good that happens in the church, it happens because Jesus did it.

And so it is so important and a blessing for us to be able to praise the Lord, especially when we see things happening like all the things that we're celebrating.

We are really celebrating the work of Jesus in all of that.

And we have been celebrating the deepest and most foundational work that Jesus does in our lives, and that is salvation and our identity in Him in our series this summer.

So we're going to conclude our series in the armor of God.

So if you'll turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6, we've been studying and breaking down each piece of armor and how God wrote this to us through the Apostle Paul as an illustration to explain our identity in Christ.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

This is who we are in Jesus.

This is what he did in your life if you gave your life to him and he gave you access to this.

When we think about who we are, our sense of identity, it is illustrated in the putting on of this armor.

And so Paul uses a very universal picture here.

It is a picture that anyone reading in that time would understand and immediately recognize and see the parallels of the armor of a Roman soldier and their experience and the way that they went about their work as soldiers.

Because of Rome and the extent to which they fought around the world and impacted world history, it has remained a universal illustration.

It's also a universal illustration because as Rome modernized their army and taught these things, really, you can make a parallel to every piece of this armor into how we arm our militaries today.

And so you'll see an illustration of that in a little bit.

But it's just an incredible picture.

And so as we have studied this picture, it is put on the whole armor of God.

That is, get up every morning and embrace your identity in Christ.

Take scripture and understand who you are, what God has done in your life, and that He is sending you out on each day as an example of Jesus.

So let's read again and see what this armor and this picture of armor looks like.

He says, put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the devil.

And again, spiritual warfare is very real.

And it is a part of life.

I tell our church, all the staff, especially all the time, there's a reason that we pray over everything that we do.

There is a reason that we do that, because we are working from our identity as Christians.

We are depending on the Lord to guide us through these things and to empower us through these things.

And so he says, put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the devil.

Because, for our battle is not against flesh and blood, but it is against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of heaven, of evil in the heavens.

This is why, because of the reality of this spiritual warfare, this is why you must, as a follower of Jesus, take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.

And then he breaks it down for us.

Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, and your feet sandal with readiness for the gospel of peace.

In every situation, take the shield of faith, and with it you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is God's word that we studied last week.

Now here's the question.

Once you are armored up, what comes next?

What do you do when you get up, you have your quiet time, you get armored up, now what are you going to do?

You're going to take your armor off and go to work?

No.

Now you are ready to take your place in the army of God.

And what do we do as armored up believers?

Well, the next verse makes very clear.

The whole point of a soldier being prepared for battle is to go to battle.

And how do we go to battle?

Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request.

And stay alert in this with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.

Now you get that word alert.

He's just told us you were walking in spiritual warfare.

The devil is scheming around us, and we are people who've been saved as Christians.

We were born when we were born physically, and then we were born again when you gave your life to Jesus.

And so we are twice-born people walking in a once-born world.

We are living and working to see spiritual revival and awakening take place.

We are in the army of God, and he says, the enemy is against you.

So look, he says, schemes of the devils, we war against rulers and principalities and all of that.

And so he says, stay alert.

Do you see how these are connected?

This is the same passage of Scripture.

Paul is not just having sort of this pedestrian thought process and he wanders from topic to topic.

Remember, the Holy Spirit is guiding him in this writing of this letter to the churches in Ephesus.

And so he goes immediately from being armored up into what we do as the soldiers of God.

Pray at all times, in the Spirit, with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.

Pray also for me.

This is Paul writing, he's the me, Paul the preacher, the missionary, the church planter.

Pray for him that the message may be given to him when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.

And then verse 20 says, For this, the gospel, the preaching of the gospel, I, Paul, am an ambassador in chains.

Pray that I might be bold enough in him to speak as I should.

And so there we have how we go to battle, and we have the mission and the battle plan as we go forward as the armored up soldiers of God's army.

Well, let me illustrate again the best way I can.

These are a couple of the pictures.

I showed them to you last week.

I took them when I was at the British Museum in London on our mission trip a couple of weeks ago.

And you'll see these are actual artifacts in that sort of cutout that they excavated there in Britain from when the Romans came in.

