Soldiers of Christ

Introduction

So in many ways it seems like just yesterday, but I guess if I’m actually doing the math in my head, it was quite a number of years ago as I get older. But my son, Clint, was about 10 or 11 years old, as I recall. And I came home from work one day, and it was summertime, so I came home from work, but it’s still, you know, bright and sunny out as the days are longer. And I pulled in the driveway, and as I pulled in the driveway, I can kind of see around the fence, and I saw my son and the neighbor boy in the backyard playing sword fight, right? And so, not being one to ever let a good sword fight pass me by, I opened the front door, I put my briefcase in the front door, I sneaked around the back of the house, I climbed over the back fence, and yes, my grandkids can’t believe I could actually climb a fence, but there was a time that I could do so.

So I sneaked around the backyard, I climbed over the fence, I came up behind the two of them, and I said, On guard, I am the black knight, and I will defeat you. And the two boys wheeled around without missing a beat. And the neighbor boy said to me, Well, we are soldiers of Christ, and we have Jesus on our side. Didn’t see that coming. But as I stood there, sort of with my jaw open, I looked at them, and between the two boys, I could see that the neighbor boy actually had a plastic helmet on, and on the helmet was written the word salvation, and he had a plastic breastplate, and across the breastplate was written the word righteousness, and my son was holding a plastic sword, and across the tip of the sword was written the word faith.

And you get the point, right? They had this plastic soldiers of Christ thing they were playing in the backyard. And I thought to myself, first of all, I thought, well, that’s cool. I wish I had one of those when I was a little kid. But the second thing, I thought, what a great way to teach our kids. You know, and by the way, I so appreciate it’s mostly our ladies, but ladies and men too. I so appreciate the time that we put in the kids’ classes back there. You know, my kids grew up in those classes, my grandkids are in those classes. You know, when we act out things like that for the kids, they retain and they learn. But what a great way for the kids to learn about being soldiers of Christ.

Playing in the backyard with that stuff on. So, as you might expect, and by the way, do I have the clicker here? Yeah, I do. Okay. So, as you might expect, sort of I that got me thinking about that. And so I went in the house and I opened up Ephesians 6, verse 10, and I started reading through the soldiers of Christ. And I have thought a lot about that over the years. Now, I am a retired military person, so maybe I have some affinity to that. But I really thought a lot over the years about what that means and the idea about being a soldier of Christ, and I’ve really come to an important appreciation. and of course, Ephesians 6, 10 through 17, the soldiers of Christ, is what I want to talk about this morning.

So, as we think about the concept here, why did God talk about soldiers of Christ, right? Does God want us to be an army? Well, in a sense, yes, but if we look back across both the Old Testament and the New Testament, what we find is God used language that people understood. Didn’t He? God talks about tending to your flocks and tending to your fields, God talks about fishing, God talks about borrowing and lending. God talked about the king and what it meant to serve or be under the rule of a king. And God talks a lot about military type activities in the Bible. Why? Because that’s what people understood. People understood that lifestyle, and so when you made an application like the soldier of Christ, people go, oh, I get that.

And I think that’s true of us even today. So what I want us to start with, first and foremost, as we think about being a soldier of Christ, I want you to think about a soldier on the battlefield or a soldier who’s preparing to go into battle. And the idea that we have to be armed and trained and ready at all times. Right again, in my military career, I did an awful lot of training in my military career. And one of the things we used to say, and this goes everything from being prepared for a military conflict to being prepared for a test, kids. By the way, we used to say we want to train harder than we have to fight. In other words, let’s put in more effort in the training so that when it comes time to actually execute the activity, there’s no way we won’t be prepared.

And again, that goes for studying for a test or preparing for your job or anything along the way. Let’s always be prepared for everything that could possibly come at us. And I think that’s what God’s telling us in terms of soldiers of Christ. We have to be armed, we have to be trained, we have to be ready for those things that are to come upon us. Why? And especially over here, I love how our young people always sit together over here. And so I’ll talk over here for a minute. Especially for young people, here’s a really important concept. If you take only a few key points from the lesson this morning, I really want you to take this one away. We have an enemy who’s out there trying to get us.

