2. Into to The Armor of God Eph 6:1-20

All right, so you guys know, we're still in an introduction phase. We're going to read, if you have your

Bibles, open them up to Ephesians chapter 6. We're going to read verses 10 through 20, okay?

I just want to reinforce these particular scriptures in your mind over and over again, because this is where we read about the armor of God.

So, the armor of God is what we dress ourselves for, for battle. And it begins in Ephesians 6.

Finally, 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 of my mouth given to me in the opening of 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. Okay, so those are the 10 verses that go through the armor of God.

And the reality that Paul is conveying to us, is that there is a real spiritual battle taking place.

And we need to engage in that battle carefully and properly. If we're not wearing the correct armor, we're going to get slaughtered.

You don't walk into battle without putting armor on. That's suicide. You're going to get hurt.

So we're in a spiritual battle. And that's one of the things that we need to remember. This is a spiritual reality and 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.

You know, when you're talking with people about spiritual matters, they're like, well, I believe in science.

And what they're really saying is, all we believe in is the material realm. You have no proof for spiritual things.

We have no proof for angels. You have no proof for immaterial realities. And I always like to ask them, did you use your mind when you came to that conclusion?

Did you think thoughts? Did you use the laws of logic? Yes. Is your mind material or immaterial?

Well, it's immaterial. Did you think thoughts? Are thoughts material or immaterial? Immaterial. Did you use the laws of logic?

Material or immaterial? So you thought, you use your immaterial mind to think immaterial thoughts using immaterial laws of logic to conclude that immaterial things don't exist.

Brilliant. Brilliant. Problem is there's a denial of the spiritual realm in our day and age.

You have to be really educated in order to understand the science and negate the immaterial realm.

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

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

These are Paul's last words to the Ephesians. You know what last words are, right?

They're the most important part. When you're leaving this earth and maybe you got the blessing of having your family surround you at a bedside, you're going to give them your last words.

And those are going to be very important words. However, Paul's worldview, the biblical worldview, is that we are in a spiritual battle with evil in which there is no truce, no quarter.

So what is the first step? Where do we begin? Well, first, we recognize we are not on a cruise ship as Christians.

We are on a battleship. Man your stations, serve your king. You'll have plenty of time to relax on the other side.

We have to leave everything we have out on the field right now for our king, especially considering the times that we're in.

In recent years, there's been many television shows aimed at helping people get properly dressed.

Sometimes the premise revolves around watching experts help people pick out the right outfit for a wedding.

At other times, someone with a woefully poor fashion sense receives a total makeover with the help of fashion gurus and serious spending.

Right, you've seen these say yes to the dress, extreme makeover, you know, what not to wear.

And they think by putting clothes on the person, they're going to change their personality. And in some cases, that does work.

Their mindset changes because of what they're wearing. But Ian Dugan says this, as someone who is no expert in clothing trends,

I find such programs fascinating. However, I would like to see follow -up programs six months later, where the people's lives genuinely transformed by their new fashion insights, or have they reverted back to their old habits, redonning sandy spandex and sandals with socks.

Right, are you going to go back to your old way of life? Are you going to slip back into that mindset?

Once God changes you and you're born of his spirit and you have a new heart, you're going to have new desires. If you don't have new desires, you got to check yourself.

Check yourself to see whether you're in the faith, right? And then do what Paul is telling the Ephesians to do.

Put on that armor, because as a child of God, you are front and center. You have a bullseye on your back, right?

Especially out in the public. You profess Christ as king, the heat is going to come on you.

You need to be wearing armor. Christianity is a religion about helping people become properly dressed, although not in a sartorial sense, which relates to fashion, right?

Sins against fashion ought not to be held against you in the community of believers, but Paul advises the

Ephesians that there are certain things Christians must put off and other things that they must put on.

If you read the book of Ephesians, it's put on love, put off this, put on this, put off this.

More specifically, he tells us to put on the Christian armor so that we can be properly equipped to stand against the assaults that will inevitably come our way in this fallen spiritually dangerous world.

So real quick, this is just an introduction to the armor, okay? Next week and the following weeks, we're going to go through each one.

So as you see, you have the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit.

Now, these are actually given to us in a specific order. And many of the commentators say, Paul is intentional when he's doing this.

