I love this time
of year. Not so much because of the
weather or because kids are back in school or because of anything like
that. I love it because it’s now
football season. Now, baseball is my
first love, and I enjoy getting out to play golf or tennis. But there’s something about football that
other sports just don’t have. I think
it’s the equipment.
In high school,
when we’d have a road game during baseball season, the only thing you really
needed to make sure you personally brought with you was your cap and
glove. To get ready to play you pretty
much put on a pair of pants tighter than you wore to school, changed your shoes
and walked out there. Football games
though…those were something different.
Getting ready for the game was almost like a ritual. You’d make sure each piece of equipment was
accounted for. You took the time to make
sure each kneepad, each thigh-pad, each hip-pad were properly in place. You’d lace up your cleats, slide those
shoulder pads over your head, tightly strap them on, then pull that helmet down
over your head and hear that click that told you your chinstrap was in place
and you were ready to roll.
In baseball you go
out to take on the opposition protected by nothing but a glove, your own
reflexes, and maybe a cup. But not always. And you don’t think twice about doing
it. But you wouldn’t dream of going out
to face the opposition in football without being properly equipped, properly
armored against the attacks they’re going to throw against you.
So often we try to
approach our lives of faith like a baseball game. We step out onto the field to face the
opposition equipped with our wits, some broken-in routines and responses and a
“let’s get ‘em” attitude. Only problem
is, our enemies aren’t prepared to play nice.
As Christians, we
step each and every day onto a battlefield.
We awake each day to a world that is opposed to us and everything we
stand for. As Psalm 2 says, “The kings
of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the
Lord and against his anointed. Jesus
told his disciples that “In the world you will
have tribulation.” But it’s not just the
world that we do battle with, but also our own sinful natures. And not least of all, we daily do battle with
the devil and all his wiles.
If we
underestimate our foes, we face certain destruction. If we try to face them on our own, relying on
ourselves and the things of our own invention for protection…we will be
crushed. It is a real, serious war in
which we are engaged each and every day as children of God, and we have nothing
in and of ourselves that can hope to stand against the attacks of the evil
one. Our own strength is no match for
what we face. But by His grace God
bestows on us his strength. He provides us with his own armor so that we
might stand firm and victorious over our deadly foes. So let us look today at this armor of God,
given to us so that we might stand firm, that we might press onward as soldiers
of God in our daily spiritual battle.
The first item
Paul tells us to put on is the belt of truth.
To us, a belt might be a weird place to start. After all, when we get dressed in the
morning, at least for me, the belt is the last
thing that goes on. And while it’s nice
to having something help keep your pants from sagging down, it’s usually far
from being considered a wardrobe necessity.
Yet in Paul’s day, the belt was just that for a soldier. It was the first piece of armor to go on. More than just help hold things together, it
supported much of his other armor. A
soldier would be lost without his belt.
So would we be lost without the truth.
Satan is
constantly seeking to deceive, to twist and bend the truth and corrupt our
knowledge and understanding of God. This
was the very first temptation, in fact.
Saying to Eve in the garden, “Did God really say…?” It’s no
different today. We see this undermining
and corruption of the truth happening all over the place. There’s the pressure to deny portions of
Scripture because they can’t be rationally explained. There’s the pressure to reject portions of
Scripture because they don’t fit in with the world’s or our own way of thinking
about something. There’s the temptation
to place our own feelings and experiences over the objective truths and gifts
of God. It’s a common thought today that
there is no such thing as “truth,”
but that everything is relative. There’s
even the denial that God even exists.
Our protection
from these and all other lies is the Word of God. All of Scripture testifies to Jesus, who says
about himself “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through
me.” So we equip ourselves with the
truth. We read and study God’s word so
that we can grow in our understanding.
When various challenges and claims are made, we hold them up against the
light of Scripture, the light of truth, to determine whether they are in
agreement or not. God’s truth, God’s
self-revelation is what sustains, protects, and directs us. It is his
truth that sets us free from the dominion of the evil one, and which is the
foundation of everything we believe, the foundation of our armor. If we reject the truth, if we cast off the
truth, if we compromise the truth…everything else falls apart.
After the belt,
the next item we are instructed to put on is the breastplate of
righteousness. I imagine a breastplate
is easy enough for you to picture. It’s
the largest piece of armor that a soldier would wear. A breastplate covered the soldiers vital
organs. His lungs, his kidneys…his
heart. The belt was the foundation of
his armor, but the breastplate was the piece designed to protect his life.
Like the truth
this righteousness comes not from ourselves, but from God. Our righteousness is from and is in its very
substance Christ himself. Romans 1 tells
us “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes…For in it the righteousness of God is
revealed from faith for faith.” 1 Cor. 1 says, “And because of him you are in
Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and
sanctification, and redemption.” And
Phi. 3 says, “and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that
comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the
righteousness from God that depends on faith.”