And then you'll see a picture, two different pictures of how a soldier would be dressed at that time.

One type of armor in the chainmail armor, and the other that was the most common that we picture most often, and that are those strips that are bound together with leather and form an incredible piece of armor.

Now, that guy does not armor up like that to go to McDonald's.

He's going to battle and he is prepared for warfare.

And that's the picture that God gives us in this passage of Scripture.

But here's another thing that we have to understand.

Anyone reading this passage of Scripture, when you point out to them a Roman soldier, they are never going to picture a Roman soldier standing by himself.

The power of the Roman army was the technical and strategic way in which they fought.

And they fought side by side as a unit.

They were structured in layered units.

And when they fought, there was a particular way that they fought side by side.

They fought as a unit.

They trained as a unit.

One of the things that made them so devastating, and they were able to conquer most of the known world, is because they were trained as professional soldiers in the tactics that they used, that they always fought as a unit.

There was no Lone Ranger or CIA sniper or some other kind of picture that we have.

There was no Jason Bourne or James Bond in the Roman army.

They fought as a unit.

They prepared as a unit.

They lived as a unit.

And so they were technically sh uh uh prepared and trained and fought as a unit, and that's why they were so effective.

In fact, if you think about that shield as a part of their defense mechanism, we talked about last week how that shield works.

I want to just show you a couple of the formations that they trained them to have and to fight in as Roman soldiers.

These were very common.

When you get a picture of a Roman soldier, you're going to picture these kinds of images.

The image on the top called the tortoise.

What they were doing as they were advancing, if they were under attack from spears being thrown aerially, or bow or arrows that were coming at them aerially, they would structure together where they had a shield in front of them, and then in that structure that they created, guys would have their shields overhand.

I believe Matt talked about that a little bit when he talked about the shield of faith, and it prepared and structured them, and they fought as a unit and they moved as a unit, and there was incredible, effective strategy in the way they did that.

As they advanced forward, one of the advancing pictures that you have is the wedge.

And so what they are doing is they are lining themselves up where their shields are, in a sense, interlocked in a way that they created a force that would move forward in power together.

And again, everyone would understand that in that picture.

When you go from reading about putting on the armor of God into praying at all times and staying alert and praying for all the saints and all of that, that is the same picture.

And what someone in the Church of Ephesus would hear, they would not see the picture of the single soldier.

They would see those pictures.

The orb was a fascinating picture.

If they went to rescue someone, or if they were surrounded, what they would do is they would circle themselves up into a defensive structure where those shields are protecting them on all sides.

And if they were rescuing someone, they could move them forward inside that protective shield, or if they were surrounded, they could protect themselves and they could fight their way out of an encirclement by protecting each other that way.

Now, it's cool to look at pictures, but this is such a powerful illustration.

I want to see if we can't physically illustrate this to you.

So I'm going to ask a couple of the guys in our church to come help me.

They are special friends of ours.

This is Captain Wes Milam of the Fort Smith Police Department.

He is an executive and a leader in our police department here.

And this is Adam Wood, who is a member of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

And so I thought if you're going to learn how to do stuff, you might as well learn from the best.

I couldn't find them, so you guys were glad to help us, right?

Alright, are you on?

Your mic on?

I think so.

Alright, you good?

Am I working here?

Are you on?

I think so.

I'm Jack on your head.

Can you all hear Wes?

We can't hear you.

You're not hearing me?

There we go.

That's right.

Alright, here's what we're gonna do.

I'm gonna take my jacket off so I can play with you guys while you're doing this.

I can work shields, not microphones.

Okay.

Alright, Wes, tell us what these are right here.

Okay, so I'm gonna come stand between you guys so if Adam talks, you can hear them on my microphone.

Yeah, okay.

So here's the deal.

Um what we refer to, what you're talking about, about the uh the wedge and the uh orb, which we call encirclement.

This is all part of what's called field force operations.

And field force operations deals with a mobile field force, and this is a bunch of police officers that deals with civil disturbances, crowd control, things of that nature.

And usually, you know, these things don't come out until things are very, very bad.

