Sermons from Lone
Rock Bible Church God's Body Armor (Part 2) Here is a piece of God’s armor designed for our protection. What exactly is the “breastplate of righteousness?” Last week we talked about being right with God and the position of righteousness. This week, let’s talk about right living:
We dare not underestimate our enemy and that’s why the apostle says, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God.” (Ephesians 6:10-11). We talked a couple weeks ago about having our loins girded with truth, the belt of truth, and then to put on the breastplate of righteousness. I’ve been thinking a little bit lately about one of the premier soldiers of the Bible – David. Remember, Saul has killed his thousands and David his tens of thousands. David’s first experience in battle started off a little bit shaky. He couldn’t stand that the giant Goliath was getting away with taunting the armies of the living God. David saw that the Lord’s reputation was on the line and he wasn’t going to sit still for that. I’m not so sure it was as much to win the hand of the king’s daughter as it was simply to salvage the reputation of the God of Israel that David said, “I will go and slay this uncircumcised Philistine if the rest of you aren’t up to it.” King Saul thought he would help David out. He offered him his armor. Can you envision this lad, a young man, for the very first time putting on a soldier’s armor and then going forth to take on a guy who was up to 9 feet tall, a genuine giant, who was a seasoned warrior, who had a spear whose shaft was like a weaver’s beam. So David puts the armor on, tried to move around, and said this isn’t going to work. He remembers the time that a lion attacked the sheep and the bear attacked the sheep and how it was that David, by the grace and power of God, was able to prevail over that enemy. He said I didn’t have armor then and I don’t suppose I need it now. That’s when he selected five smooth stones from the brook, went out and slew the giant and cut off his head. He didn’t do that with armor, although it would seem that would have been the wise course of action. There was another time David could have used some armor. Later on in his career, in the spring of the year, the Bible says, when all the kings were at war and the battle was in a distant place, David wasn’t there. Where was David? David was lollygagging on the roof of his palace, way behind the lines. His eyes happened to fall on this beautiful wife of the soldier Uriah. That, combined with the pride of being the king, led to perhaps the most famous act of adultery in all history. Grief upon David and his family that did not leave for generations, and many lives lost. Why? Because David did not, at that time, have his armor on, his spiritual armor. Are you following? The apostle knows this. He was in prison as he wrote the book of Ephesians. He was in prison in Rome a thousand years after David, well familiar with the armor of a Roman soldier, well familiar with the imagery of armor as it comes to us in the Old Testament. By the inspiration of the Spirit of God, Paul said you had better have your armor on. We talked last week about this whole business of the breastplate of righteousness and that is exactly what it is talking about, body armor, very similar to the Kevlar protection that policemen and soldiers are wearing today. You had better have it on. Scholars have looked at this in the Bible and said what does he mean, the breastplate? We understand that part, the protective armor. You wear it. You put it on when you get up and you take it off when you go to bed at night. You wear it all the time. But what does it mean, “of righteousness”? Some have suggested that means you need to have the righteousness of Jesus. You need to know Him as your Lord and Savior so that God looks at Jesus’ righteousness and not yours and thereby accepts you and you are right with God. True enough. Others have said maybe so, but also in view here is not simply theological, forensic, legal, righteousness before God because our sins are paid for. True enough. Glorious enough. But also, we would argue, righteousness as right living. There are two ways to view righteousness. We are viewing them both. Last week we viewed righteousness as being right with God. Today, righteousness also as being right living, how we live. A strong and successful defense against the enemy has everything to do with how we live our lives, whether or not we render ourselves vulnerable and open ourselves to defeat and disgrace and impotence or whether the righteousness of Jesus as it is lived out in our lives becomes for us the very best, most successful defense against the enemy. Please understand something. We are talking now about behavior, how you and I behave. When we are raising children, it used to be, “You behave!” What does that mean? That means (a) don’t do anything bad and (b) try to do something good. Behave yourself! That’s what we are talking about here. It’s interesting to me, every time I reflect on that moment of conflict between the first brothers, Cain and Abel. How it was that Abel brought an offering God accepted and Cain brought one God rejected. So Cain was resentful toward Abel and it made him mad and he retreated and kind of pouted and his countenance was fallen. He was depressed; he was blue. It’s interesting that when God, by his grace, spoke directly to Cain and said, “Cain, why is your countenance fallen?” Cain, you need counseling. Cain, you need medication. No, He