Right? Actively each and every day. We have an enemy out there in the world who is actually trying to get us. And it is so important that we keep that in mind. 1 Peter 5 8 tells us, be of sober spirit. Sober meaning be alert, be aware, be deliberate in your thoughts and actions. Be on alert, just like a soldier or a policeman or a fireman is on alert. Why? Because at any moment something might happen, and we have to be able to leak into action. And we have to be ready for that. Be on alert. Your adversary, the devil, brothers and sisters, is our adversary. We need to recognize this. We do not live in a benign world. Alright? We do not live in a benign world, brothers and sisters.

We live in a dangerous world, and the devil is our adversary, and our devil is out to get you, and guess what? The devil plays dirty. The devil don’t play fair, right? The devil lies and cheats and steals to do everything he can to try to get you to not serve God. And we have to remember that. And the last part of this verse, the devil, your adversary prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. The devil is out there right now today, lurking around corners, lurking through the grass. The devil employs all the tactics and desires and everything else in the world to try to trip us up from serving God. And if nothing else today, we’ve got to recognize we do not live in a benign environment.

We live in an environment where the devil is out to get us, and we have to be prepared to deal with that each and every day. And so what God gives us to prepare for that is the full armor of God, right? Look at Ephesians 6 11. We’re told, put on the full armor of God so that. Why? Why should I put on the full armor of God? So that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. See that? The devil employs schemes, right? Other versions of the Bible say it tells us to stand firm against the wiles of the devil, the deceit of the devil, the tactics. There’s a military term. The devil employs tactics. The devil knows what lures us into sin, brothers and sisters, and he brings all that to the table to try to keep us from God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son.

1. Gird Your Loins With Truth

And so it’s really important, knowing that the devil’s out there each and every day. The devil’s sole purpose is to get us, to trip us, to steal us from God, to bring us to his side instead of the side of the dark instead of the side of the light. So we better know when God says, I’ve given you the full armor of God so that you can protect ourselves. We better understand what those tools of the armor are, and we better understand how to use them, or we have no hope of doing battle with the devil at all. So the first one is we go into Ephesians 6, 14. The first one we’ll deal with there is having your girded your loins with truth. Now, some people say, Well, what does that mean?

Gird your loins with truth. Well, to be honest, a gird, and we use a term as a basis that we don’t really use in modern English language, the girdle, right? But the girdle comes from the idea of the gird. The idea to gird your loins simply means to strap on your belt, right? When a soldier girded himself, it simply meant there was a leather or a metal belt that the solar soldier would strap around his waist, and that belt was the foundation that the rest of the armor was built upon. In other words, the breastplate would strap in to the belt, would tie into the belt. The soldier’s sword would hang in a sheath that was attached to the belt, the gird, right? So the idea about girding yourself means the very first piece of equipment that the soldier had to put on was the belt that secured everything else that we’re about to put in place.

Right? So, in that sense, the first thing the soldier had to put on was the gird and the foundation upon everything else which was built. And as soldiers of Christ, the first thing that we have to put on, the first thing that’s the foundation for everything else we’re going to build upon is truth. Gird your loins with truth. In Colossians 1, 3 through 5, we read in part, I’ll invite you to look at the whole scripture, but we read in part, which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel. So in the book of Colossians, we’re being told that you heard the word of truth, which is the gospel. So we’re putting this together. What is girding your loins with truth? It’s having the foundation upon truth.

The foundation of truth, the truth is the gospel, right? And then as we look at John 18 37, Jesus said, You say correctly that I am king, for this I have borne, and for this I have come into the world to testify to the truth. That’s an important step back point as well, my friends. Why did Jesus come into this world? For the sole and single purpose of bringing us the truth and testifying to the truth of the gospel. To live in such a way that he could die is the perfect sacrifice, because we can’t cover our own sins, so that Jesus could be served up. Jesus could die in our place, Jesus could be sacrificed at a place, so we could have a home with God in heaven.

