Good morning Welcome to each and every one of you as we come together to worship the Lord today In spirit and truth as he's called us to do I hope that you have already begun to prepare your hearts and minds as we'll continue to do so But just a couple of announcements. I want to point out to you Let me first of all just again extend a special welcome to any of you that are visiting with us for the first or first couple of times Or you may even be a regular visitor. We're very very glad that you're here Joining us at first press to your church or Chattanooga And if you would like to know more about the ministries or activities of the church There are announcements sheets. We used to put them in the Bolton But for many different reasons now you can you can get a full and Complete unabridged list of the announcements out in the connector As you leave this morning or you can also go online Just a couple of those announcements that I would like to make Make you aware of this morning one is a women's choir day There is a rehearsal this coming Wednesday at 6.30 p.m And then also following the following Sunday may 6 at 10 a.m There will also be a rehearsal and you'll be performing if you choose to be with that group You'll be performing with the choir next Sunday morning at this service at 10.55 service if you'd like to know more about it So that's a great opportunity if you like doing that sort of thing But don't have the opportunity to commit all year long to being a part of the choir Here's an opportunity to be with them for just one Sunday With a much smaller commitment level if you want more details talk to Kelly Stoltz afterward The other is the National Day of Prayer something we hear a lot about the first Thursday of every May as Nash has been designated as National Day of Prayer Been doing that as a nation for many many many many years and this coming Thursday is the National Day of Prayer To lend our support to that effort for those who would like to come together Corporately to demonstrate Their support and obviously to come together in prayer for the needs of God's kingdom The chapel is going to be open this Thursday from 10 a.m. Until 2 p.m. If you'd like to come and pray either individually or even as a small group there will be special prayer bulletins available and Prayer requests concerning first Presbyterians Ministries and Outreaches But you can also attain that material online if you would like to Pray where you are whether it be at home or in other situations you can get those perils on the church website Let's then continue to prepare ourselves for worship this morning for our worship
Indeed in this call for worship there is a call to open our lips and Sing praises to our Lord Jesus Christ This morning as God calls us to worship from Psalm 28 the Lord is my strength and my shield Him my heart trusts and I am helped my heart exalts and with my song I give thanks to him the Lord is the strength of his people He is the saving refuge of his anointed
Hosanna Jesus we come to worship you and to thank you and praise you for your finished and accomplished a toning work upon the cross Lord Jesus we are here to worship you alone Lord we pray that we would adore you this morning as The person that you are and the work that you've completed on our behalf Lord Jesus we pray for your spirit to abide with us pray for your spirit to teach us We pray for Your spirit to guide us in our worship that we may worship you in spirit and in truth And then it may be pleasing in your sight You are our rock and our Redeemer in Jesus name amen
This morning our affirmation of faith comes from the Heidelberg Catechism question 32 It's talking with my nephew the other day it's a senior the Christian school in Knoxville and had a speaker come and Asked him a question said Prove to me that God exists And as he took answers from the room My nephew said Nobody stood up and said by faith I believe This morning It's a simple question But but maybe we make it too complex sometimes So I ask you this morning as a Christian But why are you called a Christian? Because I am a member of Christ by faith and that's a partaker of his anointing That I may confess his name Present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to you him and with the free and good conscience Fight against sin and the devil in this life and hereafter rain with him Internally overall creatures Man you may be seated This morning, I want to just take a few moments as the business of your week has probably If you're like me is giving you little regard to Paul's and reflect upon your own Simfulness and your great need for a Savior so this morning as we take a few moments of silent confession of sin Ask God to reach into the depths of your heart This morning and then followed by that Eric will lead us in our corporate song or confession
It's true The truth is His face As wounds Which mark the chosen one To go I hear my voice in that His thought His face His death The rest of the words His wounds have paid My ransom Ring in our heads as we've just sung them Have they really said in our hearts? Do we really believe it? Lord in print upon us by your word and your spirit the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ to bring your children your sheep your people assurance of pardon assurance in our standing in Christ Lord, we live in a day where the movies and the theaters throw up these amazing fantasies these technological marvels that are Only in our imaginations, but we we dream of having a shield that can be thrown up to protect us from The flaming missiles and harm and difficulties What if we once reflected that you have promised to be our shield To all who take refuge in Christ Straight out of your word and prayers. You are our shield May we take our refuge in you. We thank you for the perfect work of Jesus Christ the second person of the Trinity We thank you for the power of the cross and the victory of the empty tomb that we are Washed and cleansed by the blood of the Lamb We rest in your atonement and not anything that we can bring Lord, what a great shield. What a great