said, “Cain, if you do well, your countenance will be lifted up.” At this point, you don’t have an organic problem, Cain. Your problem is in your heart and your behavior needs to reflect the will of God and as it does, other things will fall into place as they should. Behavior is our key to righteousness or right living. As we are using the terms, “righteousness” and “right living,” we’ll use it interchangeably. Behavior is key, not analysis, and certainly not sentiment. If we are going to have defense against the enemy sentiment is really not that important. There is no place where the Bible counsels God’s people to follow their hearts. No place. Quite to the contrary, Proverbs 28:26 says, “It is the fool who trusts in his own heart.” The world – and I heard it all the time – says “follow your heart, trust your heart.” That’s not coming from Scripture. I’m not sure where it is coming from but it certainly is not the Bible. The Bible says (Proverbs 3:5-6) “Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” What a contrast. Follow your heart? I don’t think I love my wife any more. I think I ought to divorce her. Come on! That’s out of the pit. What is the enemy’s ploy here – to kill, steal, and destroy? If he can tear down a life, if he can tear down a marriage, if he can tear down a church or a community or a family, he will and he will do it by just that kind of nonsense. So don’t go there. This is a good day for this sermon because there is a football game this afternoon and you’ll notice the two points – defense and offense. In my opinion, this right living, this business of wearing the armor, the breastplate of righteousness protecting our boiler rooms, has to do with defense and offense. That’s what that thing does, that metal or that Kevlar cover protects the vital. The Bible has two things to say about that and first let me talk about defense. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Children [God’s children, your children, your parents’ children] guard your hearts.” Guard your heart because from it flows the springs of life. Everything that emerges from you and me that represents who we really are begins in our hearts. Our hearts are under attack. They must be guarded. They must be protected. There must be defense here. Our enemy is after us. Put on the armor of God. Our struggle is not with flesh and blood. We are at war. Part of being at war is guard duty. A number of us have stood guard duty and most of the time standing guard duty means it’s a killer of a four-hour shift because you pretty much just stand there and seek to be alert. You may go your entire military experience and never do anything on guard duty. But the one time the enemy tries to get in is the time you had better be awake and had better be alert and had better be vigilant. Guard duty is critical. Some things need to be kept out and away. Some influences have to be handled by defense and body armor primarily is not a weapon of offense. You don’t take it out and hit somebody over the head with it unless you are in a moment of serious desperation. It is designed to protect. That is its primary use. It is designed to guard the heart. Could we just for a second ask ourselves, what is the heart? Are we talking about the involuntary muscle that pumps blood? No, as a matter fact, in the old days, the earlier translations of the English Bible heart, was not the organ that was used. It was bowels. We don’t say bowels anymore; we are better off saying heart. Some cultures say kidneys. It’s the guts. I have a definition I have liked for a long time. The heart is the soul. When we refer to a person’s soul, that’s what we are talking about, the inner person. The soul is the seat of our emotions, the seat of our intellect, the seat of our will. It is the heart. It is the unseen me, or you, that looks out through the windows of our eyes. It is what is beneath. That sounds maybe a little bit ethereal, a little bit weird, and it is, kind of, because the Bible says when we die physically, the soul lives on. We are not equipped in this life to understand that fully. That’s true. But we are equipped in this life to guard it. The access to the soul is through our senses. I do this for myself, and if you benefit from it, good. But I have to get simple with me. The access to my soul is through my senses. You cannot divorce the soul from the brain. The brain is that gray matter, the soul’s nerve center. The brain is the soul’s command post, headquarters. It cannot be bypassed. All roads lead through the brain and it is the brain with which we have to do, the access through our senses. Realize, for instance, going way back to the early chapters of the Bible, Adam’s wife Eve when she was being tempted in the garden by the serpent, made a decision from the depth of her soul that she was going to eat that fruit. But that decision was not made in a vacuum. No, the devil was there. He was the enemy then, he is the enemy now. He was saying, “God is not telling you the truth. Trust me instead.” She looked at the fruit and the Bible says she saw that it was a delight to her eyes. Her defenses were down. It looked good. It was desirable to make her wise. She took from the fruit and she ate. The Bible doesn’t go into detail with Adam, but it had to be the same thing. She took a bite. She didn’t fall over dead on the spot. It looked good to him, it probably smelled good to him, and so his senses, directly to his brain influenced his decision. The rest, of course, is sad, sad history. It’s the