So Jesus said, This is the reason I came. I came for the very reason of establishing and testifying to the truth, the gospel, that is the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Jesus further says in John 14, 6, Jesus said to him, I am the way, I am the truth. Gird your loins with truth. Jesus said, I am the truth. No one comes to the Father but through me. And brothers and sisters, that’s not a popular theory or thought or concept in many parts of the world where there are different religions and all that sort of thing. And I’m not here to disparage anybody, right? But if we can’t first, if we can’t first gird ourselves, lay the foundation, build our lives upon the foundation, gird ourselves with the basic fact that Jesus Christ is the only way to God the Father, we have nothing else.

2. The Breastplate of Righteousness

If a soldier ran out on the battlefield with his breastplate on, carrying his sword and didn’t put on his gird, the breastplates would come apart and not even protect him, and there’s nothing to put the sword in when he went to sheath the sword. So the first thing we have to do is lay on to the truth, the foundation, that Jesus Christ as the Son of God is our only hope to be reconciled with God, and our only hope to be with God in heaven. And that is the first and foremost thing we have to grasp on our journey to become soldiers of Christ. The second piece there we read, having put on the breastplate of righteousness. Now, I think the breastplate is a concept Movists understand pretty well, right?

We understand the idea of the breastplate, because the breastplate protected the heart and the lungs, and to some degree the stomach. The breastplate protected the life center of the flesh, right? That makes perfect sense to us, doesn’t it? The breastplate protected the life center of the flesh. And we couldn’t really envision being a soldier out on the battlefield in these times where we would shoot arrows at each other and we would have swords that we would try to hit each other with. We couldn’t very well envision going out in battle without a breastplate on, right? And game over before we even begin. The breastplate protecting the life center of the flesh. Well, brothers and sisters, I think that analogy is purposeful in that the breastplate of righteousness protects the very life center of the spirit, which is the soul.

So our breastplate of righteousness protects our soul through what? Through right living. The breastplate of righteousness. The term righteousness simply means to be set apart or made holy, to live differently, to live in a righteous, upright manner. That’s simply what it means. So when we think about the breastplate of righteousness, we’re saying that if we can live our lives righteously, if we live our lives upright and blameless above reproach, right? Above reproach, if we can live our lives that way, we will protect that very special gift we have that God has given us, and that’s our soul.

1 Thessalonians 5 22 tells us, and you can read along on your own, tells us abstain from every form or other versions of the Bible tell us every appearance of evil. Now, think about this for a second. If our righteousness is what protects our soul, protects our reputation, protects our standing, protects our credibility, if our righteousness is that which protects us against the devil. The devil’s out there, he’s trying to get us, he’s slinging arrows at us, he’s swinging swords at us, he’s setting traps for us. And so we’re gonna use our righteousness to hold the devil off, right? Devil, I’m not gonna do that, right? This trap that you’ve laid for me, I’m gonna walk around that by making a righteous decision and not go where you want me to go, or not do what you want me to do.

Do you see how that protects us from the devil? Right? And so what we’re being told here in 1 Thessalonians 5.22 is abstain from every form or every appearance or every degree of evil. Every degree of evil. Now, this one, this one we have to wrestle with a little bit here, brothers and sisters. We really do. Because this concept here, keeping ourselves righteous, so that when the devil lays a trap for us, we reduce to the maximum amount possible the probability that we will fall in the trap. Okay, let me say that again. The devil has set traps for us, scheme for us, tactics. We went through all that. If we’re gonna reduce, if we’re gonna limit the probability we’re gonna fall into those traps, the maximum extent possible.

You know what that means? If we see sin, run. Makes sense, right? We see a trap coming, run. What sense does this make? Oh, there’s a trap. I’m gonna walk over to the trap. I’m gonna stand real close to the trap, I’m gonna flirt with the trap. I’m gonna hang around people that like to get in the trap. I’m gonna see how close I can get to the trap before I fall off, and I might fall off. I’m not as young as I used to be. What sense does that make? Just to see how close I can get to the trap without falling in. Is that the better approach? Or is the better approach? There’s a trap. I’m going 180 degrees the other way and get as far and fast away from that as I possibly can.