Preservation you have made for your children may we live as those who have assurance in Christ May we not live like the world or in our own fears because of our weaknesses those are real May we live in the strength of Christ alone And Lord even as we speak of these things may we pray even as you taught Your disciples how to pray saying our Father who art in heaven How would be thy name thy kingdom come that I will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our children And lead us not to temptation But deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever Amen Please greet one another heartily in the Lord. Let's once again go in prayer
Lord as we worship you this morning in our corporate service together we see The building blocks of our faith expressed We see that we were created to praise you. We see that we can testify by faith That we are yours and yours alone in a watching world Lord we come to understand that our assurance is clear By faith in Christ and you have put your absolute guarantee on it by the very death and resurrection of your son And Lord we come now even with our request both great and small both silent and verbal And in every other form recognizing that you Have called us to come boldly with our requests Whether they be absolute Celebration of joy whether they be a need Whether they be a burden whether they simply be a need to be delivered From our own struggles Lord all these things we come to you But you've called us to come in Suppocation for one another's needs not to look only on ourselves though. Those are perfectly appropriate to bring before you But they'll also be concerned for one another for we've been given to one another in the body We do pray this morning even this silently many burdens and requests and needs are being lifted up before you're thrown We pray for the Madara's family for Mel Senior as he recovers from very very complicated and in serious surgery surgery this past week We pray for Paul richest family as well as Both he and Joyce have needs and and every one of their children have been struck by various needs physically Or otherwise Lord we we lift them up in this time when it seems that every direction is struggle We ask for your mercy and for your grace and for your sustenance We pray as well for Bill Allen With the complications from his fall or the sweet we thank you that he is recovering and doing well We pray for our senior pastor Tim Tinsley as he finishes up his mission work and returns to us very soon. We pray without incident and safely As he returns to Laura and the family and to the Ministry to the body of first-press tree and in Chattanooga and Lord We know that there are many other things that we could ask for and that are needful We thank you that you Know them all that they do not escape your sight or Your working plan and Lord even as we come with these requests We also ask that you would engage us in the worship with Hearts that are generous in our giving that we would recognize that we do not belong to ourself and all that we have is yours Pray that you would give us hearts like the Macedonians is Paul described that were rich in their generosity may we Experience that kind of expression of our physical resources as well as our time and our talents all of this We commit to you this morning in the name which is above every name even Jesus Christ Amen Fortress is our God to hold on to you You stand with me turning your bibles to Ephesians chapter 6
Ephesians chapter 6 Can stretch your legs just for a second. I'm not reading the whole context we're reading for you one verse that we'll be looking at this morning Ephesians 6 verse 16 and all circumstances Take up the shield of faith With which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one This is the word of the Lord Maybe seated when I was in high school my Brother was home from college my brother Chris He's about my size he and I are kind of the small ones of the family and then we have an older brother who's quite a bit bigger than us and One day where I was I was home We were home in the evening watching I think a college basketball gaming something March Madness game or something and here a knock at the door And I go up to the door and it's about four or five guys that go to my high school that were seniors a little bit older than I was weren't guys that I really hung out with very much they said hey, we're here. We're here. You're having a party I was like, you know me and my brother and one of his friends are watching basketball y'all want to come in We're not really having a party and They're like no, no, it's okay. So they left and so I go back downstairs and we're sitting there And then all of a sudden we hear this loud noise out in their driveway And we're like what was that so we go out in the driveway and look and these guys had jumped up Grab the rim of my basketball goal and broke the backboard And so we were just ticked. I was like, oh man. That's it. Like why would these guys do this? So my so my brother and I are all five ten and a hundred and sixty pounds of us We decide with his frame. We're gonna go find these guys So we knew where they hung out So we decided we get in the car and we take off when we go down to the put put Oh, it's just where everybody hung out and I was a happening place So we go down there and there they are and there were some other guys there that weren't at my house and So my brother defending me gets out says who you broke my brother's basketball goal like what's up with that? So he gets in front of this guy and and I look over at this guy and This guy is as is wide as he is tall and he's all muscle and so I look down at myself and The first time in my life before I'm about to get in a fight my legs were