Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Hello, hello. Uh, I've not done this before in front of people. I'm used to speaking to 13 year olds, so this is a little bit new for me but we're gonna go with it. Um, so I always quite like it to know a little bit about who's kind of speaking to me. So, um, my name's Ellen Zester said I'm married to lovely James over there and um, we've been part of Rediscover Exeter for the past 10 years and we moved to Bubby Tracy recently. And so Newton Abbott has become our home church, which is super duper lovely. Uh, we're both currently serving on the young adults team and it's just an incredible group of young people at the moment. Uh, we do bible study every Wednesday and they're just incredible to kind of, uh, talk to learn from and just really delve into word together.
Speaker 1 00:00:47 And um, just to recap what we've been looking at in our discipleship se di oh hello discipleship series. Um, we looked at the four main things that Peter answers the question of what must I do to be saved? And he talks about, you must repent, you must believe you must be baptized and you must receive the Holy Spirit. We then moved on and we looked at how do we do this kingdom living that we wanna do as disciples of Jesus? And we looked at how grace is the motivation for that. We then looked at how Jesus needs to be king over every aspect of our lives. And then we had um, Phil come and share about the kingdom of God in the workplace and how as Christians we really need to be being the best employees that we possibly can be. Um, and then a couple of weeks ago, Esther's lovely dad, Brian came and spoke to us about kings and kingdoms and we looked at how there is a kingdom of light and how there is a kingdom of darkness and how the enemy is a very real presence in our world today, but actually we serve a king and a God that is so much greater and stronger and has already beaten him.
Speaker 1 00:01:50 So we don't really need to worry about it, but there are still some things as Christians we probably need to be looking at. And so, uh, Phil and us, I talk about being a kingdom overcomer and how we can do that together. So the main text we're gonna look at if you wanna get your Bibles out, if you have them with you, is gonna be Ephesians six verses 10 to 20. And we're gonna be looking at the armor of God together. And if you want a slightly catchier title, it's been going around in my head for months. Just this little tag is called Getting Over Ourselves and Getting On The Armor of God. Uh, looking at time, I've probably got about 20 minutes or so, just so we're on the same page. I'm gonna look at the context of the book of Ephesians 'cause the armor of God comes right at the end of that and I feel like Paul builds up to this for a reason.
Speaker 1 00:02:35 Um, and then I'm gonna talk a little bit about the, some of the things that we might need to overcome as follows of Jesus. One of those things being our own selves, our own minds and thoughts. And then finally we're gonna look at the six bits of armor. There are six, I thought there was four, and then went to right last night and realized there was two extras I'd missed. So we've got them. It's all good. We'll look at all six as quickly as we can 'cause I'm aware of time, um, again the armor of God. There's so much you can pull for it. So this is just gonna be a really brief sweep over it. But really encourage you. There are some fantastic commentaries out there that you should definitely look at if you wanna delve a bit deeper than what we go into today.
Speaker 1 00:03:13 So context wise book for Ephesians. Paul has gone into real detail about how we should be living out our lives as Christians. And he opens up the book in chapters one and two, um, looking at the gift of salvation and how we have been adopted into sonship and that is why we are able to access this gift. He then, uh, in chapter two he says this, he goes because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive in Christ even though we were dead in our transgressions. It is by grace that we have been saved. And when we look at salvation a bit later, 'cause the helmet is one of those bits of the armor, I'm gonna talk a little bit about how we, it is only by grace. We don't have to strive, we don't have to work exceptionally hard 'cause it's already been given to us.
Speaker 1 00:04:01 It is a gift. And although we should try and live out righteous lives, it is Christ first and foremost who has gifted this to us. Um, Paul goes on to say, um, in chapters three and he looks at the Gentiles and how they are included in this salvation. It's no longer just for the Jews and because of that it means that we get to access that today in the UK as well. Um, and it also means that it can go across the nations rather than just to the people of Israel. This salvation accessible to all, no matter your race, gender, religion, all the rest of it, there is salvation and there is Jesus's love for you that you are able to access. Cool. Um, he then goes on in chapters four, five and six to how to live out a Christian lifestyle and particularly in chapters five and six, he looks at um, how we should behave in our households and in our homes looking at the family and also looking at um, the workplace as well.
