Harbor Presbyterian Church: Carlsbad

Ephesians 6:10-24 (ESV) – “A New Set of Clothes”

Rev. Darin M. Stone

Harbor Presbyterian Church

September 14, 2008

 

Please turn with me to Ephesians 6:10-24.  We have spent the summer months exploring this great letter from Paul to the Ephesians and today we finish up this letter with a passage that may be somewhat familiar to many of you.  This is the passage that calls us to put on the whole armor of God and somehow, I’m supposed to distill the whole armor of God in about 30 minutes.  One preacher preached 261 sermons on this passage, so we’re definitely doing the flyover version this morning.  Let’s take a moment now to read God’s word from Ephesians 6:10-24:

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 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. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 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, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

21 So that you also may know how I am and what I am doing, Tychicus the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord will tell you everything. 22 I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts.

23 Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.

One of the things that stands out poignantly in this passage is what Paul has to say about evil – about what we often call “spiritual warfare” – and how that spiritual battle is to be fought.  And I think that part of the reason why that raises our eyebrows is because it’s just such a weird, culturally distant idea for us.  It’s not normal for people to wake up in the morning and say, “You know, I better be prepared because there the spiritual forces of evil are going to try to screw up my life today.”  That’s not the normal template from which most people operate.  And when we think of Christians who highly emphasize spiritual warfare we are likely to think of the kind of bizarre strand of Christianity that’s always about having some kind of deliverance experience, where some preacher with bad hair places the palm of his hand on someone’s forehead and the person falls to the ground flopping like a fish out of water, saying the shoulda-boughta-Honda thing.  And they’re supposed to be delivered from these evil things.  Folks, you and I both know that that is just ridiculous. 

 

But what is equally ridiculous is the notion that there is no such thing as a cosmic power behind evil.  In other words, it is our tendency in American and in other western cultures to believe that evil is purely the result of natural forces.  So you look at things like totally messed-up teenagers who are strung out on drugs, or committing crimes, and we attribute it merely to a bad household environment or bad social influences. 

 

Even in our own lives, we tend to give very natural explanations for our failures and for the misery we experience.  You ask yourself why you struggle with the same sin over and over again and you can answer it by saying that you just need more self-discipline, or you need more accountability.  You ask yourself why you have so many problems in your marriage or with parenting and you blame it on something like the maladaptive patterns you and your spouse learned from your parents’ marriage.  Now listen, no doubt we need more self-control (that’s part of the fruit of the Spirit), and accountability, and no doubt the patterns we learned growing up deeply affect us, but I want to suggest to you that what’s behind all the natural explanations for the evil we commit and experience lies a malevolent personality that is bound and determined to make you as miserable as possible; to rob you of all the joy of your union and fellowship with Christ and his people.

 

And our failure to understand that – and along the same lines, our failure to truly grasp the fact that there is a spiritual war taking place – makes us profoundly vulnerable to Satan’s attacks.  In fact, the 17^th century British preacher, William Gurnall – who was the person who preached 261 sermons on this passage – rightly said, “Satan’s advantage is great when he catches our graces napping.”  In other words, our lack of awareness that there is a cosmic, spiritual battle waged, and our lack of preparedness to fight that battle is a root cause of our inability to both believe and live out the implications of God’s grace to us in the gospel.

 

Here’s what it seems that Paul wants us to know:  He wants us to know that if God’s mission is to take all things that have been corrupted by sin and bring them under the authority and care of Jesus Christ, then it is hopelessly naïve to think that ground is going to be secured without a fight and without opposition.  Are you with me?  So if that’s the case, then we need to understand at least two things from this passage.  First, we need to know the nature of our enemy.  And secondly, we need to know how to fight him.  Is that easy enough? 

 

I.                    What is the nature of our enemy?

 

And in order for you to figure out what the enemy is like, you have to discover where the war is being waged.  Paul here says that this wrestling match is taking place “in the heavenly places.”  Now, what on earth does that mean?  Well, back in chapter two, Paul says that, “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ...and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”  Folks, in a very real sense, even though we have not yet taken possession of it, we have already been raised up with Christ – who rules and reigns above all things – raised up with him in the heavenly places.  Our residence lies there, in heaven, with Christ.  So when you came to know Christ – when in his kindness, he shed light on your sin, he led you to repentance, and gave you faith in him – the source of your identity became wrapped up in him, who is seated in heaven at the right hand of God the Father, governing every aspect of this world.  What that means is this: That the Christian defines himself or herself in light of who Christ is, and what he has accomplished for us and applied to us in the gospel.  That is how we understand ourselves.

