1. Armor Of God: Into to Ephesians

So, as you can see, we are starting a new series today called

The Armor of God. And today, we are going to go through an introduction.

Anybody know where The Armor of God is found? What book in the Bible? Ephesians. Excellent.

Okay. So, let's see what the Word of God has to say about this.

So, we're going to start the introduction. We're going to read the passage in Ephesians that concerns

The Armor of God. This is Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 through 20. If you do have your

Bibles, I would suggest you open them because we're going to be heavily in the Scriptures today. Finally, Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the

Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

To that end, keep alert, with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me, that the words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which

I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. So, that's the passage that we're going to concentrate on for the next several weeks.

However, before we get into an exposition of the armor of God, we'll need to do a short overview of the entire letter to the

Ephesians to understand what its genre, its purpose, and its context is. If we pull that out without knowing what

Paul's telling us in the body of the whole letter, we may lose a little bit of what he's trying to explain to us.

So, let's take a look. Ephesians appears as the first of three prison epistles, so -called because their acclaimed author,

Paul, was imprisoned at the time of writing, probably in Rome, which is in Acts. Thematically, Ephesians closely parallels

Colossians in developing the metaphor of Christ as the head of his body, the church, thus stressing the churchly unity of Gentile and Jewish believers.

Paul may have written the letters around the same time and had his colleague, Tychicus, deliver them on the same trip to Western Asia Minor.

So, why is this important? Paul's going to be stressing unity throughout this whole epistle.

Why unity? It's because the Jews were at odds with the Gentiles. They called the

Gentiles dogs. They wouldn't have table fellowship with them. In other words, they wouldn't eat a meal with a

Gentile because they were not part of Israel. They were not Israelites. So they had this,

Paul will call it, the dividing wall of hostility. We have the law, we have the covenants, we have the temple, we have all these things.

You don't have that. What the Israelites didn't realize was that Jesus came to purchase people out of every tribe, every tongue, every people, every nation, every language.

God did not belong to the Israelites. God owned the Israelites and he owns the

Gentiles. If you look at the lineage of Jesus, he's got Gentiles in his lineage.

So, this is going to be a real shocker for the Jews. So Paul is stressing the unity that we need to have, and now he's addressing not just Jews, he is addressing

Jews, he's also addressing Gentiles, and he's going to explain to them that because of Christ, we are now grafted into the same promises that Israel has.

That's a game changer for the Gentiles who were groping around in the darkness, not having

God. The Jews would tell the Gentiles, Oh, you want to worship our

God? You need to be circumcised. You need to keep the law. You need to do this, you need to do that.

Paul's going to obliterate that in this epistle and his other ones. The content of the letter.

It's a letter of encouragement and exhortation, set against the backdrop of the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of darkness in the heavenly places, portraying

Christ bringing Jew and Gentile together into the one people of God as his ultimate triumph and glory.

So instead of Jews and Gentiles battling against each other, Jews and Gentiles should now be battling together against the cosmic forces of darkness.

I don't know if you've been watching the TV lately. Maybe you see the cosmic forces of darkness pushing against, oh, not

Islam. Oh, oh, not a Hinduism, not any of these other religions.

They're pushing against Christ and his church. It's an abomination. It's blasphemy.

The emphasis is the cosmic scope of the work of Christ. A lot of people have this individuality thing.

Oh, God, Jesus saved me. Yes, he did save you. Great. But it's not just you. He's saving and rescuing his entire church.

He's redeeming not just the land of Israel. He's redeeming the whole world. This is cosmic in scope.

It's global. It's not just an individual. Christ's reconciliation of Jew and Gentile through the cross.

Christ's supremacy over the powers for the sake of the church. And it emphasizes Christian behavior that reflects unity and the power of the spirit.

When we're in unity with brothers and sisters in Christ, and we do what Paul tells us to do, we battle against the powers of darkness in the heavenly realms.

We pray. We make supplication for all human beings. Unlike Paul's other writings,

Ephesians reads more like a sermon. It's a style that supports it being intended to be circulated among many churches.

It was written to the Ephesians, but it was designed to go to all the churches. Nonetheless, Ephesians does include some standard features of a letter.

It includes an opening salutation and a benediction. In the opening, Paul says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a typical opening to a letter. Then in verses 21 through 24, he says, but that you also may know about my circumstances, how

I am doing. Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make everything known to you.

I have sent him to you for this very purpose so that you may know about us and that he may comfort your hearts.

