The Belt of Truth

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Ephesians 6:14a

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Well, this Sunday is traditionally celebrated by many churches as Reformation Sunday.
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It's the Sunday before the 31st of October where we celebrate what
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Martin Luther did in not overthrowing, but nailing his 95
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Theses and creating the breakaway from the Roman Catholic Church and what
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God did in that Reformation and Revival. Truth is something worth fighting for.
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Truth is something worth living for. Truth is something worth dying for.
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And that's where we're at this morning in Ephesians chapter 6 as we talk about the belt of truth.
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I remind you that we're in the last major section in the book of Ephesians.
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We started that in verse 10 where Paul says, finally, be strong in the
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Lord and in the strength of His might. Finally, the culmination of all that we've been taught and learned from this wonderful book of Ephesians culminates in what some have called a call to arms.
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And that call to arms begins in a specific area. It begins with a specific essential, a specific foundation.
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And that foundation is truth. So this morning we take up, we read from Ephesians 6 verse 14 and we consider the belt of truth.
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Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word? We're reminded then that this is God's Word.
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This is not merely something from the pen of the Apostle Paul, but he wrote under the influence of the
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Holy Spirit. Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth.
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Father, help us to understand the belt of truth today. Help us to understand the whole arsenal here of this armor.
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We pray for Your grace. We are reminded as we hear the rainfall, we're reminded that You're gracious to us.
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You haven't forgotten. And as the rain falls and waters the land, so Your Word that falls upon these hearers today and upon myself, it will not return void.
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Oh God, I pray for Your grace. Lord, I pray that we would not have those who receive Your Word today and it would just produce thorn bushes.
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But I pray that it would produce a holy and wonderful crop in the hearts of those in this room and those who are listening elsewhere.
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We pray that Christ would be exalted. Help us to understand this text and to apply it appropriately and to understand the seriousness of the battle before us and to be a people of the truth.
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We pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Now be seated. We now enter the final part of the final section of this great letter to the
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Ephesians. And we enter this part of our exposition, this final major section of Ephesians, where we give an overview of each part of the
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Christian's armor. I mean, you saw that coming, right? Like, you knew that. Like, you were like, yeah, he's probably going to preach his sermon on each part of the armor.
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And that is what we are going to do. Now, we took the armor as a whole and essentially we saw that it was a call to the church to put on Christ.
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Put on Jesus, dear Christians. And what we need to do now is to take up each part of the armor individually and we don't want to neglect any single instrument of the warfare.
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And I understand that when we do stuff like this, we can focus. There's two errors.
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We can go so big that we lose the details or we can get so detailed that we lose the big picture.
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Not trying to do either one of those, but we are trying to be faithful and diligent to consider rightly each piece of the armor.
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So, if you will, picture yourself within the castle walls.
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Now, outside the castle walls, the enemy is at the gates. The enemy has surrounded the castle and the enemy is besieging the castle, if you will.
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But you're inside the castle walls and now the king is showing you the armory, right?
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And so here you are. You're walking through the armory and you're learning now about each piece of the armor and you're going to take up each piece of the armor and you're going to put it on and you're going to go outside now to the walls.
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You're going to man the wall and you're going to fight for the king. So, how do we use the armor?
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How do we put it on? How do we go out and battle? Point number one this morning in observation.
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Now, let me read this as a whole, 14 through 17. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth and put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
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In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the
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Spirit which is the word of God. First, this morning,
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I have an observation concerning all of the armor. So, big point number one in observation.
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Sub -point, an observation concerning all of the armor. So, here are six pieces of armor laid out for the
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Christian. Did you identify them there? The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes of readiness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and then the sword of the
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Spirit. Now, we don't want to overstretch the analogy. However, each piece of the armor is important.
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And the order, I believe, laid out for us here is important. The battle before us, as Paul knows, is serious and deadly and yet we have good news.
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Here is the good news. Christ isn't kicking us out the door unclothed, unready.
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He has equipped His church. Now, in one very real sense, this is something beautiful I hope to show you today if you don't already know this.