Okay, you know in other words, you're in battle.

Pretty much, yes.

Because you notice this isn't thank the Lord, this has not happened so much in Fort Smith.

These have not got any dents or scratches or anything on them because they've never been used.

In other words, don't scratch is pretty shiny new.

That's pretty much it, yeah.

Okay, so um, you know, as you were this whole series that you're talking about, Pastor, about the armor of God.

I kind of, you know, it it this is a perfect illustration, you know.

We put our body armor on before the every shift.

We've got our duty belt and all of this stuff, you know, and we don't have a sword, as it were.

But, you know, you have a you have an alternative, an alternative sword.

Yes.

So anyway, so what this does is police officers, you have this autonomy.

Whenever you get, you know, and I just the usual way to talk about it is is a traffic stop.

Okay.

Somebody I hope probably has been on a traffic stop before.

And um you have all of this autonomy.

The officer is they make their own decisions called discretion.

They can have their own discretion, stuff like that.

You know, you get pulled over, you say, you know, West Milan, the guy uses his discretion to absolutely give you a ticket, because you know me.

Um so that discretion, when we're dealing with the for the field force operations, you have to understand, like you said, we're going into battle.

There is a large group, and understandably, you don't have as many officers as you do the people in the crowd, right?

You know, take this, you've got all of these people here, and you just got us three.

So that one single officer is not going to be effective.

Because one single officer against a large crowd is dangerous.

So you get more people.

And what happens is you have to get up to shoulder and shoulder.

So get your shield come through.

Now, as we're putting these on, just think about this.

Bobby, can you put that picture up from the museum again?

If you can put that up.

I just want to remind you what the shield looks like.

I mean, it looks just like this, it's incredible.

And and they would fight the same way, and so what we're doing here does two things.

It illustrates what this picture was, but it also reminds you, in the beauty of God's word, just how universal and timeless this illustration is for us as we think about this.

So proceed.

Alright.

So Adam's here, you're gonna link up to him, and I'm gonna link up to you, right?

Now, what happens is this makes a wall.

Now, if you picture 40, 50 officers in a row, alright, that you are going to be on this line.

If we wanted to do the wedge, like you were talking about, you were gonna be here, Adam, it's just back here a little bit, you know, and we're still comes back or linked and creating that.

Right.

So the purpose of this is to make sure that you are as one unit, alright?

Um, and what you don't want to do is you don't want to create a focal point because what happens is when you take individual action, you endanger the team.

For instance, something's going on, right, and you want to step forward and take care of something.

I'm the pastor, I'm gonna get out ahead.

What have you done?

You've exposed yourself, but you've also exposed a weakness in the chain by stepping forward and doing individual action.

So what happens is, is in the time when we have to move forward, say for instance we want to push some phelps back, you are going to push your shield out and step and then back.

So it's two steps.

Move, back, move.

Now, obviously, with a little bit of training, you do it as one because, you know, as we go through here.

But I'm thinking my plan is to this.

So well, that works.

Well, that's it.

Well, and that's it.

But then the problem is too, is like, let's say that that, you know, you gotta have that right hand free, but let's say that Adam's left-handed and he had to use the shield in his right hand.

Now, that also gives a little bit of a focal point.

Got it.

Got it.

So we're with you.

So that's that's another important part of that is that you've got to have that one hand free uh for your sword.

All right, show us how we advance again as a unit because that's pretty incredible.

So when you get the thing, it's gonna be you get the command, you push, you step and you push out with your foot, bring your right foot back.

So push together, push together, like that.

Y'all see that?

That's incredible, isn't it?

And then the Romans, without the alternative sword that you guys have, would go over the top.

So you can see as they're in this unit, they could go over the top, they could go underneath, and so you would, it was a devastating deal to see them lined up as a unit.

As a unit.

Thank you guys for that picture.

I'm gonna hold on to this because it's cool.

All right, yeah.

Thank you, Alan.

Thank you, Wes.

And I told Wes after we did that, the sermon should have preached itself already.

Isn't that right?

You were armored, the shield of faith, the sword of the word, pray at all times for all the saints with all perseverance.