Peace be to the brethren, love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our

Lord Jesus with an incorruptible love. The body of the letter includes two broad sections, and I'm not going to read these because in a couple slides later, we're going to go through a lot of scriptures.

An opening theological section starts from chapter 1, verse 3, and goes all the way to chapter 3, verse 21, followed by an application section that builds on that theology.

So chapters 4 through 6 are the application of what Paul is telling us in chapters 1 through 3.

So Paul is telling us first what he wants you to know, second what he wants you to do, and this is typical of all

Paul's epistles. He starts out with theology. He gives you the meat. He gives you the information. Hopefully that's going to provide transformation of your mind, be transformed by the renewal of your mind, and that's going to change the way you act.

It's going to change your behavior. So we say this all the time. What comes in here should come out through here, right?

What comes into your head should come out through your hands by means of action, by dying to self, picking up your cross, following Jesus, laying your life down for the people around you, serving them.

Love God, love neighbor as self. In the first section,

Paul begins by praising God for the blessings in Christ. Verses 3 through 14, he says,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

He's giving praise to God. And then he prays that the readers might know

God's hope, glory, and power. In verses 15 through 23, For this reason,

I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, I do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in our prayers.

He talks about the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.

He's telling you that as you're adopted into Christ, you are found in Christ, your life is going to change dramatically.

But you need to know that in your head first. He emphasizes that they have been made alive in Christ.

Chapter 2, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Paul's teaching us that everyone was walking in that way of life at one point in time.

Because we're dead. Dead in Hebrew means separation. You were not physically dead. Obviously you were alive physically.

You were spiritually dead. When Adam and Eve sinned, God's spirit left. They had their souls, but devoid of God's spirit.

So that's why we need to be born again. God needs to re -breathe his spirit into us and bring us alive.

Apart from that, we're going to follow the course of the air and the prince of the principalities.

He emphasizes that we have been made alive in Christ and that Jews and non -Jews, Gentiles, are united into a new humanity.

Again, this is revolutionary for the Jews at that time. He says, therefore remember that you, formerly the

Gentiles in the flesh, who are called the uncircumcision by the so -called circumcision, which is performed in the flesh by human hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were formerly far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Jesus brings the two into one. Paul then speaks about his own mission to proclaim the gospel in verses 3.

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ, Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace, which was given to me for you, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote in brief, by referring to this, when you read and can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of man, it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the spirit.

He's coming with deeper revelation. And he prays that believers will know the fullness of Christ's love.

That's the first section. In the second section, Paul urges his readers to live in light of these truths.

In other words, you've received the instruction, now you have to put it into practice. There's a big difference between anybody who does music,

I don't, but if you have sheet music, you have the notes on the page, those look really nice on the page, but they're meant to be played.

Those notes are manifested in the song that you hear. So when you read these words on the page, you need to play the music that Paul expects, that God expects of you.

You need to live this out in the world around you. Paul is saying they should seek unity, chapter 4, verses 1 -6, and use their gifts for the ministry.

They should put away their old life and embrace a new one characterized by wisdom and the Spirit. Paul's constantly saying, put off the old man, put off this, put on Christ, put on this.

So you have to put off those things that you were used to living in and now put on the new mind and the new heart of Christ, eventually putting on the armor of God.

Paul provides instructions for each member of the typical Greco -Roman household. Finally, he tells readers to put on the armor of God to withstand evil powers.

The armor of God is going to be vital to our lives as Christians, and we don't normally hear much about it, but we're going to dive deep.

The first three chapters are theological, emphasizing New Testament doctrine, whereas the last three chapters are practical and focus on Christian behavior.

Orthodoxy, good teaching, leads to orthopraxy, good actions. Perhaps above all, this is a letter of encouragement and admonition, written to remind believers of their immeasurable blessings in Christ Jesus.

Not only be thankful for those blessings, but also live in a manner worthy of them.

You recognize there's no greater calling in your life than to be called a son of God or a daughter of God, a child of God.

Despite and partly even because of a Christian's great blessings in Jesus Christ, he is sure to be tempted by Satan to self -satisfaction and complacency.

We are bombarded constantly through the world, through media, through other people, work, wherever, to go a different path.

It was for that reason, in the last chapter, Paul reminds believers of the full and sufficient spiritual armor supplied to them through God's Word and by His Spirit, and of their need for vigilant and persistent prayer.