same thing in the seventh chapter of Judges after Jericho has fallen and the children of Israel move on to their next point of conquest and find themselves defeated. They wonder why. There is sin in the camp so God brings forth Achan. Achan tells them I was there in Jericho and I knew what the rules were, I knew that all this stuff was God’s, it was placed under the ban not to be touched. But when I saw there among the ruins and the spoil this beautiful mantle, this shawl from Shinar or Babylon and some gold and some silver, I saw them. I wanted them. I took them, and I hid them. His fundamental problem was his eye gate because the eyes are access, a gateway, to the soul and will influence the decisions that follow. Guarding the heart is each believer’s responsibility. We need to guard the gate. I think it’s interesting how guarding works. We had an interesting event when I was in the Navy. Nothing ever happened, but my friend Russell Miller who we called Crazy Russell, was learning to play the flute. He had the mid-watch which was midnight to 4 a.m. We were anchored at an ammo dump in the Philippines. Russell was out on the fantail in the dead of night trying to learn how to play his flute, guarding. He hears a noise. He rushes to the back of the fantail and looks over. All these 3-inch lines that are holding us in one spot and he sees these little guys coming up the line. He shook his flute at them, and ran for help! What does a guard do? When there is an opponent or someone suspicious or not to be trusted, the guard challenges that individual. “Halt! Who goes there?” Does this sound too trite? It shouldn’t. This is what you and I need to ask as our gates are challenged. What’s the perimeter password? Are you allowed in? If the answer is no, we stand fast. This is the defensive posture as far as guarding our hearts, and it’s each believer’s responsibility. We guard the gates; we guard them for life. Just like Buckingham Palace, there is never a time we are not being guarded, and it is our responsibility. Let’s remember something about our enemy. Our enemy’s desire is to destroy us or at very least, to distract us. If he can, to disgrace us, humiliate us, immobilize us, discourage us. Let’s talk about the gates. I have listed a few. You probably already know them, learned them in the first grade. I’m going to name four. In guarding the heart we have to guard the gates. I’m combining smelling and tasting because they are related and the others are sight, hearing and touching. The sight gate is the eyes. Some are more visual in orientation than others. Temptation through the eye gate seems to be more a tendency of men than it is of women. Men tend to be visually stimulated. Brothers and sisters, so very much of the temptation that is common in our culture will come to you and me on some kind of screen – TV screen, computer monitor, theater screen. It is here where we had best be ready to say, “Halt, who goes there?” There is a point of vulnerability that in our culture is reaching epidemic proportions with men, men who are either not equipped or not willing to set this guard. Do you realize when men are visually stimulated, it isn’t just an eye fascination, but there is a neuro transmitter, a drug that is released in the brain. It’s an addictive drug which is why I have had men come to me and say, “I cannot quit looking.” Why? Because that drug is triggered in the brain and it becomes an addictive obsession and it’s very, very real. The guard needs to be posted. There is only one way to fix it, only one. Close the gate. That is the only answer. It is so real and it is so painful. There are so many men who have been disgraced and rendered immobile in the kingdom of God for this very thing. Guard the gate! I heard this story years ago -- a young man entering into the ministry, well aware of the temptation that he would likely face. He felt he would gain encouragement. He just had to talk to this senior, retired, missionary gentleman. He’s been there. He’s been around the block all these many times so he made an appointment to talk with the man, a man well into his 80’s. He said, “Sir I just need to know at which point in your life and in your career were you finally free from this temptation issue?” And the gentleman said, “Not yet.” It’s life. It’s this life. It’s the battle and it’s there to be engaged. All we can do is set guards. Proverbs 27:20 ought to hit us between the landing lights because we like to think how we can fix things once and for all. Some things only God can fix once and for all and this is one of them. Proverbs 27:20 Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, That is to say the netherworld and the place of destruction. We would say in our day, “Speed on, brother, hell ain’t half full.” Never satisfied. There’s always room for more in the place of destruction beyond this life. In tandem with that. Sheol
and Abaddon are never satisfied, Nor
