This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Wintersprings, Florida, where Reverend Kevin Labius, our senior pastor, today's message is part 18 in a series on the book of Ephesians titled, Blue Prince. This sermon is taken from Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10-20. 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 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 and the 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 as 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, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer 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 boldly as I ought to speak. This is the word of the Lord. At this time, children, kindergarten through third grade can go and enjoy a time of children's worship if you their parents would like and if you'd like your children to stay here, by all means, have them stay with you. If you are brand new to Willow Creek and this is the first time your children are participating in children's worship, would you also go ahead and rise up, introduce yourself to our staff so that we can make sure your child is safely delivered back into your care at the conclusion of the service. Children are picked up in the gymnasium after the service. I'm going to ask you to look in obviously your Bibles to the Book of Ephesians chapter 6, but we're going to be first looking back at something we've seen in Ephesians chapter 2 and so I'll ask you to kind of keep a thumb there in Ephesians 6 and then we'll be going back to Ephesians 2. Let's pray as we open up God's Word together. Our Father, we thank You for the way that You have so graciously provided for us in our salvation, being justified and adopted freely by Your grace. But Lord, we thank You that Your grace extends to not only those once and for all declarations, but You remain committed to us throughout a process of sanctification. Our growth in grace and You preserve Your people through that, moving them onward toward the glory that awaits them in Christ as You wrote through the Apostle Paul to the church at Philippi when You begin a good work, You see it through to completion. And Father, You've given us means toward those ends, one of those means, the armor of Your Spirit. Lord, would You help us to understand the nature of this armor and the nature of the conflict in which we are engaged in this present evil age and Lord, would You help us to bring You glory and honor even as we advance the truth of the gospel not only inwardly, but outwardly. We pray it all in the precious name of our Lord, our Savior, our brother, our King, Jesus Christ. Amen. This morning, we reached the penultimate message in our consideration of Paul's letter to the Ephesian church. And characteristically, Paul's letter began with a series of doctrinal truths that midway he turns toward their practical application. He does this in his letter to the church of Colossae, the Colossian letter. He does it in his letters to the Corinthians. And Ephesians is no exception. The first three chapters unpacking theological truths. And then the final three chapters showing their practical implication. Another way of saying it is in Pauline thinking in the way that Paul thinks the gospel that works inwardly, the message that we can be forgiven and reconciled, renewed to our former standing before God, a position of innocence before the throne of God, and even much more than that, that we can be exalted before the throne of God by his grace. That inward message of the gospel doesn't rest only inwardly. It radiates outwardly to every sphere of life that we touch. As we are transformed individually, every relationship, every sphere of life that we touch is also transformed. And for that reason, Paul, in the second half of the book of Ephesians, goes on to say that marriages, parenting, the workplace, all of these various representative spheres are transformed when the people of God enter into them. So for instance, maybe you remember a time when in your marriage you did not fear God. You were not reconciled to God. You were not being renewed in his image. And the way you related to your spouse was characterized by a lot of self-centered thinking. It's very natural. We're all fallen. We all stumble in many ways. We're self-centered in our fallen nature. And maybe you remember a time when you viewed your spouse maybe as a functional savior even. Somebody that would provide for you the comfort, the enjoyment that can only truly be found in God alone, you heaped upon your spouse unrealistic expectations. Maybe you remember a time where you were quick to acknowledge your own fallenness, but your expectation of your spouse was that they be perfect. And then you came to faith in Christ. You were convicted of your sins deeply. You saw God's forgiveness and you received it and you were overjoyed and the grace you received became slowly but surely the grace you could show even your spouse and your marriage was transformed. Now, some of you today are probably thinking, wow, that's not so awesome. I love to see that, hasn't happened yet. But some of you know that it can happen. That does amazing things through the gospel's power. It works inwardly but radiates outwardly. Maybe you remember a time as a parent when your expectations on your children were entirely too high. You violated the command, maybe as a father, against exasperating your children. Because you look to your children to provide, that which only God can provide, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of standing, a sense of acceptance. And you viewed your child's behavior as disappointing, poorly reflecting upon you. You weren't resting in the record of