literally shaking And I remember vividly looking down and just going oh my goodness. What is going on here? And I remember as that as that's happening I hear This beautiful noise in the background and it's the rattle of a muffler Coming down the road and I thought I know that noise. That's my big brother's truck And so I'm just holding on Jesus, please don't let this guy hit me or my brother. So my big brother gets here So my my big brother Stewart comes barreling in and he's an ag major had this big old landscape truck comes barreling into the The putt putt there and jumps out of the truck and runs out and moves my brother out of the way stands in front of this guy and he says If you're coming after my brothers, you got to come through me first and it was like My shield is here It was this it was awesome picture It was like they're my big brother and all of my weakness was about to get physically Assalted I needed a shield. I needed someone to stand there and Be my advocate in this morning. I hope you'll see that This morning, I want to point out two things as we look at our text and one is I think we're carrying around some old shields that we need to throw away And the second thing is we need to take up the shield of faith So first of all throw away those old shields There's a great irony here I believe in in our text when Paul says in all circumstances You realize the circumstances that Paul was in It was in prison Chain to a wall riding this letter Saying in all circumstances take up the shield of faith And if you'll flip over with me to second Corinthians chapter 11 he used to have a Baptist preacher it said I love to hear the wings of the angels flutter when people turn the pages of their Bible in Second Corinthians Chapter 11 the context of this is that Most believe that Paul had some critics who claimed that his suffering Prove that he was not a true apostle So Paul is goes into this text we're about to read defending himself Against those who are really those critics were boasting of their own accomplishments Hey, look what we can do look what we did and Paul does something quite different As we'll see he actually boasts in weakness Looking at chapter 11 verse 22 But whatever anyone else dares to boast of I'm speaking as a fool. I also dare to boast of that Are they Hebrews so am I are they Israelites so am I are they offspring of Abraham so am I are they servants of Christ I'm a better one. I'm talking like a madman with far greater labors far more imprisonments with countless beatings and often near death Okay, remember Context Circumstances Paul is in in all circumstances take up the shield of faith These are Paul's circumstances five times verse 24 five times are received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes Less one three times. I was beaten with rods once I was stoned Three times I was shipwrecked a night in a day. I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys in danger from rivers danger from robbers Danger from my own people danger from Gentiles danger in the city danger in the wilderness danger at sea danger from false brothers in Toil and hardship through many asleepless nights in hunger and thirst Often without food and cold and exposure and apart from other things. There's the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches And then he says who is weak and I am not weak Verse 30 if I must boast I will boast in the things that show my weakness Then he goes on in chapter 12 verse 6 Though if I should wish to boast I would not be a fool for I would be speaking the truth But I will frame from it so that no one may think more of me than he sees me in me or hears from me So to keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations a Thorn was given me in the flesh a messenger of Satan to harass me to keep me from being too elated Here is the circumstances. These are the circumstances in which Paul finds himself Circumstances that we read and we think about and we we wonder Paul did you just go into battle your whole life and never take up the shield Where was the protection? Did you go and just leave it at home? Did you leave the shield at home? One man wrote such are the experiences of the man who gave his strength To proclaim the all-sufficiency of the shield of faith who spent his days in Recommending it to his fellow men and his own life was nevertheless Noisy with turmoil burdened with antagonisms crippled by infirmity and crowded clouded with defeat He asked the question can his life be said to be wearing a shield? In his circumstances the answer is really clear Yes Paul was wearing a shield He sits in a room in prison and says in all circumstances I take up a shield, but my shield is a shield of faith The shield Paul speaks of is one that guards and protects the heart It's one that guards and protects the soul It's not a shield that says I don't want anything bad to happen to me It's a shield that says in the midst of all that happens in this broken world I want to shield That will guard my heart that will protect my soul from the evil one What are the circumstances of your life? Pick your firm moment. You've got a piece of paper in front of you. Maybe you can do this draw a line on it and Then start listing on that line on the timeline of your life the circumstances of your life that were significant to you Of dare say a majority of those things that would be on your line would have to do with trials and suffering It would have to do with with difficulty Not that times in my life I keep telling myself this over and over Robert when are you going to stop being surprised by suffering? When are you going to stop being surprised by trials? And the reason I say that is because suffering was the way of the cross Jesus Christ suffered He's called his people into suffering He's if we read throughout the whole New Testament the apostles are constantly saying find joy in your suffering. We rejoice