are the eyes of man ever satisfied. There you have it. So what do we need? We need by the grace of God to guard the gate and the one to keep it closed. Hearing – perhaps not as prominent an issue. But our hearing gate works through our ears. To whom do we listen? To whom do we go for counsel? Whose voice is the one that rings as true in your head or mine? To what do we listen? Music – ok. Lyrics – ok. Do you realize how hearing affects behavior? Remember Pavlov’s dog and how, at the mere ringing of the bell, the dog began to associate the bell with food. So all Pavlov, the behavior psychologist, had to do was ring the bell and the dog would salivate. Some things we ought not to listen to. I can’t tell you what you should or should not listen to because I can’t make those associations with you. On that same fantail, the back of the ship, we had a helo pad. Obviously that had to be on the top. Right below that, there is a covered deck area where we used to have picnics and things. That’s where Russell Miller shook his flute. On that same fantail one night, we were on the South China Sea, it was truly a dark and stormy night. The waves were high and you could even see the whitecaps in the dark. I came under such conviction. I was a fairly new Christian and I had a tremendous collection I was proud of. I don’t know how many eight track tapes. And under the conviction of God I said I’m a Christian, I know it. I’m in the Bible and I know it, but when I listen to this stuff, it just dulls the edge of my spiritual life. It takes my mind where it shouldn’t go. By God’s grace I grabbed the handle of that thing and walked to the edge of the fantail and tossed that stuff in the South China Sea. I can’t tell people what to keep and what to toss, but I can say that if through hearing we are led into a point of incapacity, dump it. Guard the gate. That’s what we are here to do. Touching. Obviously we touch for the most part with our hands and there are certain places are hands hadn’t ought to be. Maybe our hands hadn’t ought to be on the handle of the one-arm bandit. Maybe that’s a problem. It is for many, even Christians. Maybe on the mouse of our computer. Maybe, illegimately, on another person. Guard it. We must do that ourselves. Finally, smelling or tasting. Sometimes we just need not to eat. Some people struggle with weight issues and need to just stay clear because it will drag a person down. Other people struggle with drink or chemical addictions and so forth. Just stay clear. These are gates that we must guard for ourselves, but there is nothing saying we cannot help one another guard them. And there is no reason not to stand together. Guard the gates. Those gates of sight, hearing, touching and smelling all access our brain. Our brain and our soul cannot be separated from one another. If the enemy is going to get us, if he is going to immobilize us or distract us or discourage or disgrace us, that’s where he is coming. Set a guard. Don’t hesitate to say, “Halt, who goes there?” Offense Let’s talk about offense, right living as offense. We practice right living. We practice right behavior by training ourselves to make right choices. That’s all. None of this is rocket science, is it? Just making right choices. You might even say that this principal of making right choices and practicing right behavior is like turning the tables on the enemy. It’s like counter attack. It’s like taking the battle to the enemy and many battles have been won that way. We make right choices by the grace of God, according to the word of God. Choices, one choice at a time, one decision at a time, over time will become a habit. A habit will become a way of life, and our way of life will determine character. I have several key scriptures that I want us to look at quickly. I John 3 are verses that sometimes have been confusing to people. I’ll try to explain what it’s about. Before we read, let me remind you that if a person is a Christian, that means that the Holy Spirit of God truly lives in that person. The intent of the Holy Spirit of God, is to live through the person. That cannot but help in how we behave and the choices that we make. Another way of saying that is, if in fact the Holy Spirit lives in us, that means we have the righteousness of Jesus as our possession and gradually, perhaps in some cases more quickly, we start living like Jesus, thinking like Jesus, choosing like Jesus as we go. I John
3 7
Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is
righteous, just as He is righteous; 8
the one who practices sin is of the devil; Different translations of the Bible have missed a distinction here and that has led to some confusion. For one, the Authorized Version, the King James Bible, says “he that doeth righteousness,” leaving it a little bit vague. “Doeth righteousness,” is that once, ten times, or what? He that commiteth sin, it says, is of the devil. Is that once? Is that ten times? I don’t know. The NIV is even vague here. It says, “He who does what is right is righteous.” Does that mean in an ongoing way, once, twice, three? It’s a little bit unclear. That why I like the New American Standard. It says “practices” because that’s the idea. It’s a linear verb. It’s an ongoing characterizing of a person’s life. The Living Bible comes through for us at this point when it says, “If you are constantly doing good, it is because you are good even as He is.” I like that. It’s right. That’s the point. Because if Jesus lives within us, He is going to change our behavior and our life will begin to take on that character. Not just one choice or one a week or one a day. It becomes a way of life. The key here is “practices righteousness” or “practices sin.” What characterizes a person’s life? That’s where this is going. Turn to Ephesians 4, keeping in mind that before Paul wrote about putting on the armor in Ephesians 6, he had already given this information in Ephesians 4, so we are jumping in after the fact. I hope that won’t hinder us too much. Here, in Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 22, we have an extremely helpful principal as far as life change, behavior. Remember, I said that’s what we are going to talk about. Ephesians 4 – Paul is talking to these people who are now Christians: 22
In reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being
corruipted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23
and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, Something has to change, and he goes to the mind with it. That’s where the renewal has to come. 24
and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in
righteousness and holiness of the truth. Then he gives us some examples. For instance: 25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth Do you see it? Lay aside falsehood. If you have a problem telling the truth, if in fact you are a liar and that’s how you roll in your old life, not only are you instructed here in the Scriptures not to lie any longer, but replace that propensity to lie with truth. How does that happen? You get up in the morning and we say, “Dear God, today would You please on the one hand put a check in my spirit when I am on the verge of telling a lie or misrepresenting facts or exaggerating.” Call it what you will. “At the same time, God, would you please fill my mind, give me a word of virtue I can speak with which to replace what would have been a lie. I put off the old and I put on the new.” How do I do that? By the grace of God. If we are renewing our minds through the Bible, that will come more and more easily. Trust God to help. That’s what He is there to do and He will. 26
Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, Are you a thief? Is that what characterized your old life? Paul says sure you have to quit stealing, but in addition to that, pick up something you can do that is constructive, that makes a contribution. Replace the old with the new. Putting off and putting on. It’s kind of like when my Dad quit smoking in 1967. He put away the cigarettes and he picked up the sunflower seeds. He was better off with the sunflower seeds. That’s the idea. Replace it. Get rid of the old, replace it with something different. 29 Let
no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for
edification You have a problem with your mouth? You have a problem controlling your language? Same thing. “Dear God, today, when I am on the verge, please put a word in my mouth that is good for edification. It isn’t just cussing that we’re talking about here. We’re talking about slander and gossip and complaining and grumbling, which characterizes far too many Christian people. By the way, most whining Christians are not ministry-active Christians because on the front lines of combat nobody has time to whine. But Christians who are whiners are ones who do not yet understand engaging in the conflict in the ministry of the kingdom. Replace that with good words, wholesome words, words that tend to edify. That’s enough of that particular Scripture. I think we understand putting off and putting on. Don’t just stop bad habits; replace them with good ones. We follow that. The enemy gains access at our points of vulnerability and weakness. He has studied us all our lives. He has studied the human race for thousands of years. He knows how these things work. When a fort is besieged and the enemy has studied the fort, he knows where the weaknesses are. That’s where he is going to attack and that’s where we have to send the troops. We all don’t have the same problems. We all have different points of vulnerability. Those are ones we need to shore up. We have to identify them. If you don’t know your points of weakness, ask the person God has put closest to you. That’s why He put him or her there. They will, hopefully in a nice way, share what the weakness might be. Strategize putting off and putting on, asking and trusting God for help. Take the initiative. “I’m just so tempted because every time on my way home from work I go right by . . . “ Take a different way home from work! “It’s so tough because I’m hanging around with these particular people.” Find different people! These are things that influence our behavior and if they are not addressed, leave us open to the attacks of the enemy. Finally, I’m going to end with Job 29. Let’s let this brother of yesteryear take us on out. Before I read, let’s just remember who this guy is. We think of Job as that guy that had everything go wrong. And then he had these friends and they were jerks. That’s kind of how we tend to characterize Job. Not so. The Bible says that God says there is no one on earth like him. He’s a righteous man. God says so. That’s God’s description of Job to Satan. The book of Job is a bunch of arguments back and forth among these guys. At this point Job is talking and is reflecting back over his life, back when things were good. Notice what he says: 12
Because I delivered the poor who cried for help, and the orphan who had no helper. 13
The blessing of the one ready to perish came upon me, and I made the widow’s heart
sing for joy. This is what a righteous guy does. Wondering how do I get righteous behavior? Find these arenas and get engaged with them. That’s what Job did. 14
I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; I, Job, was engaged in righteous behavior. Opportunities for righteous behavior are not limited to Job’s day, are they? Certainly not in ours as well. We’ll put on more armor, Lord willing, in a week. "Scripture
taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Jim Carlson 2006, Lone Rock Bible Church, Stevensville Montana, USA |