Christ on your behalf. You were seeking to build your own record and your children were props in that play. But once you were free from that, you started to be more gracious to your children. You started to see in them the very same sin that's at work in you. And you knew that you could help your child by not pretending you were perfect or demanding that they be perfect, rather teaching them to look to grace. The grace that you received, that you now show them in greater measure. Maybe you remember a time where as a boss, you treated your employees as commodities, things to use, tools to achieve your dreams. But then the message of the gospel radiated within your heart and outwardly and reminded you that whatever you possess is a gift from God, that you own nothing. And the people that work for you are entrusted to you, not for your care, but for their care. That even as you lead them, you're a servant of God and therefore a servant of them. In all of these things, in whatever way, into whatever degree, what we see is the gospel is not only a private internal message. The gospel is a message for all of life. And when it transforms a person inwardly, it radiates outwardly from them every sort of life that they touch. Now do you think the devil likes that? He hates it. He despises it. And the devil can't thwart the purposes of God. The devil can't reclaim you, God's child. You've been transferred forever from a kingdom of darkness into a kingdom of God's own son. And you can't go back. When God placed his Holy Spirit within you, he sealed you for the day of redemption. It's complete. It's assured. It's irrevocable. Satan can't reclaim you, but he can harass you. He can seek to limit the radiating implications of the gospel. He can't stop what God has done in you, but he can try to slow, stimey, and frustrate what God can accomplish through you. The Apostle Paul back in Ephesians 2, that passage I mentioned before, actually outlines three principal enemies of the Christian. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 2 through 3. Let me read these to you and listen carefully what he says. He says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins. Formerly before you knew God, you were dead in what you once walked following the course of this world, enemy number 1. Following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, the devil, enemy number 2, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, enemy number 3, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Satan opposes every work of God's spirit in the gospel message, its application, its implications. He opposes them through a world system presently under his dominion. He opposes them directly in the demonic realm, and he opposes them even in our own flesh, enduring our sinful nature, toward that which is opposed to God. The Ephesian Christians knew these enemies very, very well, and I want to look at all three of them with regard to the Ephesians and us, the first one, the enemy of the world. The Ephesians lived in a city and a region that was defined by gross paganism in idolatry. If you remember our first message in this series, you'll remember that in Ephesus there was a temple to the goddess Artemis or Diana. And the Christians rejected the worship of that idol, understandably. Christianity like Judaism is a monotheistic religion. There's only one God. He's eternally co-existent in three persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit, but for the Christian a duality of worship, a syncretism, meshing Christ with Diana was just impossible, it was unheard of. And so the Christians distance themselves from Artemis and in preaching the gospel actually preached a message that would pull people away from their devotion to that cultural idol. Now how did the Ephesian culture receive that? Well, it's not a bit of conjecture. If you want to know, you can turn to Acts chapter 19. You don't need to. You could read it later. In Acts chapter 19, the city of Ephesus is reduced to a riot because they recognize that if Diana Artemis is not the God of the Ephesian people but instead Christ, then not only individual lives change, the radiating implications of that message will change all of society itself. It will restructure families, the economy, the entire livelihood of the city of Ephesus as it was understood for centuries would be turned upside down. Now culturally for us, the particulars of the paganism of the world in which we live are different. We don't worship Artemis. But our culture is increasingly post-Christian. America is increasingly a culture that the gospel does not pervade as it once did. Now Christianity was never, never achieved the utopia here in America. I'm not saying that America at one time was from first to last a Christian nation. We've always been divided in an imperfect world but at one time in America there was something of a Judeo-Christian ethical moral consensus. There was the idea that morality was relatively set, absolute standard revealed by God and while people might have various degrees of personal devotion to it, there was an ethical consensus in America that's evaporating, that's dissolving even as we speak. Now that's not just me, that's many, many others. Dr. Peter Jones is one of the preeminent theologians and cultural apologists on this. Listen to what he says. He says, I believe the West, meaning Europe, America, all of the colonies throughout the globe, wherever Western civilization is gone. He says, I believe the West is starting to look more and more like the Greco-Roman Empire of the first centuries. In the ancient world you have all kinds of different pagan religions, from the Eastern religions to the worship