And to act on your own is to put you at risk.

And I also love what Wes pointed out.

It also puts the unit at risk.

So I want you to just think about these three simple applications as you keep in mind the picture of this.

The first one is this if this is an illustration of our identity in Christ as believers, this picture of the soul, uh, this picture of the soldier, and the picture of the soldier automatically includes the picture of the unit, your identity as a soldier means your identity is a part of the army.

It is inextricably linked to be a follower of Christ and a part of the body of Christ.

There literally is no scenario in Scripture in which we are defined as lone ranger Christians.

Again, look at the prescription at the progression of Scripture.

Put on the whole armor of God, take up your shield, take up the word, and then you are to always be alert, praying every prayer for all the saints.

You and I are by definition spiritually obligated to each other.

When you give your life to Christ, sometimes we'll say this this way, teaching some new believers, not only are you saved, you have a new heavenly father, and because we have the same heavenly father, you now have a family and brothers and sisters.

We are linked together by the very blood of Jesus Christ and the design of how God has created the church.

In fact, another thing that happens when we are saved, the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of us.

And the moment that you Place your faith in Jesus Christ, the Bible says in the book of Romans, your body becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit.

He comes and lives inside of you.

And one of the things he immediately does is he brings into your life and activates a skill, a talent, an ability, a perspective to do something.

But here's the deal: you only get one.

Again, there are no Jason born Christians.

There are no Lone Ranger Christians.

You get one, I get one, they get one, he gets one, she gets one, she gets one, he gets one, they get one.

And they are spread around the body because the only way the body functions is by each person doing its part.

The scripture says, pray with all perseverance and diligence, being alert and praying for all the saints.

There is no scenario in which you can show up when you want to and not show up when you want to.

There is no scenario, as Wes and Adam and I illustrated, where one of you can get out and go do your own thing.

Not only do you put yourself at risk without the protection of the body, but you have created a weakness in the line of the army.

Second point.

This is further illustrated by the strong language in this verse.

Look at what he says.

First, the word pray is an imperative command.

It is a command that is put in place and that is always put in place.

And if that's not enough for us to make clearly understand in the verbiage of that and the way the verb is structured in that command to pray and continue to pray, he says that you are to stay alert at all times, that you are to persevere.

Perseverance is not something that happens in one moment.

It's not an experience in a particular day or week, even.

Perseverance is something that continues.

That is the nature of what it means to persevere, is that you continue.

And so the structure of this imperative command is supported by the nature of the way he describes our effort as a part of the unit.

You are to take up your shield, and then you are to get in line and stay in line and be alert as a part of the line and pray as a part of the line because it's the only way for the mission to get done.

And then look at the extensive use of superlatives in the scripture.

All, every, all, always.

He is trying to drive home through this strong language that we must be strong members in the body.

That's why the beauty of this illustration is so clear, because anyone reading this scripture would read it, not just the individual soldier, but the line of soldiers.

And depending on what your perspective is, if you're a Roman citizen, the pride and the power of that unit, or if you are an enemy of Rome, the terror of that unit.

As you read and study these things, as Wes and I were talking about preparing for this, one of the things he said is, it's amazing if you have one officer in front of a crowd, man, they are empowered and emboldened.

But there is something that happens psychologically to a crowd when you have a line of officers armored up, shielded up, and they are advancing.

And there is an intimidation to that, there is a strength to that, there is a power that projects force against that body.

And as you read about Roman armies and you study their tactics, it is incredible the amount of times that the enemies would break and run as they began to advance in a unit in one of these deals.

Man, they would come at you and they would take that spear, the pilum, and they would throw that, and people would begin to fall, and then they would advance, and they would advance as a unit in lockstep, coming and coming and coming, and the inexorable march of the line of soldiers coming to you, and enemies would break and run because of the power of that.

That is the picture here of the body of Christ.

It should frighten Satan and his demons to watch the body of Christ, the church of Jesus Christ, who are armored and advancing in line together through prayer to bring the gospel to a world that needs Jesus.