Speaker 1 00:04:53 And Reuben spoke on that a few weeks ago, so you can go and listen back to that too. Um, I have just realized that I haven't actually got the passage. Oh, it's gonna come up down there, so that's fine. Cool. So we're gonna read this one together. So it says, finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 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. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground And after you've done everything to stand, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist with the breastplate of righteousness in place and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
Speaker 1 00:05:44 In addition to all this take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Lord, we just pray that you'd speak to us, uh, through this passage, God that you'd help us to unpack it and look at the different aspects of the armor that we can put on and how that we have to have all of them. That without one God we're gonna end up open to our tax God. But it is your strengthened by your grace alone that we are able to stand in the first place. And for that we're so grateful. Um, Paul goes on at the end of this verse and he just says, please help me to speak fearlessly so that the gospel of Jesus might be shared.
Speaker 1 00:06:21 And we pray that today as well. God in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Cool. So little fun, fun little childhood anecdote from me is that I was gonna show a clip of this, but it's very early cringe two thousands TV and it's not really what anybody wants on a Sunday morning, but seven year old Ellie really wanted this every Saturday morning and that's why I think it's one of my mom's favorite mornings as well during the week because me and my brothers, we'd be up 7:30 AM downstairs in front the tell you of our bowls of cereal and we were allowed to watch TV for the morning, which sounds like bad parenting I grant you. But the caveat was that we were only allowed to watch Christian TV shows. So you'd go onto the sky bit, is it sky tv? There's the religion bit. You click on that and all it's got is really good Christian, I mean tat as well, but really good Christian tv.
Speaker 1 00:07:11 And one of these shows was a show called Bible Man. And the only way that I can describe Bible man is that it was like a Batman armor but bright purple yellow spandex and he'd fight off evil with a lightsaber while saying bible verses. And it was chef's kiss, it was fantastic television, I'm not gonna lie. And he goes through this getting ready sequence with the computer and they go through the armor of God and he studies like um, waist belt of truth, helmet of salvation, sorted of spirit, all, all of them together. And um, it's just a really beautiful, I just why I'd share that just 'cause it's a really fun little bit to do with the armor of God and the clip would've helped, but that's okay. Um, Paul is writing this from prison and he's probably being guarded by a Roman soldier at the time, which is why we find this soldier imagery in the passage. Um, can I just say that God used what was in Paul's everyday life, you would've seen soldiers day to day. So if you are looking and you are asking, God, God I can't hear you, can you just speak to me? Maybe have a look at where you've been placed, the kind of objects in your life, the people that are in it because God uses what we think is mundane and ordinary in order to speak real truth into our lives.
Speaker 1 00:08:20 Cool. Next bit. So finally be strong in the Lord and is mighty power. How comforting to know that even though we are getting dressed for battle, that Christ has already won the war. Knowing the end result that Jesus defeated death and sin wants and for all when he died and rose again means that we can gather our strength from that truth. That is his power within us, by his spirit, that we do not need to be fearful of. The things are to come up in our life. And I've got a little bit here about struggling. The struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers and authorities of this world. And I was just thinking about this and I was thinking about how often when we talk about the chaos in our lives, we start describing people rather than the situation. And we put the blame on other people who are also broken but are also made in the image of God and aren't perfect just as we are not.
Speaker 1 00:09:10 And um, John Phillips says this really, really great thing. He goes, our enemies are not people. Satan may use people to persecute us, lie to us, cheat us or even kill us. But our real enemy works in the shadows of the unseen world, moving people as pawns on the chess board of time. As long as we see people as enemies and wrestle against them, we will spend our strength in vain. Jesus puts such an emphasis on that. We need to love our neighbor and love our enemies because he knows this. He knows that if we're getting riled up and frustrated at people, then we are missing the issue, which is the work of the darkness that is going on in our world today.
Speaker 1 00:09:51 Cool. The other thing is that as Christians we should be the most encouraging, loving and compassionate people anyway. And that should come because we have the Holy Spirit inside of us. And when we have the Holy Spirit, it means that the fruits of the spirit begin to show out like love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. All these attributes should be attributed to us as Christians. And I know we get it wrong sometimes and I know it's frustrating at times, but these fruits should be an outpouring from our lives. Um, there is a person however that does prevent us from overcoming challenges and situations sometimes. And I think that person is ourselves sometimes the biggest. Uh, we can get caught up in our own doubts, insecurities and we believe and what we believe are temporary feelings, hormones, emotions, whatever is what's going to dictate whether I'm going to obey God that day or whether I'm going to seek his kingdom in the way life should, which is why I believe Paul mentions the waist belt of truth.
Speaker 1 00:10:50 If that's okay. Scout one up James as his first bit of armor. John eight verse 31 to 32 says, so Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. When we look at these two opposing kingdoms, we've got kingdom of light, kingdom of darkness, kingdom of light. We've got king Jesus who reigns and the enemy does reign in the kingdom of darkness. But who knows that light exposes to darkness and is greater than that. The same chapter in John which tells us that the is the truth that sets us free is the same chapter that tells us the devil is a liar and the father of lies. And um, yeah, we know that truth will always come out. Numbers 32 verse 23 says, know this, your sin will find you out.