of many, many gods. Now he concludes with this statement, he says, all that is the worship of the earth. What does he mean by that? He means simply this. Is that in the Hebrew mind, in the Christian mind, there's really only two kinds of religion. One that is God-honoring, Christ-exalting, and one that is creation-oriented. We are either going to worship the Creator or the creation. Now even though our worship of creation might take many different forms, there might be an apparent diversity, fundamentally, biblically, we're either for God or we're against Him. And if we're against God, what we've exalted in His place is some form of the creation. Now it might be an idol that we've fashioned with our own hands. It might be an elaborate religious system. It might actually be the exaltation of our own reason to the point of removing from our thought any idea of religion altogether, but whatever it is, something created stands in the place of God. It's just that simple. Paul says that in his letter to the Romans. He said that we've suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. We've traded the truth of God for a lie. We've rejected the Creator, and we've worshiped instead, created things. Now Jesus was just that stark as well. Jesus says in Matthew 12, verse 30, Luke 11, 23, that we're either for Him or we're against Him. There's no neutral standing before the throne of God. We're either for Him or we're against Him. We're either love Him or we hate Him, John 15-18. We're either on His narrow road that leads to life or on a wide road that leads to destruction. Matthew 7, verses 13 through 14. And so as our culture turns away from the Creator becoming increasingly post-Christian and that's thinking, it turns to a variety of alternate stories to explain life, but a variety of different worldviews. And this is the way in which Peter Jones says our cultures becoming more and more like the Greco-Roman world was very polytheistic, all sorts of different gods, all sorts of different stories. And as long as you're sincere, it doesn't really matter what channel you take. You're all going to arrive at the same destination according to the logic of Paul and Christ. That's not true. And to live according to the Scriptures increasingly brings Christian in this present day and age into conflict with the culture around them. We can no longer blend into a general chrysanthem where Christianity is assumed. Now we live counter-culturally more and more because Christianity is not the assumption of our culture. Now what happens when people in our culture turned all these different stories, different religious ideas, different philosophies, even atheism, agnosticism, any number of other isms. What happens? Well, God is no longer on the throne, right? We are. And if we're increasingly autonomous, free and dependent, if we have fought in our mind that we've thrown off the fetters of God and we're just going to do whatever we feel like doing, now we're free to redefine gender, right? We're free to redefine sexuality. We're free to redefine the family structure. We're free to redefine species, even through technology. We're free to redefine good and evil as categories, sociologically, culturally. We prize our reason over any notion of divine revelation where we're liberated, in a sense, quote unquote, to we believe, do anything we want, but the Christian says something different. The Christian message, the gospel message is radically different. It says to a culture living, seeking to live autonomously, no, we're intrinsically dependent. We're creations of a creator, and that creator has created a world and has a purpose for that world and has created the world according to laws, categories, distinctions designed to bring beauty and flourishing into the world he created for his glory. For the Christian, there's a divine, transcendent design and order to gender. There's a beauty informed asexuality. There's a beauty informed to issues of family, to species, to the right use of technology and science, to the questions of good and evil, to the issues of society and culture. The Christian's desire is to live in obedience to the revealed will of God, to realize the creator's vision for his creation, and obviously there's a resulting clash. The world system is an enemy of the Christian faith. The second enemy that Paul describes is the devil himself. Now that's the scandalous notion to us, scientific 21st century Americans, that there is a personal, real spiritual devil, but make no mistake. The scriptures describe this as reality. There is an existence beyond what we see with our eyes and can touch with our hands. There is a real devil. And Paul speaks to them as the prince of the power of the air. In ancient cosmology, the air was the arena of the clash of spiritual forces. And the spirit identifies as clearly the devil. Jesus was politically and correctly spoke of the devil and actually said that those who are not for him are against him and those who are against him are actually as children of the devil. In John 844, Jesus said that those who are opposed to Christ have a will to do their father's desires. In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul echoes that, he says, in their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, keeping them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. Now those who live in the world who are opposed to the purposes of God are viewed by us and should always be not as objects of contempt or wrath, but instead as objects of compassion and pity, as insane as that might sound in the world around us. We seem to be the ones to be pitied, but from a scriptural conception, as Paul wrote to the first century