Who's going to come against a church where the church is lined up together in strong membership together, advancing behind the shield of faith, praying back the enemy, and depending on the strength of God, working through the strength of who our identity is and the strength that he builds in the body, advancing the gospel forward.

That only happens with commitment from the body.

Here's the picture.

You don't get a day off in the army of God.

Every day, praying every type of prayer request that there is.

Read what he says.

Praying every prayer and petition.

That means every day we're praising God for what he's doing in our midst.

Every day we are praying for God to protect us.

Every day we are praying to God for him to move in our body.

Every day we are praying for God to protect the people in my Sunday school class.

Or if you sing in the choir, the praise team, or the orchestra, you're praying for the people that you serve with.

If you're a parent, you're praying for the children's ministry and the place where your kids are adding in that learning about Jesus in the children's ministry.

You're praying for their teachers.

If you're in a Sunday school class, you're constantly praying for your teachers who are teaching you the word.

You are praying for the people that you are connected with.

You are praying for your pew.

You are praying for the staff and the pastor.

You are praying for your church.

Every petition that you can come up with.

You are praying the prayers of repentance.

God, forgive me that I missed yesterday and I broke the line.

God, forgive us when we're not brokenhearted over the number of people who need Jesus in the river valley.

God, forgive us when we are not committed as an army advancing the gospel.

It is prayers of guidance for us.

Lord, protect us.

Lord, help us to know where to go and what to do.

Lord, help me see what you've put in front of me.

Lord, as you've opened a door for me to share, Jesus, who else in my unit, in my army unit, are you preparing to go with me as I advance into this moment?

You have to pay attention to the extensive superlatives and absolutes in this passage of Scripture.

Each and every and all and all the saints.

And the body is weaker when we break line with our unit.

And then that just brings you to this conclusion.

It's the question I asked at the beginning.

What do we do when we're armored up?

Well, he makes it clear.

Our identity makes us strong to stand.

I don't break line and I stand faithfully when I am understanding my identity in Christ and as a part of the body of Christ.

I can stand my position.

I can be strong for the people around me.

I can be strong in my walk against whatever I'm going through because of who God has made me and how He has saved me.

Listen, this is one of my frustrations as a pastor, and it always has been.

So please understand how I give this illustration.

We spend an incredible amount of time.

Staff, leaders, deacons.

We spend an incredible amount of time, Sunday school teachers, dealing with carnal Christians who have not been armored up and they are messing up their lives, and they bring the mess for us to fix.

How do we advance the gospel when I am in line with my soldiers and the line that is behind me, the rank that is behind me, and they would advance in ranks.

Here we are, we are advancing as Wes taught us.

We are moving forward, and the rank that's behind that's supposed to make us stronger, is tugging on my leg and my arm and pulling me back out of the line, back here to go fix what they messed up because they were not armored up.

And modern church looks an awful lot like that.

Pastor, fix my finances because I make financial decisions that are bad because I don't tithe and put Jesus first.

Because I'm not a tither, because I don't give to the Lord and I don't acknowledge his stewardship, then that makes me free to make other kinds of financial decisions, and I am wreaking havoc in my finances.

My marriage is struggling because I don't have a perspective of financial stewardship, that everything I have comes from God.

And he's the one that provided me to it, and I must honor him back.

Understanding that our marriages are pictures of salvation, and that it is our job on a daily basis to live out that picture of salvation, and husbands to die on the cross for their wives, and wives to give themselves to their husbands as to the Lord, as Scripture says.

That we are to be raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and we spend more time learning how to hunt, skin a deer, throw a curveball, play basketball, do gymnastics, than we are teaching them to memorize Scripture and to use the sword of God, which is a part of their armor.

And what is going to happen with that next generation of children if we are not teaching them what their armor is and how to use it?

If we teach our children that we can take off the summer when Satan does not, what are we teaching?

How are we standing?

Now listen, I'm not saying you shouldn't go on vacation.

Every family needs to go on vacation.

Enjoy your vacation and don't think about church when you're on vacation.

But nobody has a three-month vacation.

And the scary part is Satan does not take a three-month vacation.

Come to the church for help.