in it There's this there's this part of us. It doesn't really connect with that because part of me is going Yeah, that's that's the reality of the broken world like I don't want things to be that way Then at the same time There's a reality that I'm called to walk the road that Christ walked And they'll walk the road of suffering So I'll ask you this morning as you as you think through those that timeline of your life What what shields along the way did you use? To protect yourself What ones did you pick up Hopefully picked up the shield of faith, but I think oftentimes we pick up Others as well We usually pick up shields to protect our body, but we don't pick pick up shields to protect our soul Maybe you take up the shield of pride When trials and suffering come your way the shield that immediately goes up is defensiveness To protect your reputation Maybe it's a shield of wealth And you think all else fails. I've got money. It's my shield of protection Maybe it's your job For the men you know, it's it's success If you don't succeed then all crumbles beneath you and that you hold up that shield to to people around you in your career and even to your spouse Maybe if you ladies it's a shield of beauty You know one you've created in your head Maybe the one that the world is screaming at you to create
How often do you take time protecting the shield of yourself? Often is that shield up just to protect yourself from bad things happening just to protect yourself from physical harm Now I think in our day and age right often times the shield that we're constantly taking up to protect ourselves We're working out Right we we work out we physically exercise we eat well not saying anything's wrong with those things But sometimes those things become idolatry to us And we spend so much time protecting ourselves physically from harm That rarely do we give a thought I need a shield from our soul So there's two things going on here this morning if you're a believer or a non-believer The reality is you have a physical body that will some way sometime die But you have a soul If you're within the sound of my voice right now, I want you to hear this you have a soul That was given to you by God that will last forever
what are you doing To shield your soul? Are you protecting it? Are you guarding it right we we have shields all over the place in our world We have anti-virus shields for our computers. We want to protect them We have sunscreen that we slap on our kids right and our cells and we want to protect our skin from that We have windshields on our cars. Could you imagine driving your car without a windshield? Right these things we we do and we do to protect ourselves physically And I think the decept the deception of the evil one As he schemes against us is that he loves seeing us take up These shields of the world and these shields to protect bodily harm and they shields that that take us Um and move us into the realm of protecting our own arena Because if he can keep us distracted long enough on our circumstances And distracted long enough that we have this shield that keeps us from getting hurt He can shoot arrows all day long at you And they're penetrating and hitting your soul He loves keeping us distracted A constant attention to the external leads to internal rottenness Let me say that again a constant attention to the external leads to an internal rottenness There's a disease that trees get called heart rot And uh heart rot You don't you look at a tree on the outside and it it buds out and it grows its leaves it bears fruit It's this beautiful looking tree But as if a forester was to come along and take his tool and drill into the tree Take a core sample and pull it back out He'd have the rings and then all of a sudden he'd hit this mush in the middle And pull it out and just be this nasty black substance in there And it's the that's a picture of Of our soul Without a shield of faith Like we we may have it pretty on the outside and we may Gather all these shields for ourselves But in reality what's happening on the inside is we're rotting from the inside out We need a shield that will protect the soul a shield that will guard it and that will heal that inside and replace it with life
Throw off those old shields I don't know what that looks like for you. I don't know what those shields are It's those things that you're trusting in Because I think when Paul gives us the answer to this in chapter 12 verses 9 and 10 Look what he says but he said to me my grace is sufficient for you For my power is made perfect in weakness Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses So that the power of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ then I'm content with weaknesses insults hardships Persecutions and calamities for when I'm weak then I'm strong What is it about this world that no one wants to show weakness That is purely The world putting up shields to protect self Paul in the midst of being attacked by other people Says oh, you're gonna boast about your accomplishments. I mean that's why he says let me throw off, right Hebrew of Hebrew is gone. I'm throwing it off. I'm in Israelite out of here I'm a servant of Christ He says I'm a better one. I'm talking like a madman With far greater labors and he goes on. He's throwing these things off, right He doesn't brag about his accomplishments as a Christian doesn't brag about the strength of his faith Pulling him through all these things. He says if I'm gonna brag I'm gonna brag about the things that show my weakness Because it's in the midst of your weakness. It's in the midst of my weakness that Jesus Christ is exalted That the glory of Christ is seen Please I'm begging you from God's word don't run from your weaknesses Go after him Lord Jesus expose my weakness because when my weakness is exposed the glory of Christ is seen all the more That's the beauty Of taking up a shield of faith So what does it look like