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In one very real sense, the armor that the church puts on is the very armor of Christ which
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He graciously gives His people. Now, I want to do a little bit of study this morning, so I want you, please, to take your
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Bibles and I want you to turn to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 11. We'll start. We're going to look at a few passages.
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So keep Ephesians 6 open and now turn over to Isaiah chapter 11.
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If you are in the book of Psalms, you've gone too far to the left, so go back to the right a little bit.
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Isaiah chapter 11. Isaiah chapter 11.
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Boy, you can hear rain falling and Bible pages turning.
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That's a blessing. Isaiah chapter 11. Now, listen to this. I'm not just quoting this because it's a
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Christmas text. It's important. Isaiah chapter 11, verse 1.
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There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
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Who is this? It's Christ. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the
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Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh. And his delight shall be in the fear of the
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Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.
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And he shall strike the earth. Here's a warrior king. Listen to this. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
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Now listen to verse 5. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
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Now turn over to Isaiah 52. Isaiah 52, a few pages to your right.
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Our king has done battle. Righteousness, the belt. Faithfulness.
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Now Isaiah 52 and verse 7 says this.
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Isaiah 52 and verse 7. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, Your God reigns.
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The feet of Him who brings good news. How beautiful. And then one last passage. Isaiah 59. And then
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I'll tie all of this together. Isaiah 59 verse 15.
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Isaiah 59 verse 15. Truth is lacking and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.
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The Lord saw it and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no one to intercede.
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Then His own arm brought Him salvation and His righteousness upheld Him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on His head.
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He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped Himself in zeal as a cloak.
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Now back to Ephesians. What you have going on here in Isaiah is a prophecy of Christ Himself as a warrior.
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Christ Himself clothed in holy armor. God came down to rescue
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His people and He did it arrayed in His armor.
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Slayed the dragon and won the girl. And each piece of the armor points us to Christ.
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Each piece of the armor points us to an aspect of Christ's work for His people.
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Think about it. Christ Himself is the truth. Christ Himself has secured righteousness for His people.
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Christ's work in the Gospel, His perfect life, His substitutionary death, His glorious resurrection gives
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His people a readiness and solid footing. Christ Himself is our shield. That's what
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God says to Abraham, Fear not Abraham, I am your shield. Christ is our shield. Christ is our salvation.
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He came to us, Paul says in Corinthians, sanctification and salvation. Christ is referred to in John as the word of God.
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Each piece of the armor points us to our King. Christ has wielded, as it were, each piece of the armor in the redemption of His church and then when
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He gets finished with the battle He wields it all and He rescues His church and then when He finishes it all, in essence,
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He takes His armor and He says to the church, Here you go, put it on.
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Now, what the church does, it's not like David and Saul. I'll just summarize this, but do you remember
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David and Saul? Do you remember David is going to go fight Goliath? And Saul at first is like, then he's like, okay, you can wear my armor, right?
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King Saul says to David, you can wear my armor. David puts it on and we all imagine, it says it's not tested, right?
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It's like, it doesn't fit right. David hasn't used it. He doesn't know. He's just like, no man,
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I can't use that. So he doesn't use the armor. But Christ's armor is battle tested.
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Not only battle tested, it's battle proven. Each piece of the armor has wielded victory and each piece of the armor is just the right size for every saint.
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No piece of the armor is too big for you. Whether you're small, whether you're big, whether you're young in the faith, whether you're old in the faith, each piece of the armor fits just right.
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Christ, our warrior king, has secured for the church his very own armor.
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Think about that, church. You're not called to just try this out, you know, like, this is a very silly illustration, but sometimes before we play laser tag, and they take you before you play laser tag and you check out all the stuff, you know, and so you're gonna put on the vest and you put on the gun and sometimes you grab a vest and a gun and it doesn't work, right?
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Sometimes you grab a vest and a gun and you're like, boy, I don't know, I guess a 12 -year -old small child used this because there's no way this is fitting on me, right?
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You gotta adjust it and all those things. But this is not true with Christ's armor, which is obviously infinitely greater than what you're gonna play laser tag with.