If you notice the first three, the belt of truth, the breastplate, and the shoes of peace, those are affixed to your body.

Once you tie those on, they're not easily on and off. The shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of spirit are something that you could pick up and take off real easy.

And that's going to come into play later as we learn more about this. Life here on earth is hard, often very hard.

Can anyone relate? We all can, right? According to the Bible, life is not a picnic but a battle, an armed struggle against a powerful adversary.

To engage in that battle properly, we need a spiritual makeover in which our flimsy, inadequate, natural attire is replaced by suitable armor and weaponry, right?

Again, you would not go into a battle without the proper armor, without the proper weapons. So Paul concludes this magnificent gospel -saturated letter,

Ephesians, with a final charge to be prepared to engage with the battle of life in the right way.

In this study, we're going to unpack each of these pieces of armor he describes. But first, we'll look at the perspectives that orient us to the larger fight.

First, the scale of our need, the vastness of God's provision, and the call to stand.

So we have a need, God will provide for it, and what's the goal? To stand in the evil day.

Remember, these are Paul's last words, his closing remarks to the Ephesians. These words are what he wants them to remember.

Last words are important. He's emphasizing this. This is the whole point of his letter. So let's talk about our need.

Paul spares no effort in describing the seriousness of our opposition. We don't wrestle with flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of darkness in this present dark age.

If that sounds scary, it's because it's meant to. We sometimes have these illusions of what demons look like, but demons are fallen angels.

Angels are powerful beings, much more powerful than human beings, physically. And they have access to the heavenly realms.

They have access to a spiritual realm that we are seated in, but do not necessarily understand as well as they do with their minds.

The devil is a very real, very powerful opponent, far too powerful for us to take on in our own strength.

This is a salutary reminder to people in our Western context who are inclined to ridicule the idea of a literal devil.

Many find the idea of a cosmic being whom we can't see, feel, or touch, and who promotes evil in this world as unthinkable.

Again, they negate the spiritual realm. All that exists is what we can see, touch, weigh, or feel.

There is no spiritual realm in their mind. And again, you need to become really educated in those higher, those institutions of higher learning to get to that.

You're born into this world, you recognize that there's an immaterial realm. It's apparent. Of course, the devil, in whom they don't believe, is in their minds often not the biblical figure, but a rather ridiculous image with hooves and horns.

Who could seriously believe in that creature? It is convenient for the devil when people don't understand, don't believe in his existence.

They can pursue his nefarious schemes unsuspected and undetected. This is generally, oh, that's the devil.

That's what we think he is. Now, there's two extremes to be avoided. First, to say there's no such thing as the devil.

And second, to say, oh, the devil, there's a demon under every rock. Or the devil made me do it. So you don't want to fall into either side of those two ditches.

We have to recognize that there is a spiritual realm, all right? He is active, but he's limited. He's not omnipresent.

God is omnipresent. The devil isn't. Okay, that's something that you need to know. And again, as God's people, we're protected, but we have to keep the armor on.

So some people make too little of it. Some people make too much of it. If you believe that the universe you see around us is all there is, then you have no rational basis on which to be shocked and outraged at evil.

What we call evil must then be interpreted simply as an emotional response within us to dangerous things triggered by evolutionary biology.

Now, when I had a debate at LIU against this woman, what I did was I printed out the periodic table of elements.

And right on the podium, I Velcroed it to the front of it. And every time I got up,

I would tap it. I say, if this is all you have, if all you have is the periodic table of elements, this is all you get.

You keep talking to me about evil. Show me on the periodic table of elements where the molecule for evil is.

Show me. Oh, you can't. That's right. But you do believe in evil. You have a sense of morality.

It's because you have a soul. You have a spirit. You feel guilty when you do wrong things. You know why? Because you were wrong.

So when you say all that exists is the material world, show me. Establish your worldview based on the periodic table of elements.

They can't do it. And they know it's a suppression of truth and unrighteousness. So when somebody starts talking to you about evil and all these different things, yet they reject the immaterial realm, say, listen, pull out the periodic table of elements and show me what you're talking about.

I need to see that. I need scientific proof. Oh, boy.

Am I ranting? Sorry. Again, our need.