 

So when Paul says that that our battle is not against merely natural things that we see with our eyes – things like spouses, children, jobs, the political situation, and so forth – but that it is against the “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” he’s saying that the battle is taking place at the very source of our self-definition.  Does that make sense?  He’s saying that the spiritual forces of evil are seeking to undermine how you understand yourself in relationship to Christ.

 

So think about that in light of where this passage is located in Ephesians.  Paul writes this right after he finishes talking about the way husbands and wives are to relate to one another, the way parents and children are to relate to one another, and the way employers and employees are to relate to on another.  So think about it.  Where are you and I most strongly pressed to understand and live out our identity in Christ?  In our relationships with our spouses, in our relationships with our children, in our relationships with our parents, and in relationship with our colleagues at work. 

 

In fact, if you look back to Genesis 3, what does the devil do there?  Well, God said that the way of blessing was to come through obedience, but the devil deceived the woman into believing that the way of blessing came through disobedience.  And when she buys into the devil’s sales pitch, what happens as a result?  The gender roles in marriage get confused.  Adam is sitting on his duff, not loving and taking responsibility for his wife when she was being tempted.  Eve is taking on the leadership role that Adam should have played.  And then there are curses that fall down on childbearing, and of course, child rearing.  And now instead of work being a delight, the ground produces thorns and thistles.  Work becomes a burden. 

 

So if our families and our work (amongst other things) are corrupted by the fall, and yet they remain the places where we most live out our identity in Christ, where do you think that the enemy is going to work the hardest to subvert that identity?  In the context of those relationships!  Folks, the enemy is going to come to you in the passivity or dominance of your husband.  He is going to come to you in the form of a wimpy or controlling wife.  He comes to you in disobedient children, and manipulative parents, and in corrupt bosses, and in incompetent co-workers and employees. 

 

And what is so deceitful about all of this is that evil in someone else actually gives birth to evil thoughts, and words, and actions in yourself.  When Paul warns parents – fathers in particular, since they are the head of their household – not to exasperate their children, he’s saying that one of the primary ways that you will breed out-of-control, disobedient children who act in evil ways is by being evil toward them; by being abusive, or emotionally distant, or by not disciplining them enough, or by coddling them.  Things like that.

 

See, what we have to remember is the cunning and deceitful nature of the evil one that seeks to kill, steal, and destroy us.  Evil constantly disguises itself as good.  When the serpent approached Eve in the garden, he disguised himself as someone good.  Right?  He made good promises.  He offered her something that appeared good to her.  He made God look malevolent, and evil.  He made God look like the one who was out to ruin Eve’s life.  You see, Paul is correct when he says in 2 Corinthians 11 that the devil disguises himself as an angel of light.  You know, evil never comes to you and says, “Let’s go do something evil.”  It doesn’t say, “Why don’t you take every meaningful issue you and your wife face and you get to be prosecuting attorney and she gets to be defense attorney and whoever argues the best case wins?”  No.  Evil comes to you and says, “You deserve to be more comfortable.  You need more respect.  You deserve more appreciation.”

 

Evil doesn’t say, “You know what I think would be a good idea?  Neglecting your children.  All good children have been profoundly neglected by their parents, so if you want your children to be good, you should neglect them too.”  Evil never says that.  It says, “I’m just not really a kids-all-the-time kind of person.  Plus I need to work more because the economy stinks, and we’re over mortgaged.” 

 

You see, what evil does is take a good thing and deceive you into believing that you can’t live without it.  And when you succumb to that, you have transferred your identity and your worship to something other than God, even though you are entirely convinced the whole time that you are actually worshipping the true God.  That is just how sneaky evil actually is.

 

Perhaps the greatest reason why our resolve in the faith and our witness to the world is so flaccid is because we think that now is peacetime.  We are not regularly considering that the spiritual forces of evil try to get us to define ourselves apart from Christ rather than in him. 

 

Folks, the message that Paul wants us to understand here is that the spiritual forces of evil are seeking to undermine how you understand yourself in light of who Jesus is and what he has done.  They are seeking to subvert how you live out that identity in the most ordinary relationships of your life.  And if you are either ill-prepared or unaware that such a battle is taking place, then you will be easy prey for the enemy’s schemes.