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Christ's armor fits and it's perfect and it accomplishes exactly what he wants. So take it off.
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Put it on. What grace. Brian Chapel notes, we stand firm because God has already supplied our armor, not in order to receive the armor.
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In other words, the call today to the church is not go out, fight the battle, be strong, and if you're strong enough,
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God will give you armor as a reward. You know, sometimes you play those video games and you start out and you don't have a lot of armor and then as you work your way up, you know, you get more and more armor or whatever the case may be.
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Not true in the Christian life. God says, here it is.
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Putting on the whole armor of God is not law. It's not do this so you won't lose your salvation.
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The armor of God is grace. It has been purchased for us.
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It has been secured for us by Christ himself. It is his own armor to equip the church to stand today in the godless day, receive each piece of the armor, church, by faith.
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Remember verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
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All right, so as we go through each piece of the armor, keep this in your heart and mind.
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And ask yourself even this morning, do I believe this? Christ is for his church's victory.
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You look around today, I see a lot of people today that want to recede from the church or like we need to go live out in the wilderness.
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We need to get away from population, these sorts of things. Do you believe that Christ is for the church's victory?
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That Christ is for a well arrayed army of his people to have full and final triumph over the enemy?
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Let us pay attention to each piece of this blessed armor and let us receive each piece by grace through faith and let us use each piece properly in the midst of the battle that we are.
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That's an observation concerning the armor as a whole and then an observation concerning the belt of truth.
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So what is this belt of truth? Verse 14 says, stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth.
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So the analogy here is not like a belt that we wear, right?
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We wear a belt sometimes for fashion, sometimes to help keep our britches up, but that's not,
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I mean yeah, this belt would help that even though they wouldn't wear britches but a tunic, okay.
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But this belt is necessary to hold everything else together.
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Does this make sense? It is foundational, the belt, the warrior's belt, the literal belt is foundational to everything else in battle.
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Okay, so it's by the belt that you can gird up the tunic. It's by the belt, okay, because without that you couldn't move around.
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I haven't wore many, meaning never, a tunic in my life. But I can imagine that it would be difficult to move around in if it's not girded up, right?
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Furthermore, the belt provides a place to keep other weapons like your sword.
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Furthermore, it provides essential protection to your midsection. In other words, this belt or leather girdle is essential.
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It is foundational. It would have been foolish for a Roman soldier to try to have battle without this piece of armor.
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This piece of armor keeps everything else where it's supposed to be. So listen to him. The truth is essential.
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The truth is foundational. Without the truth, why are we going into battle, right? Secondly then, an objectivity.
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So first, an observation. Secondly, an objectivity. Verse 14, Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth.
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Now commentators are going to diverge here like they do on almost every verse of the Bible. But they disagree here about whether the belt of truth is supposed to represent, is it objective truth or is it the
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Christian's truthfulness, his own sincerity? Well, I think I've probably tipped my hand here.
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Hopefully, you already know where I'm going. But I do think, first and foremost, each piece of the armor has an objective aspect first.
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Meaning, first of all, the belt of truth represents objective truth.
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The truth of the Gospel. Martin Lloyd -Jones says this, Truth is the first thing we put on.
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Without it, we are completely lost. It means that we have a settled conviction with regard to the truth.
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It means there are no uncertainties, no doubts. Now, in certain regions of evangelicalism today, doubt is touted as a virtue.
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If you're a doubter, you know who's really holy today? You know who's really virtuous?
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You know who's really serious about their faith? It's the people who doubt the Bible. Because the people who doubt the
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Bible are the people who are honest and sincere. That's foolish.
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Doubt is not a virtue. Doubt is the first tactic of Satan. What did the serpent say to Eve in the garden?
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Did God really say? Doubt is not a virtue.
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Doubt is used to attack God's people. Satan is a liar.
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Satan is the one who seeks to sow discord and doubt and confusion.
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He is a concealer of and diminisher of truth. So how does the believer stand against such a liar?
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He's a liar from the beginning, Jesus. How do we stand against the lies of the world and the flesh and the devil?