If your marriage is struggling, if your finances are in trouble, listen, we are here to help you.

That's why I said please understand my illustration.

But the point of that understanding that help is to armor up so that you can stand and you can stand your post.

Because when we're drugged back out of the line, the line is weaker.

You pray every prayer and every petition that you can come up with from all of your knowledge of scripture, and that the Holy Spirit can put on your mind, and you pray that for your church, and you pray that for everything going on in the church, and you pray that for every single person in the church that God has put on your heart and on your mind.

Listen, we have been blessed in July.

This has been the coolest July on record.

Have you noticed that?

Let me tell you why that matters.

We have a group of men that come to our church and they have been doing it for years and years and years, and they come here at 6 a.m.

on Wednesday mornings and they pray for you and for our church, and they have been doing it for years and years and years.

Whether we are armored up or not, there are a group of men in our church who are meeting every Wednesday morning and they are praying for the church and they are praying for the advance of God.

And let me tell you what happened.

I told you a few weeks ago that our chiller went out.

The system, the air conditions our air.

Those men have been praying for you, and they have been praying for God to give us a cool July while we figure out what's going on.

I don't believe that's an accident.

I believe there are people in our church who are praying, and because God's people are praying, God is blessing his army.

Now, praise the Lord, as we head into July, we have a temporary chiller that's going to be coming and air conditioning things through July and August.

But let me tell you what, I'd a whole lot rather rest in the prayers of our people.

All this weekend, gunners in our prayer force have been praying for Impact Weekend.

Today, moving forward, navigators and gunners are praying for our students as they are sharing the gospel in Radcliffe.

I'm telling you, when I was in London working through that, we went to that, we what I did, I preached at the church in Ainsford that we're working to help rebuild.

I learned all about Ainsford.

I walked through all of that.

I helped another church team that was there.

Three days in the middle of the week, myself and two pastors from Arkansas led a pastor's conference for English pastors who were coming together in that network.

And so now what happens is we have a network of churches here in Arkansas and a network of churches in England who are working together to advance the gospel in the UK.

I'm telling you, I had prayer partners.

They're sending me texts.

Before I left, people in the church are coming up telling me they're praying for my trip and asking for details and praying for all of that.

And all of that prayer cover matters.

When we got to that pastor's conference, it was incredible.

I sat down with Pastor Joel the night before, and he's shaking his head.

He's the British pastor who's leading this network that we're partnering with.

And Pastor Joel says, Greg, I just don't understand.

He had just gotten a phone call from one of the pastors who needed to be there, and his mother went into the hospital on what became her deathbed.

And he says, he can't come because of that.

He had just gotten another call from another pastor.

He and his wife both had COVID.

I said, please tell them to stay home.

Another pastor, who was formerly an opera singer, got laryngitis for the first time in his life.

And Joel and I immediately knew what was happening.

Put on the whole armor of God that you can stand against the schemes of the devil.

You think the devil wants a partnership of churches in the UK that he thought he had already won?

And now we're fighting on his home turf to rescue the lost and the dying into the kingdom?

Do you think he wants that happening?

And that's when I told Pastor Joel what I tell our staff, that is why we pray over everything.

Because we are depending on the Lord and his strength to guide and to build on those things.

And while I'm thinking about it, if you're interested in going the last week in September, the 22nd through the 30 or the 31st, whatever I remember, Wednesday night, 5.30, we have a meeting.

I need to fill out the trip.

I need to make sure if you can't be there Wednesday night at 5.30, then you call the church, you talk to me, we'll get you in.

We're solidifying that trip while I'm thinking about it.

But listen, our job, using the shield of faith, is to be praying for each other, praying for God's people.

It's great in American life that we have the freedom of speech and the freedom of opinions and everything else.

And we use our opinions and we freely give our opinions, and I love that.

When I told my friends in high school, my best friends, that I wanted to be a lawyer, they said, yep, we get that.

A lot of people will argue with a wall, but you're the only guy who believes he can win.

So I'm all about that.

But listen, we need to spend a whole lot more time talking to Jesus about our church than we do talking to each other about our church.

And we're blessed, we have great fellowship, we have great unity.