Speaker 1 00:11:39 It's also a phrase, my mum used to use a lot on me and my brothers when we were telling the story of who hit who first. So um, yeah, the reality of the situation is that the truth is greater than a lie because a lie produces guilt, shame, and feeds on doubt. Whereas the truth alleviates worry and frees up our minds to dwell on more important things. And Colossians free, it says Set our mind on the things that are higher rather than the things of this world. Lies are also difficult to maintain and keeps us feeling trapped. Whereas the truth offers instant freedom when talking about our biggest obstacle being ourselves. Sometimes when we let the lies of the enemy become bigger than the truth of how God has made us seize us and how far he has brought us and is yet to bring us, we begin to trip, fall and get beaten down by the enemy.
Speaker 1 00:12:25 If you imagine a literal belt and you are running and the belt, you get rid of the belt, your trousers, metaphorical trousers are gonna fall down. You're gonna trip up, you're gonna fall over. And so if we're running into battle without the knowledge of how God has made us and how great he is first and foremost, then we are going to be falling over and running into a battle as an instant trip hazard. Mm-hmm. One of the other things just very quickly about the waist belt in Roman armor, I don't know if you can see, it's not like just a belt, it's got these bits of leather, bits of armor that cover like the whole downstairs area. We are the conversation around sexuality and gender at the moment is so prominent in our culture and I believe that it's because we've stepped away from the truth of how God has fully made us.
Speaker 1 00:13:09 We've replaced the truth of scriptures to find who we are and we've replaced it with the voices of other broken people who are living in the same confusion as us. Friends, I don't wanna dwell on it too long, but can I just reassure you that we are living in a world that is broken and confused but that are, it says in one Corinthians 1433, our God is not a God of confusion, but he is a God of peace. And I believe this for my generation, I believe it for our nations at the moment that God will bring peace to those who are struggling with their identity and how they are feeling. Truth sets us through from our own Syrian insecurities because we realize that God is greater than who we are and how we feel. John three 30 says He must become greater and I must become less because the more I give I have God in my life.
Speaker 1 00:13:55 The more clarity, peace, and strength I find because I realize that I don't have to find it within myself. Everyone says you have to be a strong independent woman. But the reality is, is that I'm very weak but I have a God who makes me strong. I don't have to be independent because I'm fully dependent on him and I'm fully capable still of being the man or woman that God has called me to be, but only through the grace of God. It's nothing that I can do on my own strength. And that is the beauty of grace is that it is nothing that we can do. It is all about who he is. I need to motor a little bit. So breast play of righteousness, uh, the armor of God is helpful because it isn't just an armor given to us, it has been specifically given to us, but it is armor that God has worn before.
Speaker 1 00:14:39 It's called the armor of God, meaning it belonged to God, which he has then given to us because it has been a tried and tested suit which stands against the power of the darkness so that we're all working from the same understanding of righteousness. 'cause it's a big word that gets thrown around a lot in Christian churches and doesn't get explained. But righteousness is basically the quality of being morally right or justifiable. And because we are sinful by nature and often by choice, we can't be wholly righteous. We get things wrong, we make selfish decisions and we end up hurting people sometimes. But because of our brokenness it means we can't reach that level of righteousness that is so requested of us. But that is why we've been gifted the Holy Spirit in order to live within us to reproduce the righteousness of Christ in us and through us.
Speaker 1 00:15:26 We're not able to reach Christ's righteousness but yet we're still commanded to seek it. It says Matthew 6 33. It says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. We might never be able to fully replicate God's righteousness, but if we seek to build his kingdom and we seek to live a life that is holy and relies on his spirit to reveal his righteousness to us, then where it says all these things will be added onto you, he will provide everything that we need in this life in order to live the Christian lifestyle that he calls us to.
Speaker 1 00:16:00 Beautiful. Can we go to the next one? Thank you. She's of peace. Stand fe them with the belt of truth buckled around your waist with the breastplate of righteousness in place and your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Standing firm is a defensive stance. It's not an offensive stance. Peace juxtaposes the image of a soldier. 'cause we often associate soldiers with violence and destruction and uh, war. But really you think about why a soldier is fighting, ultimately they are fighting for peace in their land. And that is what we are fighting for too. We are fighting 'cause we wanna see the peace that God brings in our world today.