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How do we stand against the assault, the deceiver, the doubter and diminisher? Well, the answer is verse 14.
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We take up the belt of truth. We gird ourselves around here with this foundational piece of armor with clear, transparent, unequivocal, known, revealed truth.
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Again, Martin Lord Jones, the foundation piece in my armor is not my own sincerity and faithfulness.
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In other words, how faithful you are, how sincere you are, that's not the foundational piece of the armor.
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Instead, it is the unambiguous, unfiltered, unmistakable, objective truth of God.
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We gird ourselves with the truth of the gospel. In John 14, verse 6,
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Jesus says, I am not one of many truths, but I am the truth.
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We fasten around our waist, tying everything together, Christ.
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The person and work of Christ. The truth of His divinity.
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He is equal with the Father and the Spirit. The truth of His work. He is born of the
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Virgin Mary, completing the covenant of works, fulfilling all righteousness. The truth of His death.
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He died as a substitute for sinners, bearing God's just wrath against us.
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The truth of His death. He was laid in a borrowed tomb. The truth of His resurrection.
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Christ lives, He reigns, He rules. He rose again the third day from the dead. And His work is sufficient for 10 ,000 worlds of sinners.
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And it's made effectual to the church by His Holy Spirit. And Christ is reigning.
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So there is the aspect of the armor itself, as well as the act of putting it on.
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So think about this. So there is the objective truth of the belt of truth, and now the church is to put this on, to gird ourselves with this objective reality of what
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God has done in Christ for sinners. What you believe matters.
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You hear that today. It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you believe something.
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You hear today, we believe in the Reformation doctrine of sola fide.
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We're saved by faith alone. So you hear people say, you just got to have faith. You just got to believe.
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But what they mean by that is not what we mean by that. We don't mean you just got to believe. You just got to have faith.
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We mean you got to believe the truth. You got to have faith in the truth.
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Or it doesn't matter. First Timothy 3 .15, we are told that the church is a pillar and buttress of the truth.
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There's an objectivity to this belt, I'm saying. Let us be girded about as a church with this truth.
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So much is at stake. The lives of our children and future generations.
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If we compromise here or there, or fail to take up this belt as a foundation to everything we do.
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Friends, truth is worth our lives. Having girded your loins,
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I'm speaking King James, having fastened on the belt of truth.
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Now our third point, an observation and objectivity. Thirdly, an obligation. Now we'll do a little bit of work here in verse 14.
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The word having in the ESV, it's not in the original. So here's what happens when you try to translate.
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The English here is working to translate properly the Greek participle.
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And so it can be tricky at times. But the point here of the participle, this girding, is it's functioning as an imperative, as a command, that is.
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Okay, here's the idea. The idea is, it's something we're doing to stand firm.
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So here's the imperative. It's not a big word. The command in verse 14. The command is stand.
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And then it's surrounded by these participles. But these participles are functioning to show us how we obey this.
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How do we stand? We gird ourselves with truth. Does that make sense? Hopefully that makes sense the way that's come out.
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So there's objective truth. And then there is the church trusting this truth by grace through faith and embracing this as our foundation for life in Godliness.
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Does that make sense? Two things going on here. One, there is the truth. Two, there is the church putting on the truth.
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Trusting the truth. In fact, in fact, this is the very thing that separates the believer and the unbeliever.
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Do you know the Bible tells us that the unbeliever does something with truth as well?
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In Romans chapter 1 verse 18. In Romans chapter 1 verse 18,
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Paul says that the unbeliever does what with the truth? He doesn't bring it up and gird himself in it.
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He knows it, but he suppresses the truth in unrighteousness.
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This doesn't mean that every unbeliever you see suppresses all truth.
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Okay, most unbelievers, for example, will acknowledge a tree is a tree, not a potato.
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Right? Like, we're on the same page with certain things. This can confuse some people because they're like, well,
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I run into lost people all the time that say true things. Well, that's true. However, this foundational and fundamental truth of God and His eternal power and divine right to be worshiped and the unbeliever's obligation to give their life to this
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God, they suppress that truth. It's like a beach ball that they push down under the water.