And I think you know the answer. Let me give you an example. Let me give you an example. So my son, now let’s fast forward. Now my son Clint, 16 or 17 years old, and I come home from work one day, and I walk by his room, and his room’s a disaster as usual. And I say, hey son, come here. And he says, Yeah, Dad. And I said, I told you to clean your room, and you didn’t do it, and now we got a problem. And he said, No, Dad. No, Dad. So what do you mean, no dad? No, Dad, you technically you didn’t tell me to clean my room. He said, this morning, as you walk by my room, you looked in and you said, Clint, your room’s a mess, and that’s unacceptable.

I said, true, but you didn’t technically tell me to clean it. So I actually didn’t disobey you, right? I actually didn’t disobey you. Okay, so that’s what we’re doing? That’s our plan. Is that our plan with God? I mean, as we stand here right now today, I won’t ask for a show of hands. You can do it if you want. Who here wants to go to heaven? Yeah, right? Okay, so if we’re gonna go to heaven and we know Jesus is out there setting traps and throwing missiles and swinging swords, and he’s doing everything he can to trip us, deceive us, catch us, capture us. Here’s our plan. Let’s get as close as we possibly can to that without technically going over the line. That’ll be our best defense before God, right?

No, thank you. No, he’s looking, he’s going, that doesn’t make sense at all, Mr. Crozer. No, it doesn’t. But so let me ask you to think about a couple of things. I’ll leave the conclusions to you, my brothers and sisters. I really will. I’ll leave these conclusions to you. But let me ask is this what we want as we stand before God? God, stand before God on the day of judgment. God, I know you told me not to kill people or steal things. And technically I never did. Yes, I love playing these games and watching these movies where I can pretend like I’m killing people and I can pretend like I’m stealing things because I enjoy pretending to kill people, but I never technically actually did it.

That’s gonna be our plan before God. Or, God, I know you told us not to use profane speech, right? And yes, I use words that would offend a lot of people in my community. But you know, technically, if I was in Asia and I used those same words, they wouldn’t bat an eye at all because they don’t even know what they mean. And by the way, I’ve been in other countries where people said a word and somebody next to me went, Oh, and I went, was that bad? I don’t even know what they said. Was that, oh yeah, that’s so terrible. I go, really? That didn’t bother me any. Right? So we’re gonna stand before God, we’re gonna say, God, I know you told us not to use profane speech, but technically, the language I use isn’t offensive in Japan.

Right? Or, you know, like my son, God, you told us not to lie, and I don’t lie, God. I mean, yes, I conveniently leave out key information that isn’t flattering to me, but that’s not technically the same as a lie. Right? Or, God, you told us not to be drunken, right? And according to the state of Texas, the legal alcohol limit is 0.08 blood alcohol content. That’s probably at my weight, about five beers. I only had two. So technically, I’m not drunk at all. And although I’ll give you, Clint, that a bar is probably not a good place for a Christian to be. There’s a lot of things that go on there. It’s got a bad reputation, it’s a bad place where bad people go.

That’s why I only drink at my own house. That’s our best plan for God. We’re gonna outlawyer God when we stand on the day of judgment. Or are we gonna tell God, any time I saw a trap, I ran. Anytime I saw something associated with sin, I went the other way as far and fast as I possibly could. And I made mistakes. God, I made mistakes, I’m not perfect. But I lived my life abstaining from every appearance of evil. So if I thought there was even a remote chance that my activity could lead to sin, I was out of there. Which do you think stands the best chance of having God to us say to us, Well done, my good and faithful servant, right? Let’s make good choices about how we live our lives.

And let’s not see how dangerously close. Watch out now. Let’s not, no, I’m teasing. I’m teasing because he looked at me like, what? I was pretending like I was about to fall off the stage, and I still might. But let’s not live our lives trying to see how dangerously close we can get to sin just a little more, just a little, but technically I didn’t cross the line. That doesn’t make any sense at all, brothers and sisters. Live our lives with the breastplate of righteousness strong and intact, protecting us from going anywhere close to behavior that the devil has laid his traps for us. I’ll leave you to make your own conclusions. And why is this so important? Because in Matthew, Jesus said, Jesus said to you and me in the book of Matthew, Jesus said, You are the light of the world, Jesus said.