But the Bible has a richer and deeper explanation for the shared world we find ourselves in. An explanation that allows us to recognize the profound reality of evil and the invisible spiritual forces that lie behind its constant reappearance in different shapes and forms.

The Ephesians, to whom Paul was writing, were not modern materialists. Back then, nobody believed basically what scientists hold today.

And the elite, the intellectual elite, they were very well aware of the spiritual forces around them as people in other parts of the world continue to be.

Yet even to them, Paul makes a point of highlighting the power of the opposition we face.

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. That's easy. But against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, that's a formidable enemy.

That's much stronger than we are as human beings. In other words, we're completely outmatched when it comes to battling fallen angels.

And you thought Goliath was tough. He's nothing compared to the fallen angels who have power in the cosmic realms.

I'm going to get a little bit more into that. Of course, adding to the imbalance in this wrestling match is the fact that although our opponents are not flesh and blood, we are.

We are not principalities and powers or cosmic rulers. We are but ordinary, flawed, fallen, flesh and blood mortals.

Fallen. We're in God's image, but we're fallen. We're weakened in our abilities.

You might think that we have no business engaging in this combat. In the language of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, it's the hobbits against the orcs.

A completely unequal contest. Yet this is exactly the battle in which we are engaged.

Serving in the Lord's army is not an option reserved for those particularly devoted to God. It's everyone's duty.

When you place your faith and trust in Christ and the Holy Spirit lives inside of you, you are now a child of God and you are commanded, like we talked about yesterday in the conference, to contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.

So you are either contending well or not contending well. Bottom line, the choice is not whether you will be a

Christian soldier or a Christian civilian, but whether you will be a prepared Christian soldier or an unprepared one.

That's why we here at HOPE, we want to give you every opportunity to get yourselves into the scriptures, get the word of God into your mind and your heart and out through your hands.

You need to be prepared. I never thought I would say it in my lifetime, but the

United States could collapse. It could collapse. Now I'm not trying to instill fear in your heart.

Fear is from the enemy. The righteous are as bold as a lion. It's about the kingdom of God, not the

United States of America, not the Roman Empire, not the Assyrian or Babylonian Empire. All those empires are gone.

You realize that, right? And what's the one thing still standing? The church. It always will.

An unprepared soldier of flesh and blood will not be able to stand against the scale of the spiritual forces raged against him or her.

What is more, this conflict takes place in the midst of this darkness, right? Do we not feel darkness encroaching on us right now?

In many respects, the dark world in which we live is Satan's playground. There are tempting sights, sounds, and tastes in this world that dazzle and allure us into sin.

Again, at the conference yesterday, we talked about a bunch of different things. All these things are competing for your attention, competing for your devotion, competing for your service to them.

There's much around us that seems desirable, and many powerful temptations that find a ready ally in our flesh.

Earthly objects are very real to us, while heavenly realities seem ethereal and intangible.

Satan also has centuries of experience as a tempter, knowing exactly which temptations are most likely to draw our individual human nature into sin, whether giving ourselves to a particular form of excess or to a subtle, self -exalting pride that flows from a belief in our own righteousness.

The powerful combination of the world, the flesh, and the devil is inevitably overwhelmingly left to ourselves.

Again, we need help. This is our need. We're fallen human beings. We need a greater power than us, and we're going to get through what

God provides for us. We need this armor to survive this battle. This is why

Paul doesn't merely say, bring the armor of God along with you in the off chance you might need it.

Rather, he says, you will need it. Put it on. Right? You are either putting on the armor of God or you're not.

But you need to, recognizing what we're in. As a skilled tempter, Satan also knows how to use the difficulty of the combat to his own advantage.

He's going to set snares, traps, and things in the world, and we're going to fall into them if we're not guarding our minds with the helmet of salvation.

Okay. So, dress for battle. Now, this I want to address specifically to the

Calvinists in the room. Right? Don't be a hyper -Calvinist. Don't say, oh,

God is so in control of everything. I don't need to do that. God decreed everything, so I just have to go on the roller coaster, follow the rails.

Right? But no. 1 Samuel 23, 3 and 4. But David's men said to him, behold, we are afraid here in Judah.