Speaker 1 00:16:39 Paul commands that we stand firm because he's worried about wobbly Christians and we've good reason to. John Stokes says this, wobbly Christians who have no firm foothold in Christ are an easy prey for the devil. Christians who shake like reeds and rushes cannot resist the wind when the principalities and powers begin to blow. And we see this in scripture when Joshua and Caleb and some of the other Israelite leaders, they go into the promised land that God has asked 'em to go and sit, have a little look around, see what's what, see what's good. And they come back and they start telling all these stories of these giants and scary men and women that they've met. And they're like, well, we can never beat them. We can never take their lamb because oh my goodness, look how much bigger they are and stronger they are. And God goes, we've just completely forgotten the fact I've just brought you across the entire Red Sea.
Speaker 1 00:17:26 I've just saved you from an entire Egyptian civilization. Why do you think I cannot take you to the land that I've called you to? And as a result we see that it's only Joshua and Caleb who remained faithful to God that were able to enter into that land if we do not remain faithful in ourselves. If we do not keep our peace in situations of chaos, then we cannot go where God is calling us to. There are chaotic things in life though. And um, Philippians four, six verse seven says, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God and the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ. Few years back we got evicted from our house, uh, with like a month's notice. It wasn't the most fun in my fun time in our lives, but I just remember mum being really, really calm and like chill.
Speaker 1 00:18:19 She just got out the risk board, put it on the table and she started putting post-it notes, things we need to pray for, things we need to pack, things we need to look for. And there was such a peace amongst that chaotic moment in our lives amongst the fear that it was, it was a really well put example of how to live out that peace in our day-to-day lives. When there's chaos, the peace that God has on offer to us will transcend the chaos of us. Circumstances and situations. Those looking in will not be able to understand how we've kept our call in hard moments. And with such we can point them in the direction of the one where our help and peace comes from. I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Beautiful shield of faith 'cause I'm anxious of time.
Speaker 1 00:19:08 Lovely take up the shield of faith with which you can distinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, the shield, as you see, it's quite a long shield. The Roman shields, you put it in front of the rest of your armor from where the attacks are coming from. So if we've got attacks coming from identity, we're gonna protect our breast plate and our waist. If we've got attacks of doubt about whether we're saved or not coming from our helmet, we're gonna hold it up to protect that. It says for it's by grace, you've been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves. It is a gift from God. God has gifted us the faith, the ability to believe so that there would be no barrier between us and him. He could have taken away our free will to believe or not. But instead he gave us the opportunity to love and to be loved wholeheartedly through him.
Speaker 1 00:19:52 The other interesting thing about the shields and things is that when your armor gets damaged, you have to take it to a blacksmith in order to get it reforged, remade and strengthened. And the way that blacksmiths do this, and Jacob, you have to correct me on the engineering front, but you put the metal into a hot furnace and you shape it while it is still hot and burning. And then you bring it out into a different environment. And I believe that God does that with us. He doesn't tell us that the Christian life is gonna be easy. That's right. In fact, he says, I've come that you may have life in life to the full. So it might be a full life, but it's not gonna be an easy life.
Speaker 1 00:20:29 So when he does this, he in the situations that are difficult, that feel like really hot, they're shaping us into, they're shaping our faith to be stronger than what it was before. One Peter, one verse six to seven says this, in all this, you greatly rejoice. So now for a little while you may have suffered all kinds of grief. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater earth than gold, which perishes through refined fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor. When Christ is revealed in battles and hardships of life, we can choose to let the enemy beat us down or we can choose to rejoice and praise God that others might see God's faithfulness in our lives through how we respond to the lows of life. And it's only by having strengthened faith that we are able to rejoice in those moments.
Speaker 1 00:21:15 Because like I said, sometimes our own thoughts and emotions get in the way of that. You also need your faith strengthened by fellows, soldiers, others might have other battlefield experience to you. They might be able to advise. They also might be able to just tweak your armor if you're wearing it a little bit wrong. And um, one of the best ways that you can do this by getting to a community of other Christians. If you've not signed up for a life group yet, there are some fantastic life groups going around. If you are, uh, between 18 and 30, we'd love to have you at the young adults as well. Um, it's been our, we've just seen every single one of us, our faith has just grown in such a way that wouldn't have been able to happen if, if we weren't meeting together and building one another up.
Speaker 1 00:21:56 Cool. Two more. We're almost there, right? How much salvation serves two purposes. You just flick to the next one. Oh, it's just taking a little minute. That's fine. We can take a little minute. Helmet of salvation serves two purposes. Firstly, salvation protects us from spiritual death. It says because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ. Even when we were dead in our transgressions is by grace that we've been saved. This is the truth of our salvation. By wearing this on our heads, we are keeping that knowledge in our minds, which then flows down to our hearts as well. The truth is that we have been saved by grace. It is crucial to our ability to overcome the kingdom of darkness. We've established earlier that the devil likes to plant little seeds of doubt in our minds about our salvation.