It is the
righteousness of God which we are clothed with in baptism that keep us safe
from the accusations and attacks of the evil one. Satan can bring his worst accusations and
condemnations against the Christian believer, but they are powerless. Not because they aren’t true, but because the
law’s requirements for them have been fulfilled by our perfect substitute
Jesus. This is what Romans 8 is talking
about when it says, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than
that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding
for us.” Because of the righteousness of
God, our eternal life is assured and secured.
Next Paul says that
for shoes our feet are to be fitted with the readiness that comes from the
gospel of peace. This is another one
that might seem odd, with the seeming juxtaposition between armor for war and
the gospel of peace. But again, it’s
helpful if we first understand what purpose a soldier’s shoes were meant to
serve.
A soldier’s shoes
had two purposes. First, they protected
the soles of his feet. Second, they
helped give him firm footing. Soldiers
didn’t wear regular every sandals out on the battlefield. They would have studs in the soles, like
cleats, that would help them stand their ground and not slip when the ground
got treacherous.
It is to this firm
foundation that that Ephesians 6:15 directs our attention. The firm foundation,
the firm footing that keeps us standing firm under the attack of the evil one is
'the gospel of peace'. This firm footing
does not simply come from the Gospel of peace, but it is the
Gospel of peace. As Isaiah 53:5 says, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he
was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that
brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
That
is our gospel promise. Our sure
foundation when the evil one tempts us to doubt and fear our salvation, when he
pushes, provokes and pressures us to give up on our faith… our gospel peace on which we firmly stand when we face the attacks of
the evil one is that we have peace with God.
Next we are instructed to take up the shield
of faith. Now this wouldn’t have been a
small shield held on the arm like the one used by Captain America. Paul has in mind a shield that would have
been about 4 feet tall and about 2 ½ feet across. Soldiers would soak these shields in water,
then duck behind and underneath them as flaming arrows would rain down on top
of them.
The Greek here directs us to pick up not
just the shield of faith, but the shield of the faith. The one true faith in the one true God. This faith, and this faith alone, has the
power to extinguish the flaming arrows of the devil. Faith that knows that Jesus Christ is
who he claimed to be, and that he did what he did for us, is the kind of faith
that will shield us from the enemy's attacks.
It is that faith that comforts
us and that assures us that we have nothing to fear, and that nothing in all
creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ our Lord.
Next comes the
helmet of salvation. A helmet,
obviously, protects your head, the control centre from which all of our lives
are directed and governed, from which all attitudes, decisions and choices
come. There’s a phrase, “kill the head,
and the body will die.” What does that
have to do with salvation? Salvation is
our hope, our promise, what motivates and drives all that we do as God’s
people. Take away our hope, kill our hope,
and we’re as good as dead. So God
protects our head, and gives us the hope and the power of salvation. He lets us know what we have been saved from,
who saved us, how we were saved, what we were saved to and why we were and are
saved. All this helps further protect
us against the schemes and attacks of the one who would seek to fill our heads
with doubt.
Finally, we get to
the one weapon we are given by God. But
what a weapon it is! The sword of the
Spirit, which is the Word of God. The Roman
sword was a short, broad blade. It was
meant primarily as a defensive weapon.
It wasn’t one which was used to attack and advance against foes. In the same way we as Christians don’t go
looking for a fight. But when the battle
finds us, and finds us it shall, we have a weapon with which to defend
ourselves.
As one brother
pastor once put it, “A sword is a formidable weapon. So is Scripture. The Bible is God's word in its entirety. It relates the God's intentions for his
people. It encourages and strengthens
us. It kills the evil in us and it
brings us back to life because it proclaims the death of the sinner and the new
life of the believer in Jesus Christ.”
Of course, a sword
is worthless when it is neglected and ignored.
And it is of little use to one who does not practice with it, who is not
familiar with it. So it is with the Word
of God. It is the power of God, but it
does us no good if we aren’t regularly living in it, using it, growing in
it. He wants us to use it daily, not
hang it on the wall like a relic, or display it on our shelf like a
collectible. We are to read it, memorize
it, sing it, say it, pray according to it, and shape our lives around it. The word of God is the weapon that will win
the battle for us.
Every day we step
onto the spiritual battlefield. We can
fight effectively, but only if we use the weapons appointed by God, because
only there are we promised His power and His presence along side of us as we
fight. God has given us the armor, and
He has given us the weapons for the battle. If we are His, we will not be
able to avoid the battle, for the enemy will bring it to us. So, be
prepared. Put on the full armor
of God. Amen.
