“... but can you stand?”

 

 ¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

 

¹¹Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

 

¹³ Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

 

5. This letter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is coming to its conclusion. In recent weeks there are some phrases which highlight where our gospel leads us.

First,

you must no longer live as the Gentiles do

          4:25-32

 

Be imitators of God 5:1-14   

Be filled with the Spirit

 

. 5:15-20

Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ 5:29-6:9

Be strong in the Lord

 6:10-20

 

Four things God wants you to know this morning.

 

 1. Know your God

be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

The emphasis is not on the being strong but on being strong in the Lord and his mighty power. It is the source of your power which matters. You could translate this as:  “Get plugged into Jesus! He is the source of good energy!”  in this day of debate about good energy it is sobering to see how often we fail to value spiritual energy. The New agers have tapped into the demonic lay-lines and other sources of so-called supernatural power, but you and I are offered, in Christ, real good spiritual power. Being filled with the Holy Spirit means having the power, with all the saints to know the depth and length and height of God’s love.

In military terms, you need to be able to trust your alliances, and the resources that you have to fight the battle. A Christian needs to know his God, to know how and where he will provide the power to over come the enemy. Which lead to my second point:

 2. Know your enemy

Intelligence lies at the heart of any battle plan. No one succeeds in a battle without recognising the strength of the enemy and knowing his possible manoeuvres. And the Christian is no different. Know your enemy.

¹¹Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

It is not against flesh and blood. Jesus said quite specifically to Pilate. In John 19:36 we read:

³⁶ Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

We do not have to apologise about the Crusades. They were never Christians following Jesus. Nor can we accept that the religious wars of Tudor times or later were ever a response to the love of God in Christ Jesus. They were wrong. But I want to take issue here quite specifically over Islam. Jesus says ‘no’ to any idea of  a war against Muslims. The Arab Spring is only good news to us if the Arab nations have more opportunity to hear the Good News of Jesus, establishing Western style Christianity by force is repugnant to us. We are not wrestling with people. The war is spiritual. Our objective is to see the breaking of the stranglehold of evil in the lives of our friends and our neighbours and our relations. We do not want rioters in prison, we want them to come to Christ. We do not want sex offenders to live elsewhere, we want them to come to Christ! If you don’t believe that, you have not understood this precious gospel of grace. Heaven is not for evil but it will be full of people whose lives were transformed from the desperate ways of sin to the glorious way of Jesus.

 

 This month an uncomfortable story has hit the cinemas. It is based on the true story of this man. Sam Childers. According to the Sun Newspaper he is a “gun-toting ex-drug addict Outlaws biker”. But he met with God. And his life was transformed. “Shocked by the suffering he witnessed on a missionary trip to the African country in the late Nineties, he vowed to take on the brutal warlord responsible for the death of thousands — and that meant carrying a bible in one hand and an automatic weapon in the other.”

His brave work helped establish a safe haven for children so they could escape a desperate life as child soldiers or sex slaves. You can catch up with the rest of the story in the cinema this week.

 

 Sam Childers is “ The Machine Gun Preacher”.

I offer no comment on this strange event, a Christian Preacher who saved lives by being in places where no other man would go. But understand this, his story is headline to those who watch films. And it is fundamentally about being transformed from killer to saver of children.

 

  So when you watch the news, pray for the victims AND pray against the evil that caused them harm and pray for the sinner who perpetrated the atrocity. This is why we are moving inexorably towards prayer. The fight is a spiritual one, waged in prayer day by day, hour by hour. That is why we meet to pray at Powerhouse. It is not a soft option, it is warfare. As we pray spiritual warfare is waged. Sometimes our prayers become quite explicit as we pray against the evils of this present age. Sometimes, not often, we pray against specific evil spirits as they are revealed. When we pray for PNG are you aware that demonic forces are being overcome in the name of Jesus. And that we may need to see in our prayer. Maybe we need to go beyond praying for those who are sick to pray for the overcoming of the evil in our society, to pray for the salvation of those with whom we have contact, to pray for one another that we will be protected from the evil forces within and without us.