Speaker 1 00:22:43 And it's just again to reiterate that grace, that there is nothing that we can do in order to earn that place in heaven. All we have to do is say, yes, Jesus, I give you my life. You can have all control of it, even if it means I'm standing up here doing things that I wouldn't normally have put myself in for. Thank God that his grace is sufficient for us because without it we would not be able to save ourselves. The second purpose of a helmet is the, you see the very colorful, lovely feathers on there. The plumes as they're called, they would be used to identify a soldiers rank all their legions. So where they belong to make them really identifiable in battle. And I just wanna ask the question of, is the fact that we are saved ident identifiable to other people? Or do we take off our helmet when we're around certain friends or colleagues because we don't want 'em to know that we're a Christian and we're ashamed and embarrassed and we're kind of not really wearing our shoes of peace or anything else?
Speaker 1 00:23:36 'cause we're quite nervous about it. The world should be able to see that we are Christians by the way that we live out our lives and by the way that we share with goodness, the joy and the goodness of what God has done for us. Cool. And finally, the sword of the spirit. Hebrews four, verse 10 says this, for the word of God is alive and active. It's sharper than any double-edged sword and penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart. Have you had a ever had a moment when you're doing your morning devotional <inaudible>, everything's going beautifully. You just wanna get it ticked off your to-do list, move on with your day and you read a scripture and the passage starts to really hit home and it starts to kind of sting a little bit and you're like, oh, are you talking to me?
Speaker 1 00:24:23 Really? Is that, is that for me? And you're sat there and you're like, actually it's your attitude towards that thing that is being challenged on you. And it's meant to hurt sort of sharp, very, very painful. Same like a knife. It's meant to cut away the sinful things in our lives so that we can live out this life of righteousness that God has called us to. And in the same way, when we use the sword of the spirit to other people's lives that we want, we really want people to get to know God because he has done so much for us. We're not here just preaching a feelgood gospel. We're saying this stuff is really hard to live out on a day-to-day basis and our our mess up on a, on the daily. But we want people to know this good news that we carry.
Speaker 1 00:25:09 But sometimes when we are using the sword, we have to be mindful of the way that we do it. So often in our Christian culture, we've wielded the sword whilst we weren't wearing the rest of the armor. The passage repeats twice in verse 11 and 13 to put on the full armor of God. And Paul's trying to emphasize that we can't pick and choose which bits of the armor we put on. If we go out into the world waving the sword of the spirit around and we start spewing the gospel, but we aren't wearing the shoes of peace, then we aren't when we're gonna be met with hostility and hardened hearts. When we aren't wearing the fullam of God, we are not participating and advancing the kingdom of God because we have entered a battle that we were unprepared for misinformed of. And there will be gaps in our armor. The enemy will be able to land shots with.
Speaker 1 00:25:55 So just to summarize very quickly, oh, we've done it. Yes. Just to summarize very quickly, I think this verse is really, really helpful. And it's from James four verse seven. It says, submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you like a soldier to our commander. When we submit our whole selves, our identity, our sins, our fears, and recognize that it, it's by grace through faith that we're able to stand against darkness at all, our lives will become more peaceful because we've got the shoes of peace. They'll become more purposeful and more passionate because we know what we are fighting for. We know our place in the army and we know that our God has already won the battle. And we are just here to make His kingdom come by wearing the armor of God and making sure that our armor is in good shape and being worn fully and correctly.
Speaker 1 00:26:46 We have the Holy Spirit to enable us to resist the lies, temptations and chaos that the enemy might try to throw at us. And when we are stood next to Jesus, our king and commander in chief, we can praise and rejoice in the truth that he has already defeated the enemy. Lord, thank you that you are so good to us. You're so kind. Thank you that you sent your son Jesus to die for us. And Lord, if there's anyone here that doesn't know you yet, Lord we pray, would you open up their hearts and they, they would be able to know the deep, deep love that you've got for them. God, we thank you that you speak to us through your word and we pray that if there's elements of our armor that is looking chipped or battered or tired, God, we pray that you would, um, help us to find people around us to help repair it. But I also pray that you'd help us to know the truth and that the truth will set us free. That we are made in the image of God, that we are made right by your grace, and that you have got plans and purpose and future for us. Lord, you're so good. God, you're so kind and we worship you today. Amen.
Speaker 0 00:40:49 <silence>.