A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Jesus said, I expect you as Christians to be the light that others are called to. And we have to live our lives in a way that people see us and go, that’s the light of Christ. And I want that. Right? Jesus said in Matthew 5, 16, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Jesus is saying, live your life. Use that breastplate of righteousness in such a way that it protects you from sin. And when people see you, they recognize you’re different, and it causes them to want to be called to Christ. That’s the way we’re supposed to live our lives. I’ll embarrass my wife for a second.

Sorry. We’ve moved around over the years, and my wife has started a number of different jobs. She’s a dental hygienist, she’s retired now. But she started in this job in Virginia one time, and she’d been there two or three weeks, maybe, and she came home and said, Clint, I had a strange conversation today. And I said, What was that? She said, one of the ladies that works at the dental office came up to me and she just stood there and looked at me for a second, and she said, I bet you’re a Christian, aren’t you? And my wife said, Well, yeah, I am. Why? She goes, I could just tell there was something different about you, right? That’s how we want to live our lives, brothers and sisters.

3. Feet Shod With the Gospel of Peace

So we’re a light set on a hill, and people look at us and see the light of Christ, and that breastplate of righteousness is strong. And brothers and sisters, when people look at you and look at your life, if they don’t see something different about you, then I’ll just ask you to think about and ask you to consider. Have you strapped on your breastplate of righteousness? In Ephesians 6 15, we’re told, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Now there’s a couple of things here. I want you to look at verses 11, 13, and 14. 11, 13, and 14. And I’m going to pull those up real quick. 11 13 and 14. And so the Bible tells us here, trying to get the scripture open.

The Bible tells us here in verse 11, put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm in verse 11. In verse 13, we’re told, therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to risk the day, resist the devil in the evil day, having done everything to stand firm. And in verse 14, stand firm, therefore. Three times in four verses, God tells us to stand firm. You know what I think God’s really trying to say to us there? He wants us to stand firm. Right? It’s pretty obvious. Why is that? Think about a world class athlete. Football, soccer, track, anything else. What’s one of the things they invest a lot of money, time, energy, and effort in?

They’re cleats, isn’t it? A world class athlete is not going to go out on the football field without ensuring that his feet are solid and planted and has traction when he’s out there on the field, when he’s out there to play, right? He’s going to make sure his feet shod with that thing that allows him or her to stand firm. The same is true of a soldier. Can you imagine a soldier going out to battle and being barefoot? I got a helmet on, I got a breastplate on, I got a sword, I got, and I’m barefooted? That makes no sense at all, does it? Because the ground is treacherous out there. The world is difficult, right? The environment is challenging. The devil’s laying traps for us everywhere, and we want to have our feet shod in such a way that we can stand firm and not be carried away by every wind of doctrine.

Right? In Ephesians 4 14, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by the craftiness and deceitful scheming, which again is the words that were used with the devil. Deceitful scheming. There was a country song some number of years ago that said, you’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything. And that’s the idea here is we have to stand for the truth if we’re going to be able to stand firm the way God tells us to do. God tells us in Matthew, build your house on the rock, kids. Why are we told to build our house on the rock? So that when hard times come, the storm of life comes, difficulties come, it doesn’t disintegrate underneath us and get washed out to sea.

It can stand firm against the storms in our life that are sent against us. That’s the idea of having our feet shod. One of the ideas. The other idea goes back to Exodus 12 in verse 11. And go back and look at that verse. This is where the Israelites are being given the guidance about eating the Passover. And you’ll remember the language here is now you shall eat it, eat the Passover, in this manner, with your loins girded. Hey, that’s the same thing we read about gird your loins with truth. If you’re gonna be ready at the Passover, right? As soon as the Passover’s done, Pharaoh’s gonna send you all away, and I want you to be able to hit the streets immediately and go out to freedom, right?