But listen, there is never a moment when we step out of line.

And then finally, we are strong to, as a unit, advance into the world with the gospel to rescue the lost and the dying.

Two verses, Paul says, You pray for me as I preach the gospel.

And you pray that God will open doors for the effective preaching of the gospel.

You pray for that I will be bold in the preaching of the gospel.

You pray that God will move in the gospel, and He calls us to be praying in advance of the advance of the gospel army of God.

We are pleading for boys and girls and men and women to come to faith in Jesus Christ.

There is nothing more important than we do.

There is nothing more important than we do than advance the gospel.

And we cannot advance the gospel without the army lined up in lockstep moving forward in prayer, praying for God to open effective doors for the sharing of the gospel.

That's why we've begun praying with our prayer force.

That's why we've begun putting that in place.

Every time Jared Farley or some of our team go to the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith and they go in there to share the gospel, they are covered in prayer because that is how God says the army advances.

Every Wednesday night, when our student ministry is bringing the gospel in the lives of students, and every time they speak at an FCA event, they go deliver popsicles to a band practice or a football practice or they go on campus for a basketball game or a volleyball game or all the things that they do.

They are covered in prayer because the gospel in the army of God advances on the prayers of the army of God.

We are moving forward as we plead for God to show us people who need Jesus and we ask Him to open effective doors in the hearts and minds of people for them to be saved.

Listen, people don't get saved because we're having church this morning.

In fact, most of the people around in the state of Arkansas and places like this in the South, a friend of mine, a pastor, used to say, most people are preaching hardened.

They've heard so much they don't want to hear it anymore.

How do we see people saved in an American culture?

We get on our knees and we advance on our knees behind a shield of faith with the sword of the word of God, praying for God to open doors for people to be saved.

As we pray for our church, anytime we have an event or anytime we have a service where we share the gospel and people are not getting saved, if we are armored up and we are praying every prayer.

And every petition, and we are praying for God to open those doors, and it doesn't happen.

It should call us to get on our knees in repentance and say, God, I have not prayed hard enough for you to open effective doors.

God, we are here to see people saved.

People will not get saved if you don't work.

So, Father, please work.

Open doors for people to hear effectively the gospel.

And let me tell you what.

I believe this with all my heart.

I've seen it throughout my ministry.

We're seeing it today in our own church.

And when we armor up and we get in line and we advance, God moves.

Don't you bow your heads as we close the service this morning?

I have prayed this week and this morning for this service.

I've prayed for God to open effective doors for people to hear about Jesus.

Listen, if you're watching online or you're watching on television, if you're here in the room and you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, this identity, this is yours if you'll give your life to Jesus.

The breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, a shield of faith that protects you.

Listen, if you give your life to Christ, you step into this line.

You are no longer alone.

Not only is Jesus in your life, but you are a part of this family if you'll give your life to Christ.

I'm going to invite you in just a moment to give your life to Christ.

If you're at home or in your car somewhere, listen, you don't have to be at church right now to do this.

You talk to the Lord.

You tell him you know you've sinned and you know that your sin is judged, and you know that's why Jesus stepped out of heaven and went to the cross so he could pay the price for your sin.

Ask him to forgive you.

Surrender your life to him.

Tell him you want to be a part of this family of God and trust him to save you.

If you're here in the room this morning, in a moment, I'm going to pray, and God's people are going to stand and they're going to sing.

And as you watch this group stand and sing, you think this is the army of God, and I want to be a part.

And come and give your life to Christ.

Lord, we have prayed in preparation for today, in preparation for Impact Weekend and all the things they have going on, in preparation for our students on mission at First Radcliffe, and we're praying for this service.

Lord, make the gospel effective in the lives of people.

Just as Paul said, Lord, we are praying that you were open the hearts and minds of people to hear about Jesus and salvation that comes only through him.

And Lord, we pray for people to be saved.

Impact Weekend, First Radcliffe, hear all that we're doing.

Lord, we depend on you and we ask you to move and lead people to faith in Jesus, our Savior.

It is in his saving name we pray, and all God's people said.

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.