for Paul? As we turn to the second point. What does it look like for Paul to take up a shield of faith a shield of power and a shield of protection in all circumstances? Well the historical context of a shield is not this tiny little round shield that you might have seen Roman soldiers carrying around for battle that they carry on one arm and they kind of moving it around to Defend off things, but this shield is more like a massive door It's about four feet by three feet and it's Placed in front of the person and they can carry it with one arm But they have the whole arm wrapped inside of it and they wrap it in leather that's been soaked in water So that when some enemy light dips his tort his arrow and pitch and then sends the arrow and it's flaming It'll extinguish it when it hits the leather the wet leather So he's he's got this massive shield Do you imagine the confidence that a Roman soldier had when he went into battle with this huge shield Of going forward and he could hide his entire body behind it
This little side point Imagine if all of us were to take up the shield of faith and we were to all Line up right we had these shields like if I was doing a a kids thing I'd probably do this like get a bunch of cardboard right and let them have this cardboard and imagine all of them lined up here All of us lined up here with this with these shields in front of us And it's a picture of the body of Christ moving out into the world with this massive shield around us So shield of faith in Jesus Christ that nothing is going to penetrate that So we can move out with great confidence we can move out with great boldness into this world So this shield for us is one that provides great protection and great confidence If we look in the old testament there's several places that this shield is mentioned If you look at a genesis 151 It says after these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision God said fear not Abram. I am your shield Through a ward shall be very great God proclaims to Abram. I am your shield Right when we read the words of Paul when he says take up your shield of faith and no moment do we ever need to think That in our own strength we take up a shield and we go out in this room charge we fight
It's speaking of ability The only reason that Paul can say take it up is because through the work of Jesus Christ his ability has been changed He's now able to take up the shield He's now able to go into the world and to fight but that shield is not his own It's not this You're a good guy. You're a tough guy. You can handle all circumstances. You got the strongest faith in the world The shield is God himself And we find that true of the whole arm. That's why Paul calls it the armor of God It's not our armor So the great confidence is With David for example who says in Psalm 18 the Lord is my rock and my fortress my deliverer my god my rock and who might take refuge my shield And the horn of my salvation my stronghold We read one in our call to worship Then we read an Exodus 15 It says the Lord is a warrior the Lord is his name it uses this capital L-O-R-D in your Bible right children when you read capital L-O-R-D in your Bible It's speaking of the covenant name of God a sacred name A name for his that he gave especially for his people And it's the translation of Yahweh And Yahweh is a warrior Who moves into battle on behalf of his people Right Exodus 15 is right after they've crossed the Red Sea and Moses leads the Israelites in this grand song and they sing The Lord is my warrior the Lord is his name
It is because of the work Of Jesus Christ that we can hold up a shield where to where do we see this shield in the New Testament? We only see it in a couple places and here Paul uses it as a shield of faith If you want to see how Jesus is a warrior right sometimes we we look at Jesus and we kind of God the Oliver watch Barney may watch Barney here Now you know hear watch Barney the famous song Barney says I love you you love me we're a happy family with a great big hug and kiss me to you Won't you stay I love you to yes beautiful right it's Jesus I'm just gonna say it rock quite simply Jesus is not Barney That's sound you're right. I know that Today go and read Revelation 19 Jesus is seen as a warrior and to be honest with you It's scary Didn't have the shield of faith. I don't have trust in Jesus Christ A red revelation 19 should scare you to death if you don't have Jesus
The shield of faith is putting our trust in the person and the work of Jesus Christ In Romans 3 it gives this great verse Romans 3 23 through 25 There's this one word that Paul uses a couple times in the New Testament And that word is propitiation Propitiation means to turn away wrath So when he says in Romans 3 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood To be received by faith See propitiation the language there is The here is God this holy and reverent and just God And here we are miserable sinners Who fall short of the glory of God And there needs to be a reconciliation Made as as God himself a holy and just God can't allow sinners or sin into his presence And he's punished that one time before you know the one of the saddest verses in the Bible is that it grieved God that he made man And he flooded the earth and destroyed everyone except for knowing his family
God's wrath Is poured out three times in history Once at the flood Once at the cross And then once when he returns For you if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ Christ is the propitiation He's the shield That stands like my big brother stood in front of me to take the wrath of that guy Jesus Christ comes and he stands in front of you And he says Lord God your holy your just your wrath deserves to be poured out on them But I take it upon myself All the wrath that they deserve all the wrath that you deserve all the wrath that I deserve and all of you deserve Jesus Christ took that wrath upon himself