So, God knows that we're going to get attacked, but He gives us armor. He gives us something to wear in the midst of attack, in the midst of the attack, so we can stand.

We can stand and fight. We can advance the kingdom of God because of what He's done for us.

All right, so we're going to go through a quick outline. We're going to start with the believers' blessings in Christ, and it's going to be chapters 1 through 3.

First, our possessions in Christ. I'm not going to read that whole thing. From the Father, our blessings come from the

Father, verses 1 through 6. We read them today. Blessed be the God and Father of our

Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

This is God the Father's part. The Son, Jesus, verses 7 through 12.

In Him, in Christ, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace, which

He lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention, which

He purposed in Him. Okay, that's Jesus' part. And finally, the

Spirit's part, 13 and 14. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the

Holy Spirit of promise, who was given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory.

Salvation is the triune work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the

Spirit. You could say it's something like this. The Father planned it, the

Son purchased it, and the Holy Spirit preserves it. You were planned, you were purchased, and you were preserved.

Another way of looking at it, God appointed, He made a decree, He appointed your salvation,

Jesus accomplished your salvation, and the Holy Spirit applied your salvation. Again, this is the triune work of God for the salvation of His people, so that it is a guarantee.

Paul uses that word, it's a guarantee. It's given as a pledge of our inheritance.

That pledge is like a down payment on the house. You're going to get what God promised you.

The inheritance is secure, and it's not dependent on your behavior, it's dependent on God's salvation.

Jesus' perfect work on the cross. Paul then prays for enlightenment.

He prays for our position in Christ. We're raised and seated on the throne.

And you were dead in your trespasses, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world. Among them you two formerly lived in the lusts of your flesh, indulging the desires of your flesh.

But God, two most important words in the Bible, but God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which

He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions,

He made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that, grace and faith, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

God prepared before Him so that we should walk in them. So no, you're not saved by your good works, but you're saved for good works, to do the good works out in the world and bring the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, to love

God and love neighbor. So, are works important? Absolutely. They're the fruit of what the

Holy Spirit is doing in your heart. If you've claimed to be a Christian for the past 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, and you're not serving in the church, or serving your neighbor, you've got to question yourself, did

God really fill me with His Holy Spirit? Because once your heart is changed, you now are going to do what

God does, right? For God so loved the world, He gave. You're going to love the world, you're going to give of yourself to the people around you.

We're reconciled and set into the temple, verses 11 through 22.

For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace.

And might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

So, in the New Testament, the church is the temple of the living God. He took away the dividing wall of hostility, the law, in other words, you don't keep the law in order to be saved, it's not that you jettison the law, the law has a different function now, but He brought the two people into one, so that by Christ's blood we're saved.

He is the Lamb, He is what the Old Testament sacrificial system was pointing to.

He now prays that we would have enablement. Jews and Gentiles are members of the same body.

To be specific, that Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

What is the gospel? Good news. What is the good news? That Jesus is Lord. He's ruling and reigning until He makes

His enemies a footstool for His feet. Both are partakers of the same promise.

Notice, Paul never says, your promises come through Israel. He never says, your promises come through the

Israelites. Your promises come through Jesus. Now, Jesus is true Israel, but he never cites the genealogical

Israelites. Any questions? We're good, okay.

Oh, I almost blew that. Any of you guys ever heard of the orphan trains?

Anybody know what the orphan trains are all about? All right, I'm going to tell you, obviously.

But I saw this illustration, and this is a perfect encapsulation of what is happening to us in Ephesians.

Imagine yourself, a child, abandoned on the streets of New York. Your immigrant parents died on the ship on the way to America.

You have no money and no relatives. You can't speak English, and you're left to fend for yourself.

As many as 30 ,000 orphans found themselves exactly in that predicament in 1850 in New York.

They slept in alleys, huddling for warmth in boxes or metal drums to survive. The boys mostly stole, caught rats to eat, or rummaged through garbage cans.

Girls sometimes worked as thieves or prostitutes, slipping their tiny hands through the camouflage openings in the walls to lift a watch or wallet from a customer.

Immigrants were flooding to New York City, and no one had the time or money to look after any of these orphans.

No one, that is, except for Charles Loring Brace, a 26 -year -old minister. Horrified by their plight, he organized a unique solution, the orphan train.

The idea was simple. Pack hundreds of orphans on a train heading west, and announce to the towns along the way that anyone can claim a new son or daughter when the orphan train rode through.