 

II.                  How do we fight him?

 

But the good news is that Jesus prepares us for the battle.  We’re not left guessing as to how to wage this spiritual war.  Paul here is opening the closet and showing you what is already on the hangers.  He’s saying that when God saved you, he provided you with a new set of clothes.  He provided you with the armor you need to defend yourself against the enemy’s schemes and to fight him off. 

 

Notice here that Paul calls us to “be strong in the Lord.”  Now what our default tendency is to do is to live out of our own resources in order to become strong.  Are you with me?  In other words, how do we tend to go about gaining strength?  I would suggest to you that our tendency is to gather and use strength on the enemy’s terms.  Think for a second how the devil fights.  He fights by accusing people.  In fact, Scripture calls him the accuser.  So we end up fighting like the enemy fights in the relationships in which we live out our identity. 

 

Either in our heads or in our actual words, you and I can launch these global attacks on our spouses, on our kids, on our parents, on our colleagues, on our neighbors.  It’s like the evil kind of sucks us in and becomes all-consuming, and so we end up treating people like a broken Coke-machine.  Think about it.  What do you do when you insert your money into the Coke machine and you press the button and nothing comes out?  You kick it!  You slam the coin return button 100 times so that you’ll get your life savings of 75 cents back! 

 

So in our relationships, when we don’t get what we have told ourselves that we deserve, we beat people up.  We shame them.  We accuse them.  Our criticism becomes bolstered by hostility and disgust.  We become “passive-aggressive” and defensive.  When we’re hurt, we return the favor.  We just hold an accusing grudge against our spouse, or kids, or what have you.  Guess what, y’all?  That’s how the enemy fights!  That’s what he does to you!  He hangs your sin over your head and accuses you with it.  He shames you with it.  He tries to get your stuck on your guilt rather than looking to Christ as the one who took your guilt upon himself.  And he defends his actions as being pure and good while all the time he’s out to make you as miserable as possible.  That’s the way we live with one another when we’re living out of our own resources and placing our identity in someone or something other than Christ.

 

But when you look throughout Scripture, you’ll notice that Jesus fights in an entirely different way than the enemy.  Jesus fought and defeated the enemy, and secured your redemption, with the resources that he gave you to live the Christian life.  Look y’all.  Living the Christian life is about living out of the resources that Jesus has already provided for you in the gospel.  It’s about living out of your new identity in Christ.   Jesus has already equipped you for the battle.  You’re not left guessing as to how to wage this spiritual war.  Paul here is opening the closet and showing you what is already on the hangers.  He’s saying that when God saved you, he provided you with a new set of clothes.  He has provided you with the armor you need to defend yourself against the enemy’s schemes and to fight him off. 

 

What does it mean to have the belt of truth strapped on?  It means that the character of Jesus – who is “the truth” – is flowing through your veins.  It means that his word – which is the revelation of truth – is the authority upon which you base your life.  And it’s that truth that enables you to stand for the truth about God and his character and attributes, and stand against the lies that you are tempted to believe about God; our temptation to believe that God is just like you and me.  Think about the second stanza to our opening hymn (Praise to the Lord, who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth).

 

It enables you to for the truth about what God has told you about yourself and your identity in him, and stand against the lies that the enemy tells you about yourself.  Look at our closing hymn – very appropriate for this passage – A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.  Look at where Luther writes, “And though this world with devils filled, should threaten to undo us.  We will not fear for God hath willed... what?  His truth to triumph through us.  It’s the truth of God, woven through the fabric of our lives, that enables us to stand against the enemy. 

 

Wearing the breastplate of righteousness means that since Jesus has justified you and accepts you as righteous, you go and live in relationship with people in ways that reflect that Jesus has clothed you in his righteousness.

 

To put on the shoes of the gospel of peace means that you simply know what your life is all about.  It’s about Ephesians 2, where we see that Jesus has broken down the dividing wall of hostility and established peace between you and himself, and you and God’s people.  In fact, take a look at verse 23.  This is a benediction – which is God’s promise of blessing to his people – this is a benediction that reflects the reality of the gospel of peace.  “Peace be to the brothers and love with faith, fro God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  It’s a beautiful reminder and promise that in the gospel peace has been established, and it propels us to live out the way Jesus defines us in relationship to his people.  And it’s a great message that we have to tell to others.