I want you to be ready to go, bags packed, ready to go. First thing you have to do is have your loins girded. Interesting, we talked about that. The second piece is have your feet shod. You need to have your shoes on. We shoe a horse’s feet. A horse has his feet shod. Why? To be able to work through the treacherous area without harming the horse’s feet, right? And so, and have your staff in hand, and you shall eat it in haste. Now, when we think about having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, not only do we have our feet shod so that we can stand firm in times of difficulty, but look at what’s added there. Stand, have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

4. The Shield of Faith

Having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel. Be ready at all times to give a defense for what we believe, and prepare to protect yourself against the wiles and deceits of the devil, using scripture that God has given us to protect ourselves. Be preach the word, be ready in season, be ready out of season. We must at all times be ready to spread the gospel. We are so firmly grounded in. Having your feet shod. The next one is in addition to all taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. This is a really interesting one here. I think this one we get, you know, from the imagery. The shield was the primary form of defense, right?

The shield was probably the single, perhaps, other than the breastplate, probably the single most important thing the soldier had to protect himself from blows and challenges and everything else. And a soldier was essentially defenseless without his shield. And brothers and sisters, we are defenseless without our faith. Right? The shield of faith, we can go through challenges and difficulties in our lives, and if we can stay faithful and go, I don’t know why this is happening to me, but I’m not going to turn my back on God, right? Just like we read in the Old Testament, I’m not going to turn back on God. I’m not going to curse God and die, but I’m going to stay faithful and continue to do what’s right. We’ll be able to get through those challenges.

Now, here’s the improvement of weaponry over the course of time. So one of the things that was really interesting, and by the way, this verse actually says, so you can protect yourself or you can extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. And that’s not just imagery. Actually, on a battlefield, what would happen is originally swords were made of wood, or excuse me, shields were made of wood or other related material. And so when the adversary would shoot an arrow, you’d hold your shield up, and the arrow would hit the shield and you know, protect you and you were safe. Well, the adversary got crafty. The devil is crafty, and the adversary started lighting those arrows on fire, shooting flaming arrows or flaming missiles at their adversaries.

And when those shields were weak, the arrows would hit the shield, the flames would actually catch the shield on fire, and the shield would burn up, and the soldier would have to throw the shield down, and now they’re absolutely defenseless against their enemy. So what shield makers started to do is line the outside of the shield with lead or other metals so that when the arrow hit, it would either bounce off or the fire wouldn’t burn through the lead and the shield remained strong. The analogy for us there is we have to make sure that our shields are strong enough to withstand the fiery missiles of the devil. How do we make sure our shield is strong? Well, just as a soldier had to strengthen his shield, we have to do so too.

And so faith comes by hearing Romans 10 17. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. We’ve got to get in the book, my friends. We’ve got to get in the book and know scripture and understand the Bible and understand what God has told us. Remember, God gave us all the armor we need to withstand the attacks of the devil. We just have to know how to use them and we have to add them to our arsenal and employ them. So we have to make our shield strong enough that it can withstand the fiery missiles of the devil. And that means sometimes we’re going to have to go through difficult times, right? Because just as a world-class athlete gets better the more they train, right?

No pain, no gain, the more they suffer through the training process, the stronger they’re able to overcome in an actual competitive or war fighting scenario. And the same is true, we’re told in the book of James, testing your faith produce endurance so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking for nothing. Brothers and sisters, we’ve got to get in the word, we’ve got to know the Bible, we’ve got to use the Bible when the things come about. When we see a trap that’s been set, instead of tiptoeing as close as we can to the trap to see how close we can get without going over the edge, we need to say, no. The Bible says this and that. And therefore I’m going to employ that, and that’s how I’m going to keep myself safe from the devil.

And of course, Philippians 4 13 tells us that if we turn to Christ will help us through those times. And ultimately, Romans tells us the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet, right? Resist the devil and he will flee you, James 4 7. So we’ve got to be strong in our shields of faith, and that means we’ve got to exercise that faith. But the shield also had a really important piece, and I’m running out of time, I’ll finish up here in a minute. The shield also had a really important function, not just in individual defense, but in group defense. Look at this picture here. What an interesting concept this is, right? When battle went on over time, or when the enemy was using a particularly dangerous tactic, soldiers would form formations with their shields that will allow for collective defense.