pastor Timothy in 2 Timothy 2.26, he said that those who are blinded by the devil are captives and snared by him. We were once like them. We have no reason for arrogance or boasting beyond that. The actions of those in the world, Paul is getting to a deeper reality, aren't just those actions, they are the radiating influence, not of the gospel, but of the gospel's chief enemy, his lies. For this reason, our passages mourning notes that our struggle is not primarily against flesh and blood, though we know that there's persecution and conflict in the world, places like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, very overt in their attacks against the gospel and those who would see its influence. Our struggle, though, is not ultimately against those forces of flesh and blood, it's ultimately against the dark spiritual force animating them and the world and its system. Paul describes it as Satan himself, so the world, the devil, and then the third enemy, the flesh. When Paul speaks of the former passions of our flesh, he's not dismissing the physical body as intrinsically evil. Sometimes we speak of that as though that which is spiritual and our soul is good and that which is physical and material is intrinsically bad, but remember that God created both and he declared both to be good. Remember that when Christ was resurrected from the dead, a sinless human being, he was resurrected bodily and spiritually. Remember that when he returns at the second coming, his return is bodily and visible. God is redeeming and reconciling all things through Christ, so Paul doesn't have in mind the flesh in general. He's using the term flesh, sarks in a specific way to describe our sinful nature. We're in a conflict all the time. The world, the devil, opposes us from without, but in Paul's thinking, there's a divided force within us opposing the gospel, it's our own sinful nature. Now, some of you have heard of Spurgeon, he's a famous preacher from the 19th century, and he may have read this in my weekly email, but I wanted to share it with you Jim Irwin, one of our members sent this to me. I thought it was so interesting. Spurgeon was apparently teaching a group of seminary students, Hunter Preach, he's called The Prince of Preachers, a fabulous preacher, and one of the students was preaching on this text and went so far in his vivid demonstration of Paul describing the arm of God that he dawned a set of armor himself and then perhaps totally stoked by his fearsome image. He declared to the class, now where's the enemy? And Spurgeon's response reportedly was, he's in the armor. I don't know if you know anything like that, but I sure do. I expect resistance from a world opposed to the purposes of Christ. I, of course, expect resistance from the devil and his minions. What oftentimes shocks me more than those two is my own resistance against the plans and purposes of God that deep down I know for my good. So Paul says for this reason, in verse 10 of our passage, finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. First thing we need to see is that the armor of God is not ultimately about us and our strength, but about God and his strength for us. On the one hand we've been redeemed, we've been declared righteous, we're justified, we're adopted, we're already God's children that can never be lost, but there is a process in which we must move toward the glory that awaits in this present age. We must live in this present evil age and God has commanded us not because we're strong in and of ourselves, but precisely for the opposite reason that we remember to be strong in him and to avail ourselves daily to the means that he provides, not only for our protection, but for our prosperity. Verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we don't 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 realms. Paul invites us to see that hidden behind all the temptations of our flesh and the world is a hidden adversary, a spiritual realm of darkness and a devil, a personal, real devil directing its affairs. He said the same to the Corinthian church and 2 Corinthians 10, he said, for though we walk in the flesh, we're not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare, not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Paul's encouragement to the Ephesians as well as the Corinthians and the Romans is to see themselves as conquerors, not against earthly foes primarily, but against those foes in the heavenly realms. And so verse 13, he says, to take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand in the evil day, and the first thing to do is to buckle the belt of truth around us. We're not living in a world devoid of God's revelation. We're not making up rules as we go along. As Christians, we believe God has spoken about our lives, our gender, our sexuality, our family, the workplace, every spirit of life, and we have his truth to buckle around us. And believing God's truth then becomes possible to fasten all other aspects of the armor to us, the breastplate of righteousness. As God has revealed truth, we know that we have the righteousness of Christ, but we also know that we can share in that righteousness. We can practice that righteousness. Knowing the truth, we can be doers of the truth. You remember with the Bible says, don't be mere hearers of the word, be doers of the word. As we fasten a breastplate of righteousness to our lives, as we walk within the parameters that God is graciously established for our flourishing and our protection, we protect ourselves. Will your marriage be perfect? No. Will it be better off if you make it your desire to honor God in your marriage? Yes. Will your parenting ever be perfect? No. It