 

What about the shield of faith?  Holding up the shield of faith is all about drawing your strength and sufficiency and self-definition upon what Jesus has accomplished for you and applied to you in the gospel.  It’s about being defined by Christ and not by something else.  It’s about drawing your hope, and your joy, and your peace from your position in Christ and not even from how your husband or wife treats you, or from how your kids obey you, or from how your parents relate to you, or from how things go at work.  Look.  When Satan whispers, “God may have cared about you once before, back in the day, but he has moved on to bigger and better things now.”  That’s when you lift the shield of faith and say, “That’s impossible.  God cannot change.  God’s love for me is eternal.  ‘He who began a good work in me will be faithful to bring it to completion.’”  When Satan whispers, “You have failed so much that God doesn’t love you anymore.  You want evidence?  Just look at the struggles you’re going through right now.”  That’s when you lift up the shield of faith and say, “That too is impossible.  Jesus has suffered in my place and he promises me that there is no condemnation if I am in him.”  Faith is about casting your gaze upon Jesus, especially in those times when the evil one is shooting off lies and deception at you.

 

What’s the helmet of salvation?  It’s all about getting rid of your insecurity.  Why are you so paranoid about the future?  Why do you freak out so much?  Why are you worried?  Why are you so anxious?  It’s either because of too much caffeine or too much insecurity.  But when you wear the helmet of salvation, you’re being reminded of the security that Jesus had provided for you; that your destiny is the Promised Land.  That’s where your real estate lies and it is not subject to market forces.  Wearing the helmet of salvation gives you security in the midst of a fragile and teetering life.

 

Let’s look at the final one, the sword of the Spirit.  The Bible is the window into what God reveals about himself and about you.  What God reveals about you and about himself is the grid through which you live your life.  Paul tells Timothy that God’s word is useful for “teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” that we may be equipped for every good work. Folks, it is the word – the word that God has already given to us and that the Holy Spirit causes us to understand and live out – that enables us to fight the good fight.  It’s his word that comforts us in battle.  It’s his word that provides security.  It’s his word that provides direction.  It’s his word that provides wisdom.  It’s his word that provides peace.  Think about how Jesus, when he was tempted, when the arrows were coming at him, how did he handle that temptation?  By having the truth and promises of his heavenly Father – the truth and promises that are spelled out in the Bible – he had those things on the forefront of his mind and on the cusp of his lips.  One dead white guy said, “Show me a Christian whose Bible is falling apart, and I’ll show you a Christian who isn’t.”  It’s about getting that word deep into your bones so that you can fight your accuser.

 

Now look.  The wrong way to conclude this sermon would be to say, “Alright.  Now go home and work on the armor.  Please stand for the benediction!”  If that’s the message you get, then you have completely missed the point.  The message is to live out of the armor that Jesus has already given to you!  You already have it.  You don’t need to pull your own resources together and go get it.  It’s already there.  So put it on!  That’s how you stand strong in the Lord!  Putting it on is simply living out of how Jesus defines you and out of the resources that Jesus has given to you.  And if you do, you will not be touched!  You will not be defined by your family or your job or by anything else.  You will be defined by Christ.  You will find yourself caught up in the security and beauty of Christ.

 

Folks, do you know anything of that?  I’m telling you that when you fall on your knees – literally or figuratively – and you put on the belt, praying.  And you put on the breastplate, praying.  And you put on shoes, and the shield and the helmet and you take up the sword, praying, you begin to discover that Jesus is stronger, and better, and more beautiful than you ever thought he was.

 

One last thing I want to say about this battle, and then we’ll be done.  The battle, y’all, is already over.  Do you know that?   Jesus has won the battle for us.  He has resourced us to fight a defeated enemy and that enemy is completely and utterly hopeless.  He is down by five touchdowns with 30 seconds to play.  Folks, be encouraged by that because you cannot be defeated.  Paul has just finished writing this letter that we’ve spent the last three months exploring, and notice the joy that has filled it from start to finish and the joy that he ends with.  As we get ready to take the Lord’s Supper – as we feast on the body and blood of Christ – let’s go to this table remembering this; Because Jesus suffered our defeat in the body, and conquered our defeat in the resurrection, his grace and peace are ours.  The enemy’s fight to take that from us is a lost cause.  May that bless and encourage your soul this morning, for Jesus sake.  Amen.  Let’s pray.

 

 

 

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