How much more than if we go to Kilah against the armies of the Philistines? Watch. David inquired of the

Lord again, and the Lord answered him, Arise, go down to Kilah, for I will give the

Philistines into your hands. Right? And David and his men went to Kilah and fought with the

Philistines and struck them a great blow. David saved the inhabitants of Kilah. He had a fight.

Right? God said it, but then he had to do it. If he didn't do it, what would happen?

He would have lost. They would have sacked them. Okay? He doesn't say, God doesn't say, well,

God's sovereign. I don't have to go down and fight. You have to go down and fight. You're responsible for what

God tells you to do. Very important. Don't think, oh, God decreed it. You know, I'm just on the sleigh ride.

Another one, 1 Samuel 23, 9 and 12. David knew that Saul was plotting harm against him, and he asked

God, Will the men of Kilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard,

O Lord? O Lord, the God of Israel, please tell your servant. And the Lord said, He will come down.

Then David said, Will the men of Kilah surrender me and my men into the hands of Saul? The Lord said,

They will surrender you. What does David do? David and his men, who were about 600, arose and departed from Kilah.

They went wherever they could go. You follow? God says something.

You're responsible to do it, or there'll be consequences. God says, put on the armor of God.

Don't say, well, I'm a Calvinist. I just know everything's decreed, and whatever's going to happen is going to happen.

This is not K -sarah -sarah theology. Okay? You are going to be held accountable for what you do.

It's very important to remember that. So when God says to put on the armor of God, put it on.

Here's what God provides for us. To combat this strategy, we need to understand the scale of provision that God has given us.

Paul's desire is that we should be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, and to that end, he begins outlining

God's far greater power. Even before he introduces the opposing forces,

Paul tells us that we are to be strong in God's awesome, magnificent power, a power that's beyond compare.

Be strong in the Lord and in his power, not your own. Okay? The words

Paul uses here in Ephesians 6 -10 are an echo of the same Greek words he used in 119 to describe the power of God that raised up Christ.

In other words, the power with which he has been, he's given us to equip us for our struggle against sin and Satan is the very same power that brought

Christ back from the dead. That supernatural power. But this is not just the power that would be required to raise someone physically like Lazarus from the dead.

Raising the physically dead is no big deal, comparatively speaking, to the power that Paul's talking about.

No, this power of God is great enough to raise Christ from the dead, Jesus, who was buried in death under the full weight of God's wrath against sin, the sin of every one of his people throughout all the ages, including you and me.

That's the power. This is not just a physical thing. This is a spiritual power.

Because of Jesus' propitiation on the cross, our sins are paid for, and now Christ rose from the dead to prove that his payment was acceptable to God the

Father. That's a different, a greater power than just physical power. The power of God not only raised

Jesus Christ back to life, but lifted him to the heavenly realms so that he is now seated at the right hand of the

Father in glory. And if you're a Christian, he's seated at the right hand of God and interceding for you.

You have a mediator with God. You don't go to anyone else but Jesus.

Jesus is the mediator between God and man. This is the real power, far greater than even the terrifying power raged against us.

The one who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world. He that is in me is greater than he that is in the world.

In reality, God's awesome power is not something we can choose to tap into as if we were in charge of the process.

Rather, it is something inevitably at work within all those whom God has chosen and called according to his purpose.

So this is also God not just working externally, he's working internally on each one of us to sanctify us in preparation for eternity.

At the beginning of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul reminds us that God predestined us before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight, according to the good pleasure of his will, so that we should be for the praise of his glorious grace.

What God starts, he finishes, right? He who began a good work and he was faithful to complete it.

His mighty power is at work for every believer in Christ to accomplish his ultimate purpose of presenting us to himself, holy and blameless, to the praise of his glory.

So that when we get there, we can say, it was none of me, it was all of him.

He gets the glory. That mighty power of God is at work for our spiritual growth in two distinct ways.

First, it was demonstrated outside in the once for all work of Christ in resisting sin and Satan in our place.

And second, it is demonstrated inside of us through the ongoing progressive work of the spirit, renewing our hearts and minds.

And it's in both these ways that God's sovereign over the whole process of sanctifying his church from start to finish.

There will be nothing in which any of us can boast on on the last day. So he's working outside in the world and inside of us.

In the pursuit of glory, the spirit often turns us over to ourselves to show us just how weak we really are.

We often assume that since God is holy and hates sin, his primary goal is that we should always stand strong in our battle against sin.