By the time the last orphan train steamed west in 1829, 100 ,000 children had found new homes and new lives.

Two orphans from such trains became governors. One served as a United States congressman.

Still another became a United States Supreme Court judge. The orphan train provides a vivid parallel to the message of Ephesians.

To capture Paul's thrust in this book, imagine one more stage in your life as a street urchin in New York.

You've learned to survive and fight off starvation, but one day someone takes you and puts you on a crowded, smoke -belching train jammed with hundreds of other foreign -speaking youngsters.

Three days later, you are selected by a kindly middle -aged couple in Michigan who introduces themselves to you as Mr.

and Mrs. Henry Ford. You are driven in an automobile to the largest house you've ever seen, and they quietly explain to you that you are now part of their family, and everything they have is yours to use and enjoy.

At last, by some miracle, you now have a family. You have a home and everything you could ever need.

Friends, if you're a Christian, this is your story. You went from being an orphan, dead in sin, separated from God, to having the best father and family you could ever have.

You're not just adopted, you are now in union with Christ Jesus. This is what

Ephesians is all about. So, now that we know what

Christianity is all about, and now you know who it is that adopted you, what is your response?

What is your duty? In other words, how do we walk? Well, first, we walk in unity.

Chapter 4, verses 1 through 16. I'm not going to have time to read them all. You're going to walk in purity. You're going to walk in love.

What is love? Giving yourself over to someone else for their benefit, not yours. You're going to walk in light.

You're going to walk in the light of God's Word and how He's illuminated His Word to you and in you.

You're going to walk carefully. You are not just going to disregard what God says. You are going to take that to heart and walk along the path that He tells you to.

You're going to walk in harmony. Jew, Gentile, black, white. No matter what it is, you're going to walk with fellow image bearers of God.

I don't care what color they are. I don't care what race, what ethnicity they are.

There's only one race, by the way. It's the human race. You're going to walk in harmony. Husbands and wives.

This is a relationship that pictures the Gospel. Now, typically, when a husband marries a wife, in the past, the man would wear black, the woman would wear white.

White, we know, symbolizes the purity of the bride. What does black represent?

The groom's death. He now is going to lay down his life for the sake of his bride.

He's going to lay down his life to keep her pure. That's what

Jesus did for you. That's what we need to do to people in the world now.

We need to do that to our wives. If you're married, you're a husband, you've got a big responsibility. Your marriage is a picture of the

Gospel, and people are looking at you. Don't grumble and complain about your wife. Help her to grow in purity.

Okay, this is a picture of the Gospel. And our loving our neighbor as ourself.

When I was hungry, you gave me food. When I was thirsty, you gave me water. Okay, this is what

Jesus says of those who are going to be brought into the Heavenly Father, the kingdom of the

Heavenly Father. This also applies to parents and children, right?

Children need to be submissive to the parents. The parents need, again, to help the children grow in the grace and knowledge of the

Savior. We're using all the Scriptures, Old Testament and new, to raise your child in the fear and admonition of the

Lord. And masters and servants, okay? If you're an employer, you want to treat your employees correctly.

If you're an employee, you want to treat your boss correctly and do your work as unto the

Lord. You're not going to cheat on time. You're not going to cheat on the way you do things. You're going to do your things with excellence because that's a reflection of Christ to your employer and vice versa.

And finally, you're going to walk in victory. Why? Because Jesus secured the victory. He's secured our home.

We're in union with Christ. He's risen from the dead. We're guaranteed that inheritance. We're going to walk in victory as we put on the armor of God and live out our lives.

So, our duty, the warfare of the believer. And here's where we start getting into what we need to do.

Chapter 6, verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might.

Notice it doesn't say, be strong in your own strength and the strength of your might. You're not walking in your strength.

Right? You have Christ in you and you're in Christ. You be strong in the

Lord and in His strength and His might. The command to be armed, verses 11 -20.

Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

We read that in the first two slides. Ephesians balances doctrine and duty.

First, Paul reminds us of what God has done for us. He sacrificed what is ultimate,

Jesus Christ, in our place for what is not ultimate, us. Then he tells us what we must do for Him in response to His mercy and His grace.

Christian living is based on Christian learning. The more you feed on God's word, the more your mind is transformed, the more your actions are going to match what you read and what

Jesus did. The believer who does not know his wealth in Christ will never be able to walk for Christ.