 

I am not particularly into casting out demons type praying but I am convinced that we are to engage the enemy. But the spiritual enemy, because we are to love our people enemies, do good to those that do us harm. So forget body armour and protection systems and security alarms, put on the armour of God.

 

 

 3. Be Prepared

This is IN ADDITION TO ‘getting plugged into Jesus’. A soldier has first to be physically and mentally fit and then be properly equipped. The armour is the defensive mechanisms of the Christian. The strength and spiritual fitness must come from Jesus himself.

 In verse 11 it is full armour of a heavily armed soldier. The complete armour of Roman times was Shield, sword, lance, helmet, greaves, and breastplate. Paul omits greaves and the lance. He adds the sandals.

¹⁴Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵  and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶  In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

 

I am not going into the military details. What matters to us is the spiritual armour we need to put on each morning and, in particular, as we pray.

First Truth. Truth is vital as Satan uses the half-truth as a deadly weapon. Consider Eve in the garden of Eden. “Has God said…?” Too often we fall for Satan’s lies about us being too bad for Jesus, God could never love us and other lies that put us down. Jesus is the truth and we need to be connected to him and aware of him so that we can spot the lies and let them bounce of the truth. Truth is the first piece of armour.

 The second is righteousness. If lies are Satan’s weapon against us, so is our sin and failure. He loves to keep our thoughts on our sin and not on our Saviour. Your righteousness is not your ability to be a good person. Your righteousness is the free gift of God through the death of Jesus. Stand in it. Never let the doubts about our being accepted by God hang around long. His promises are clear and he is faithful. Your sins I will remember no more forever.

Thirdly, the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

Our gospel is about the good news that we have peace with God. And we need to put on the armour of being ready to act because our peace is dependant on his saving grace. SO we go out into battle, not in our own strength but his, not on the basis of our feelings but on the sure knowledge that we have peace with God.

 Fourth, Faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith is an essential piece of armour because it deals with the unanswerable questions, the impossible and the unknowns. Faith that God has some loving purpose in the grime trials of life, faith that God will find a way to fulfil his promises and purposes. Faith that the future is safe in his hands , that obedience to his call is paramount even when we cannot see the whole picture.  Faith that his promises are yes and Amen, that we will spend eternity with him and that the path through life, however troubled is his way and therefore the best way. You faith every day, you need it as a shield against the doubts, the denials, the seduction of sin and its addiction. You need faith.

Fifth, salvation.

You cannot lose your salvation. If you have put your faith and trust in Jesus, you are saved, not because of what you have done but because Jesus died and rose again. But you can lose the  joy and peace that salvation brings. Salvation is a certainty. Live like you are safe even in the storms of life.

Sixth, the Word of God, which is described here as the sword of the Spirit.  God’s word is not just what is written in this book but every prophetic word, every word of encouragement that is in accord with what is written in the Bible. Read the Bible, daily, but read it to listen to the Holy Spirit, saying to you, this is the way, walk in it.

 

So when we come to a prayer, we need to assert that

1.     Jesus is the truth,

2.     recognise again that he is our righteousness,

3.     renew our enthusiasm for the gospel,

4.     declare our faith in Jesus, that makes sense of the churches that use the creed, they declare their faith as a conscious act of putting on the armour.

5.     Know that our salvation is secure, we are on our way to heaven!

6.     And get stuck into the word of God, reading it praying over it and listening to Jesus as he speaks by the Holy Spirit through its pages.

 

If you want to stand in this battle, you need to put on every bit of the armour. But it is a spiritual battle and having put on the armour we must

 4. be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power

It is not just a case of putting on the armour, we have to be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. The battle belongs to the Lord and he will have the victory but we must give ourselves over to him. He is the commander and the one who empowers us. So we must be strong on love, joy, peace, hope, and faithfulness. Imitating but not as actors, but as transformed spiritual warriors. He is our vision, our strength and our defence. Can you stand? Only in the strength and power of the Lord

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