Paul says take up the shield of faith It's not a blind faith. It's a faith in the person in the work of Jesus Christ That's a shield that I can go into battle with That's a shield that I can go boldly into this world
I just want to give you a personal illustration Of what this might look like
Back in 2000 Rebecca and I had our first child their name was Emily And she passed away of heart defects about three and a half months at about three and a half months old Went through many heart surgeries many complexities many difficult Issues as you could imagine I can remember a lady one of the ladies kind lady in our church Walking into the hospital room we first found out the news and she said Robert Everything you've ever taught everything you've ever learned everything you know about faith Is about to be tested and in the middle of that The evil one shot his arrows. I just wanted to share with you a few of those arrows that he shot I want you to notice the response of faith And please in the midst of this don't say oh Robert could wow. He's really he's a really faithful guy It's amazing. He really took up his shield All these struggles in the midst of that Now it was Christ who was shielding me You gave me the grace to say these things as the evil one whispered in our ear You remember that sin you committed in the past Yep, it's your fault This happened God is punishing you He releases the arrow faith in Jesus Christ says No, I remember that story that Jesus told the parents of that blind man Faith in Jesus said I've thrown your sins into the depth of the seed never to be brought up again The evil one whispered another one those surgeons screw things up You should give them a piece of your mind Sheets the arrow Faith in Jesus says a soft answer turns away wrath The evil one said tell that pastor for in the years you're tired of hearing God's word
Faith in Jesus said in his word I find refuge and comfort The evil one said God's abandon you Faith said oh no evil one Jesus told me that I'm in my father's grip and he's never gonna let me go The evil one said God won't understand your questions in your doubts
Faith said God's bigger than my questions in my doubts The evil one said God doesn't hear your prayers Face said I have a faithful high priest who's interceding for me now and even when I don't know what to pray anymore He's praying for me See there's There's this faithfulness That's been seen in your life as a believer and in my life And I can look back and I can see the faithfulness of God in the past And I can see that he's gonna be faithful and he's gonna be my shield now And as he looking at the future and the uncertainty of it And all the doubts and all the questions all the uncertainties that come with that Jesus Christ will be your shield then
It's him that we look to in the midst of our struggles And the midst of all our circumstances I'm gonna close with this illustration when I was in Cookville we played we did this thing annually We had a father-son paintball war in our youth group and So one day I decide at this at the end of this battle that I'm gonna I don't know what else thinking I uh, I said hey guys y'all can all line up There's about 30 of them and I'm gonna go out here about 30 or 40 yards I'm just gonna run from that tree to that tree And I'll just let y'all shoot at me you're never gonna hit me So I thought it was a good idea And so here so I line up at the tree and I'm and while I'm talking and getting ready um These guys these kids are over here turn up the velocity on their paintball gun all the way All the way and I thought you know, I'm pretty fast. They're not gonna be able to hit me So I said are you ready? I had my mask on Like go and that and I took off running and it was like a hundred hornets had just Stung me all over my body and I got to the end and fell down and my body was chilling and aching and then a few days later You could see the the pattern of shot some as I ran this direction I had this leg and this arm recovered and then the inside of this arm and the inside of this leg They didn't miss many times And it was you know, it was a silly thing for me to To go into to that battle without a shield And I'll tell you that story this morning Because I don't want you walking out this door this morning About the shield of faith Satan is shooting arrows even now Up in the balcony this side here here behind me
He hates you. He wants to destroy your soul and he's shooting arrows all the time to try to do it If you're here this morning and you don't believe in Jesus Christ You haven't put your faith in his person and his work It's very dangerous for you to walk out those doors this morning. I pray that Right now you would say I'm a sinner And I'm unprotected I need Christ to be my shield Will you pray that this morning? We can't live in this world Without the shield of faith in the person in the work of Jesus Christ It's foolish and it's deadly This morning turn to Jesus Christ He'll protect you from this day forward And it'll carry you into glory and his arms Let's pray Oh Lord, we pray this morning For the one here who might still say to himself You don't understand I'm too good of a sinner to be saved
Satan is shooting that arrow whispering that in their ear May they hear the words of Jesus who says no one is cast out
Maybe they're still saying You just you don't understand you don't know what I've done May they hear the words of Jesus say I'm able to save you to the utter most
Jesus turn us to trust in you and to repent of our sins and lay hold of that cross where the shield of God's wrath was taken so that we might have life Amen Let's stand together and receive God's benediction
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ The love of God the Father in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit Be with you all forever. Amen
We'll stand against the rules that will guide reaching out to closing doors