Our conduct depends on our calling. Remember, you were an orphan. You were dropped off in a land you didn't know anything about.

You had no home. You had no possessions. You had nothing. God rescued you.

He adopted you into His family. You are going to be part of God's family forever. We need to act like that.

We need to remember that. You look out at the world. The world is constantly pushing against Christianity.

You don't get this about Islam. You don't get this about Hinduism. You don't get this about any other world religion. You know why?

Jesus is the only one who can win, and they know it. And guess what? He will win. And guess what?

You're His child. You win too. Too many Christians live in chapters 1 through 3 and study the doctrines, but fail to move into chapters 4 through 6 and practice the duties.

James says, don't be hearers of the word only. Be doers of the word. It's great to fill your head with doctrine and great teaching.

If it's not coming out, what are you doing? There's a bottleneck somewhere. You need to ask

God to move you from taking things in to giving things out. You need to put into service what you've brought into your head.

As we have noted, Ephesians falls into two major divisions. Chapters 1 through 3 are doctrine and chapters 4 through 6 have to do with duty.

While this is helpful for a general understanding of Ephesians, there is also a final division which, though extremely practical and descriptive of our duty, can be regarded as a separate section.

Spiritual warfare. Now, commentators divide Ephesians into three sections. Some. R. Paxson has it, wealth, walk, warfare.

Watchman Nee divides Ephesians as sit, walk, stand. Right? There's a warfare aspect of this that we need to recognize.

You wouldn't be putting on armor if it wasn't a war. We're in a battle. Ephesians presents us a spiritual reality that is necessary for those of us who want to live out the

Ephesian vision in today's modern world. The prevailing materialistic, mechanistic thinking of our age leaves no room for the supernatural or indeed anything without a physical cause.

In other words, there are people who think there's no such thing as demons. They don't exist. And here's where you can fall into two different sides of the ditch.

You have certain people in certain traditions that say, oh, there's a demon under every rock. Oh, you had this thought, that must be the demon of lust.

That must be the demon of money. That must be the spirit of mammon. And they blame it all on demons.

Then you have people who say, there's no such thing as demons. I'm not even worried about that. Neither one of those two things are true.

There are demons. There are spiritual forces active here now. But we put on the armor of God.

We are adopted into the family of God and protected by Him. And we are to battle against them through prayer.

Prayer is our greatest weapon. I pray that our prayer group would be packed on a

Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night. This is how we change things.

And it's not us changing things. You know what I mean. God uses our prayers as the means by which He changes things.

Sadly, many Christians are so influenced by that thinking, the materialistic thinking, mechanistic thinking, that even though they give conscious voice to their beliefs in Satan and spiritual warfare, their lives show no evidence of this reality.

They actually live in unconscious disbelief. For such persons, this passage provides a much needed antidote.

You need to recognize that there is a spiritual battle going on. Yes, Jesus has secured the victory and time is going to go on.

We have to fight in the time and place that God placed us in. These are not just idle commands.

These are not suggestions. This is what we are called to do. Okay, so what are the themes of Ephesians?

One main theme is unity in Christ. All things are held together in Christ. And Christians need to consciously resist the forces that seek to divide them.

Division is a big tactic of the enemy. He wants to divide us. We need to unite.

I'm not saying that that means you capitulate on doctrine, but you still need to recognize that there are brothers and sisters that think differently than us, and we think differently than them, but they're brothers and sisters in Christ.

They are to live as people who have been saved by Jesus and who speak the truth and avoid evil. They are to seek unity with one another, but avoid deceptive people.

Now, when the church is factioned the way it is today, the world looks at it and says, what would we want that for?

They're not united. You know who we're united? Muslims. Tight -knit community.

They keep it all within themselves. Jews, they have a tight -knit community. They keep everything within themselves.

We don't. We need to love brothers and sisters more than that. I'd rather pay more for something from a

Christian brother who has a business than someone else. In the church,

God has created one unified people out of the groups that previously were hostile towards each other. Every relationship is redefined, including those between Jews and non -Jews and those within each household.

We are saved by grace, not race. Very simple. The church itself is the household of God, built on Jesus Christ as the cornerstone.

Origin, race, or status should not be a source of division. There should be nothing there should be nothing called the black church, the white church, the

Egyptian church. It should be the church of Jesus Christ. All these are labels that mark division in our churches.