However, the spirit has no interest in turning us into independent creatures who can stand in our own strength.

Rather, he wants us to see clearly the reality that we have no power in and of ourselves to take up God's armor and stand unless God himself empowers us to do that.

Again, we're called to be strong in the Lord. Not strong in ourselves. Left to ourselves, we will certainly fall into the schemes of the devil.

Now, listen to this. This is really interesting. And if you understand and get it, it's going to start making sense in how you live your life out.

This is our confession. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave us for a season, his own children to manifold temptations and the corruptions of their own hearts to chastise them.

For their former sins or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their own hearts that they may be humbled and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself.

Have you ever been walking and you really feel like you're doing good? Like, okay, I'm walking in the right, my righteousness.

You know, God's like, you're starting to depend on yourself. Let me pull my hand back and let me show you what you're capable of.

And also, it's like, oh, I need God. We always recognize we need God in the most difficult times, right?

In the valley. When we're on the mountaintop, we're like, look what I did. No, don't go there, right?

And to make them more watchful against the future occasions of sin and for other just and holy ends so that whatsoever befalls any of his elect is by his appointment for his glory and for their good, right?

So if you can really absorb that into your mind and heart, you're going to get it. So nothing teaches us the power of Satan or our utter dependence upon God more than our constant spiritual failures.

So don't let your failures disappoint you. Hate sin, but understand if you're one of God's, he's letting you know, apart from him, you have nothing.

Nothing gives us more passion for the righteousness of Christ than a specific and growing awareness of our own brokenness.

When you recognize your own brokenness, you're going to cling for the power more. When I am strong and living the

Christian life well, I may be fond of the gospel as a concept, but when I see more clearly the ongoing depth of my sinfulness, then

I cling to the gospel like a drowning man to a life belt. You don't start swimming around in the ocean and say, oh,

I don't need this. No, you cling to it all the more. That's why when you're in a position of, what's a good word?

When you're going through a trial, you recognize your need for God all the more and you cling to him.

That's where we need to be, whether we're in the trial or not in the trial. Nothing gives us a greater desire for the completion of the spirit's work on the last day and our full deliverance from the battle against this body of death than those times when the conflict with remaining sin in our lives is at its fiercest.

Those who are not yet believers in Christ are often comfortable with their sin. For them, there's really no struggle.

But when God begins to work, people start to see the ugliness of their own heart and they begin to sense the need of a redeemer, someone to rescue them from themselves.

Jesus is precisely that redeemer who both fights the battle in their place and engages the battle inside and alongside them through the powerful work of the

Holy Spirit. Okay, so we have Jesus. Everything you need for your salvation has been accomplished for you by Jesus Christ.

This armor of God is God's armor. Why? Jesus wore it first in your place, okay?

Everything you need for your salvation has been accomplished by Jesus Christ and he himself is now working in you by his spirit to work out that salvation.

Sometimes God will demonstrate his power in you by enabling you to stand strong against Satan's devices.

At other times, his purpose is to graciously allow you to fall, to teach you equally important lessons about your own weakness and the glorious sufficiency of his grace to save and sustain the weakest of the weak.

Either way, the glory will all be his on the last day. This armor you put on is the armor

Jesus wore when he went living his whole life, going to the cross. He had the armor on.

It's his armor. That's why Paul says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's the armor bearer. Our sanctification rests first and foremost on the finished work of Christ in our place.

As we shall see, the armor of God is quite literally God's armor, armor designed and worn by God first and foremost.

The armor God gives us to defend and protect us against Satan's onslaught is the armor that he has already worn in the decisive battle on our behalf.

We fight and stand firm against Satan only in the strength that comes from the victory that Christ has already won.

So again, God will let you fall when you start getting proud and he'll lift you up when you cling to him.

But always recognize your incessant need for God. You need him all the time, whether you're on the mountaintop or in the valley.

You are called to wear the armor of God, not because that's what Jesus would do if he found himself in a situation.

You are called to wear the armor of God because that is what Jesus has already done. Wearing God's armor all the way to the cross, he stood firm against Satan's schemes throughout his earthly life and ministry.

Our sanctification rests first and foremost on the finished work of Christ in our place.