And in a maneuver like this, the whole unit could move forward, even when they’re throwing missiles at them and striking them with swords, the whole unit could move forward towards the objective, right? The same concept was used when battle had raged on for hours and hours and days and days. They would form one of these things and they’d pull wounded soldiers behind this collective barrier, and they would tend to the wounded behind this impenetrable shield of your fellow soldiers.

This is so important for us to think about as Christians because individually we have been given shields of faith, but sometimes, brothers and sisters, we have brothers and sisters that fall in battle. We have brothers and sisters who go through hard and difficult times, and their shield isn’t as strong as it might ought to have been, and they fall prey to the devil, and they’re wounded and they’re laying on the battlefield unprotected. Brothers and sisters, that’s when we as a congregation, we have to wrap our arms around them. We have to all bring our shields of faith together. We have to wrap our shields of faith in a circle, pull them in behind that circle, and protect them while we nurse them back to health. That’s one of the most important concepts of a Christian congregation, and one that I love and I see a lot here at Decker Prairie.

5. The Helmet of Salvation

But the idea of protecting our weak brothers and sisters, our fallen brothers and sisters, by collectively employing our faith is such another powerful piece of how we employ our shield of faith for godly things. Okay, the last one that we’ll cover here, well, two more the helmet of salvation. So this one’s really interesting. Put on the helmet of salvation. So clearly, a soldier would use the helmet to protect their head, right? you hit a soldier in the head and it’s probably game over. So clearly, first and foremost, the helmet was used to protect the soldier. That’s true of us as well. We’re told that the helmet is a helmet of salvation. What does that mean? Let’s unpack that for a second. The helmet of salvation.

Okay, just as the helmet protected the soldier’s head, salvation protects us from anything that might be going on in our lives. As an example, what do I mean by that? In Daniel, we remember that Daniel and the Lions Den. We remember that when they threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when we when they threw them in, you remember, excuse me, in the fiery furnace, you remember he said, our God is able to deliver us, but if he chooses not, we will still not serve your gods. Why was that? They believed that they had salvation. They believed that they had God’s salvation behind them. And they said, Look, God can save us, but even if he doesn’t, there’s nothing you can do to me, because I’m gonna be with God in heaven, and that reward is gonna be wonderful.

And so no matter what we face, Matthew Jesus tells us, fear not those who can kill the body but not the soul, rather fear him who is able to destroy both the body and the soul in hell. And the idea there is if God is for us, who can be against us? Brothers and sisters, if we believe in our salvation, if we believe that when this life is done, we have a better life that has no pain and no suffering and no problems and no challenges. There’s nothing that we can’t get through in this life. It might be uncomfortable for a time, but remember the Bible tells us our life is but a vapor and then it’s gone, and then we get to be with God forever.

And that helmet of salvation, that idea of salvation protects us from anything we go through, knowing we’re not, if we don’t give up, we will continue to have the reward God has given us on the other side. But the other piece I think that’s important too is the helmet used as an adornment, right? And you all can think of these ideas where the Roman soldiers return victorious from battle and they’re marching through the streets and they’ve got these amazing, colorful helmets going on, right? Celebrating victorious. And the idea for us as Christians as well in Isaiah, we’re told, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with garments of salvation. Think about that. We have garments of salvation.

6. The Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God

We can stand proud with our heads held high, with our pride intact, knowing that we are Christians, and we have salvation waiting for us, and there’s no reason we should ever hang our heads about anything that’s happening in the world if we can be joyful in that. Jesus said, I have many mansions, and I’m going to prepare one for you, so we can be joyous and proud of the fact that we’re Christians. No tears, no death, no sorrow. Here’s the last one, and then the lesson will be yours. The sword of the Spirit is the only offensive weapon that we’ve been given. The others are all protective. And the sword can be protective, but it’s also offensive, right? And so, what is the sword of the spirit?