Yet the powers of evil seek to divide people against one another and against God. But Jesus enables believers to overcome evil and remain united.

Unity and peace among God's people are signs of Christ's supremacy. He can do what no one else can.

The peace that Christ gives us and his incorruptible love is the answer to our conflicts and difficulties and must be boldly proclaimed.

In other words, when two brothers or two sisters or brothers and sisters have conflict, you don't cut and run.

You come closer together. You work it out. That's a testimony to the love that God has showed you and showed them.

When you work it out, it's kind of like breaking a bone, honestly. When you break the bone, it hurts. But when that bone mends, it ends up being stronger than it was before.

And that's what happens. We've seen it with brothers and sisters in Christ who have disagreements who end up working it out, and then the bond ends up being stronger.

The world sees that. In his many letters,

Paul often uses the phrase, in Christ. The letter of Ephesians contains the most examples of this.

The phrases with Christ and through Christ are also used. In Christ, believers have every spiritual blessing reserved in heaven, are chosen before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless, are predestined to be adopted as children, are given grace, redemption, and forgiveness, and receive wisdom.

They are marked with God's seal of the promised Holy Spirit as a guarantee of what's to come.

You have resurrection power. You will be raised from the dead and found innocent in God's sight. You are made alive.

You were dead in your sins, but made alive by God. You are in new creation. He recreated you.

You are brought near to God where previously you were exiled from Him. You have access to the

Father through the Spirit. Listen, if your dad was Elon Musk, would you worry about getting a car?

No, he'd give you one. God is your Father. Don't worry about what you're going to drive, what you're going to eat, what you're going to wear.

God will provide that. You are built and joined together into a spiritual temple.

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. He lives in us. Like, that's mind -blowing.

We may approach God with freedom and confidence because of Christ and His atonement.

We can now come to God as our Father. Ask Him for things. Petition Him, and He answers.

The position of this new creation. Unity. Paul appeals for Christian unity based on seven wonderful scriptural facts.

There's one body, Christ's body. There's one Spirit, the Holy Spirit. There's one hope, eternal life.

There's one Lord, one triune God. There's one faith. There's one baptism, the baptism of the

Spirit into Christ's body. There's one God and Father, the Heavenly Father. There's one unifier.

The work of Christ brings all things together. When you are in Christ, you are reconciled to the one who created all things and is bringing all things under His throne to reconcile them to Him.

This actually taps into what we learned previously. Anybody remember the one -sentence description of the whole

Bible? Through Jesus, God is reconciling everything that sin has broken. All God's Word dovetails together to work.

Okay, so we'll come into a close. Let's do a real quick summary of Ephesians in one paragraph.

The book of Ephesians is a letter penned by the Apostle Paul, emphasizing Jesus Christ's victory over sin and death.

The epistle unfolds like a grand tapestry weaving together themes of salvation, unity, and spiritual warfare.

Don't forget that. Paul reminds believers that Christ has made them a new creation, abolished the enmity between Jew and Gentile, and entrusted them with the message of reconciliation.

In other words, unity. We're not just adopted by God, we're united to Him in Christ.

You're united to God in Christ. You have to live like you're united to God by Christ.

And fighting against the forces of darkness in God's armor. Are you fighting?

Are you contending? Just to let you know, yesterday I spoke at a conference in Queens contending for the faith.

It was excellent. We are reproducing that conference here next Saturday. I urge you, clear your schedule from 10 to 3.

Listen to the messages that the speakers are bringing forth. We are in a battle, sometimes we don't realize it.

These messages will help equip you, will help change the way you think, and hopefully change the way you act.

We need to recognize that we're in a battle. As a Christian, do you act like you're on a battleship or a cruise ship?

Are we cruising? We got Jesus! Go! Are you doing what

He told you to do and contending for the faith, once and for all, delivered to the saints? I'm not saying that you can't rest, you can have your vacation, but on a regular basis, are you contending for the faith?

Are you feeding yourself in the Word of God, making means of the means of grace here at this church?

There's a ton of things you can watch online or listen to that's going to feed your mind and your soul to help you become good ambassadors and fight the good fight of faith.

I'm going to quote C .S. Lewis once again, when I die, I want all hell to rejoice that I'm out of the fight.

You have one life to live. It's a vapor. Use it wisely.

So in the book of Ephesians, we have unity, we have being united to Christ, and we have contend.

Sit, stand, walk. We have to contend against these spiritual forces of darkness.