And as we shall see, the armor of God quite literally is God's armor, armor designed and worn by God first and foremost.

The armor of God gives us to defend and protect us against Satan's onslaught. I think I read that already. All right.

Yesterday, Brother Jerry, maybe I'll have you stand up and sing this. Oh, if I said pretty please, you would do it.

I know you would. So what did we sing yesterday? A mighty fortress is our

God, a bulwark never failing, our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

For still our ancient foe does seek to work us well. His craft and power are great, and he's armed with cruel hate.

On earth is not his equal. Again, we're fighting against advanced superior forces.

Did we in our own strength confide? Confide, if did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing.

You cannot do this in your own strength. We're not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing.

You ask who that may be? Christ Jesus. It is he. Lord Sabaoth.

Who knows what Sabaoth means? Huh? No, close. Huh. Lord of the armies.

He's Lord of the armies. He's the field general. He's the Lord of the armies.

Lord Sabaoth is his name from age to age the same. And he must win the battle.

Do not forget to put on the armor of God. I suggest for the next few weeks, because we're going to be here for a while, you start reading

Ephesians 6, 10 through 20, recognizing what the armor of God is, recognizing how important it is, recognizing we're fighting against superior forces, but God, Jesus, we have

Jesus, right? He's the one who went before us. When you're a child of God, Paul would say, who can make a charge against those whom

God has chosen? Satan will try. Jesus would be like, yeah,

I dismissed those charges. Paid for that, paid for that, paid for that. What else you got? Huh?

When you recognize that you're still sinful to the core, but your sins have been paid for, that's life -changing.

Ezekiel 36, you got all these I wills. God says, I will sprinkle clean water on you. I will clean you from all your uncleanness.

I will take you out. I will put you in the land. I will write my law upon your heart and compel you to follow them.

I will, I will. These are all things God says he will do. And then he gets to our part. And he says, and then you will remember your sins and loathe yourselves.

So when you remember your sins, you remember your need. When you remember your need, you remember your savior.

Cling to your savior. So now some people want to know, what does it look like to put on the armor of God?

Anybody know who that is? That's Pastor Richard Jensen, age 10, at VBS wearing the armor of God.

So now when you see him, you can embrace him and say, I know what it means to wear the armor of God now.

I saw the picture. I know it. He's going to be disappointed again.

All right. So first, the scale of our need. Our need is great. We can in no way in and of ourselves fight this battle.

We need help. We need powerful help. But we have powerful help. This is God's provision.

God provides us, Jesus Christ, to live the life we needed to live, to die the death that we deserve, to be buried, raised again from the dead, to prove that our sin has been paid for.

When you're questioning, was my sin paid for? You look at the cross. Jesus is God's certified check that your sins have been paid for if your faith and trust is in him.

Okay? So God provides us Christ. He provides us the armor that he wore and commands us to wear it.

Remember, the battle is not just to the enemies on the outside. The battle is internal.

God is sanctifying us, helping us to die to ourselves, to die to sin, to be conformed to the image of Christ.

When you really acknowledge and understand what Jesus did for people who hated him, you have to put yourself in that position and say, you know, boy, this person really, really hates me.

What do I do? Love them. Love your enemies. Bless those who persecute you. That's what the

Holy Spirit can work inside of you to transform you. The armor of God is

God's armor. He's the one who wore it first. All right? So we're getting hand -me -downs, but they're excellent.

These are the best hand -me -downs you ever got. Right? Put on the armor of God. Don't be a hyper

Calvinist and think it doesn't matter. The glory of our own weakness.

When you recognize your own weakness, when you recognize your need, you're going to cling to the solution all the more.

Okay? Sometimes it's good to reflect, boy, to do a checkup. Where am I at?

How did I do this week? How did I do today? Right? And just, it's a constant reminder that you're never going to be perfectly righteous on this side of eternity.

But it's a constant reminder that you need to cling, cling to, hold on to Christ as if you were on a plane that was going down and you had the only parachute.

Right? You'd be fighting people. No, this is mine. You're not going to take this parachute away from me because this is the only thing that's going to save me.

Christ is the only thing that's going to save you. Any questions?

We understand what our orders are. Put on the full armor of God.

Don't take it off. Go to sleep with it if you have to. Yes? No cruising for Christ.