Well, the sword of the spirit is the sword the Holy Spirit has put into our hands, right? And as you know, we’ve been told that the word of God is the sword, right? The sword it tells us right here in Ephesians 6 17, take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Had a preacher many years ago who, as he was starting a sermon, he used to grab his Bible and say, Okay, let me let me draw my sword and we’ll get ready here, right? He used his Bible as his sword, because this tells us the Bible, the Word of God is our sword. So the Holy Spirit has put the sword into our hands. And I want to describe here, and we’ll look at this very quickly, and then the lesson will be yours.

I want to describe what I think is the greatest sword fight in human history. Here’s the greatest sword fight in human history. Jesus has gone out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and he’s been out there forty days and forty nights, and he’s fasted and he’s prayed. And look what’s happened in the greatest sword fight ever according. And in Matthew 4, verse 3. And the tempter, the devil came to him and said, If you are the Son of God, command these stones become bread. He’s trying to get Jesus to do a miracle, you know, dance to the devil. You know, the devil told Jesus to do something, do a miracle, and you know what the devil told you to do. But look at Jesus’ response in verse 4.

But he answered and said, It is written, Jesus drew his sword. The devil attacked Jesus, trying to get Jesus to do something that he shouldn’t do. Jesus drew his sword and blocked the devil’s attack with his sword. You see that? The sword of the spirit, which is the word of God? Jesus said, No, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And then continuing on, then the devil took him into the holy city and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written. So the devil says, Okay, you want to use the word of God?

I can use the word of God too. So Jesus blocks the devil, and then the devil pulls his sword and he used God’s own word against Jesus. Right? So he strikes Jesus with his own sword. And he said, Okay, you’re the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written. He will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, so you will not strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus said to him, On the other hand, it is written. So Jesus strikes again. It is written, you shall not put the Lord God to your test, to the test. And again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth.

And he said, All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship. And Jesus said to him, Go, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and worship him only. And look at that. Then the devil left him alone. The book of James tells us if we submit to God and resist the devil, the devil will flee us. But brothers and sisters, look what Jesus did. Jesus protected himself and vanquished the devil using Scripture. Scripture holds all the answers for all the ways that we avoid the traps and the schemes of the devil. And so we have to be aware of that as we move forward in our lives. In summary, brothers and sisters, and I’m sorry I went a little bit long.

Conclusion

In summary, God has fully trained and equipped us for this battle that we face. And it’s important that we all recognize and understand we do not live in a benign environment. I know the world might seem somewhat peaceful here in Texas, especially as we turn on the news and we see terrible things happening in Ukraine and Israel and other parts of the globe. But that’s just seeing the physical. When we adjust the lens, when we retune our thinking and we look at the spiritual, we are living in a battlefield each and every day, brothers and sisters, and the devil is out there to get us. He wants you, he’s looking for you, he’s laying traps for you. And the Bible tells us when we see those traps, use scripture, make good choices, and run as far and fast as we possibly can.

We’ve been called to service in God’s army.

Suffer hardship. There might be difficult times, but suffer hardship as good soldiers of Christ. I remember I’m dating myself now, but there was a commercial a number of years ago back when the war on drugs was a really big thing coming out of the Reagan administration. I know I said I’m dating myself, coming out of that era and others, but the war on drugs was a big thing in the United States back in the day. And I remember there was a commercial on TV that was pretty popular at the time, and the narrator was saying, you know, you might not want to be involved in the war on drugs. And the visual was a mother was going through laundry and you know, collecting laundry and turning pockets inside out and whatnot, getting ready to put them all in the laundry.

And the narrator said, You might not want to be involved in the war on drugs, and then the mother reaches in the pocket of Jean’s pocket and turns it inside out and finds some drugs in the pocket, right? And the narrator goes, you might not want to be involved in the war on drugs, but make no mistake. If you’re a parent, you’ve been drafted. Well, brothers and sisters, you might not want to be involved in the war on sin and doing battle each and every day with the devil, but the devil’s doing battle with you. And make no mistake, you might not want to be involved in that, but if you’re a kiss Christian, God has drafted you, and it’s a responsibility you cannot neglect. So work hard with me, my fellow brothers and sisters, as soldiers of Christ.

I’ll let that lesson now be yours. Thank you.