won't. Will it be better and blessed in as much as you surrender to God and seek His plan and purpose for your children and your family? Yes. The breastplate of righteousness, our share in the righteousness of Christ, is a protector. We have shoes for our feet like the Roman soldiers who wore boots for war, not just sandals, but boots. And in those boots had nails in the sole that would dig into the ground and help them not only stand but hold their position, gain traction to move in war. The gospel frees us. It directs us to enjoy peace with God even as war rages around us. To take up the shield of faith, to leave in the promises of God, the truth of God revealed that when the devil speaks either through the world or through our own fall in the conscience, when the devil speaks his accusation, we can raise the shield of faith and claim the promises that are now ours in Christ. And then finally, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, protecting what is most vital, knowing that even if we stumble in fall, we cannot be lost. God will never surrender His children to the enemy. Kim Riddlebarger wrote this of the passage, Isaiah 59, 17, he ties it with this passage. Listen to what he said, he said, the command to stand is immediately followed by a mention of the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness which is an echo of Isaiah 59, 17, where we read, he put on righteousness as a breastplate. This is of God and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak. In the Isaiah text Yahweh, the God of Israel is displeased because no one in Israel will stand for the truth. Therefore, Yahweh arms himself as a warrior for battle. The point is that no one can defeat Yahweh, Northward is purposes when he prepares himself for war. The same holds true for those Christians who put on the very same armor, which Yahweh himself is said to wear. We will stand because the same spiritual weapons Yahweh himself puts on, he in turn gives us. Now it's one thing to know we have an enemy on the outside. It's another to know that we have an enemy within. After all, God can provide all the armor in the world, but what if my heart is opposed to wearing it or my desire is so fickle and fleeting that I turn away from God enticed by the snares of the devil? Well, that's why Paul concludes this passage with the urge to prayer in verse 18, praying that all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication and to that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, don't only pray for yourself, pray for your brothers and sisters that in the moment of their weakness God would defend them and cause them in their hearts to desire the armor he's provided. Verse 19, and also for me that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, that the radiating implications of the gospel would spill forth into the world around me, for which I am an ambassador in chains that I may declare boldly as I ought to speak. This really is the conclusion to the matter that God would stir our hearts to love him, to trust him, and in loving and trusting, seek the armor that he's provided to willingly wear it and in the day of battle to stand. In the Roman conception of war, their soldiers wore this armor, but the Romans were successful in war, not merely as individual soldiers. They were successful in war because they were experts in strategy and tactics, and one of their premier tactics was a particular formation called the tortoise. And a detachment of Roman soldiers would gather together, they would circle, and men would stand shoulder to shoulder with their shields facing outward to form a circle. Within the center of that circle were other soldiers who would hold up their shields over their head, and then they would bring the shields together so that there were no gaps. And outwardly they looked together like a single unit and their shields like a tortoise shell. My first appearance that appeared like a defensive posture after all it surrounded them with shields on every side and even to the front so that flaming arrows shot at them from above couldn't penetrate within, but their enemies soon found that it wasn't just a defensive posture. It was an offensive tactic as well because the tortoise shell would start moving slowly and steadily toward the enemy. And then through the shields would come swords in close quarter combat. Adequately protective their swords were deadly. They advanced against any foe, and they were fearsome because they held line together. The armor to which God calls us is armor that we enjoy because we have been brought into union with him, it's his armor, but it also brings us into union with one another. And as we stand shoulder to shoulder for the gospel, clothed in the armor that God has provided, we have nothing to fear. God has made us powerful, demolishing strongholds in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that we are not alone in the universe, that we are not making these things up as we go along, and that though the world around us desires to live autonomously, independently of you, and rejects you as we once did, Father, help us to draw near to you in Christ, to depend upon you moment by moment into express our dependence every morning by seeking you in prayer through your word, to put on the spiritual armor to get through the day, not only defending what you've accomplished, but extending and advancing the radiating implications of the gospel for every sphere of life that we touch. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Willow Creek Church is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America. Our website is www.willowcreekchurch.org And our phone number is 407-699-82-11