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They're pushing it down. They're holding it down. That's how they treat the truth. And we live today in a world of lies and partial truths.
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One of the most dangerous places that you can be when it comes to the battle for truth is a
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Sunday school room in a church in the Bible Belt. Whether that's a
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Southern Baptist church, whether it's a Methodist church or a Missionary Baptist church or whatever kind of church it may be, one of the worst places that you can be in this battle is in these
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Sunday school rooms where it's not that they out and out lie. It's just that partial truths are given.
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Right? And you go generation after generation after generation with people sitting around the
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Bible and saying things like this. Well, I think it doesn't matter.
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Right? I'm not trying to be rude. It doesn't matter what you think.
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First, it matters what the Bible says. It doesn't matter what the verse means to you.
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It matters what the verse means. And we have allowed generations now to go through, even if you want to say the best case scenario, well -meaning teaching that has ultimately come short.
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The unbeliever rejects the truth and rejects Christ. But the believer does what with the truth?
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Verse 14. Having fastened on the belt of truth.
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The believer takes the belt of truth, puts it on, and now you see everything in light of the truth of Christ.
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Well, what do you mean, preacher? You're just talking about you see religion in the truth of Christ. No, no, no. I'm talking about I can't do math rightly without this truth.
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I can't make a bank transaction rightly without this truth. I can't attend a ball game rightly without this truth.
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Without seeing everything in light of the truth of God and Christ, it is everything about my existence.
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This is what it means to be girded up. My entire worldview now is arranged and shaped by this truth, by God's truth.
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I don't care what Oprah Winfrey says, right? You don't have a truth.
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That's your truth. This is my truth. You don't have a truth. I don't have a truth.
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It's just God's truth. And the Christian puts on God's truth and now we live a life whereby we see the world and everything in it in light of God's truth.
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This is what it means to be girded up. It is my obligation to take up this truth, to put it on, and to live in light of it, and to fight in light of it.
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Truth is truth, and that is the truth. It's more than I'm wearing a shirt with a
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Bible verse on it, right? It's knowing the truth, internalizing the truth, understanding and applying the truth.
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This is speaking and believing the truth. Now there is an element of subjectivity here in that we are a sincere people.
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We're to be sincere in light of the truth. But listen, you can be sincere and be sincerely wrong.
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It doesn't necessarily mean anything for you to be a sincere person because a lot of people believe wrong things and they are sincere about that.
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In fact, it puts a lot of Christians, let's just be honest, it puts a lot of Christians to shame sometimes how sincere some people are about error.
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But we are called to sincerity, yes, but a sincerity in light of God's truth.
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We're obligated to not just see the belt of truth, but to put it on, and to live in light of that.
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Fourth point, an observation, an objectivity, an obligation, and finally, an ownership, an ownership.
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Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth.
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William Grinnell notes that when we embrace the truth, it affects our mind, our heart, and our actions.
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When the church embraces the truth, we think differently, we feel differently, we live differently.
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And the Christian in the armor of God is a genuine person. He or she is not a hypocrite.
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So, think of it this way, by ownership, I don't mean so much that the
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Christian owns the truth, but that the truth owns the Christian. We are to be a people continually committed to truth.
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So here's four ways, right? You're like, last point, but then, boom, four sub -points. Preach your truth.
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Four ways were to be committed to the truth. Number one, study the truth.
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Number one, study the truth. If I am called by God, not just Paul, not just a preacher,
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I'm called by God to gird up my waist with the belt of truth, how do
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I do that? Number one, study the truth. I understand that the sword of the
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Spirit later is the Word of God. We'll talk about that. But there is an application in this armor piece as well for the
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Bible. Because Jesus says in John 17, 17, sanctify them in the truth.
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Your Word is truth. The Word of God is truth. This is the formal cause of the
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Reformation. Sola Scriptura. I'm going to preach on that tonight. Hope you can come back tonight. We're going to look at that aspect.
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Sola Scriptura doesn't mean that the Bible is our only authority. Right? You can't get pulled over by the police and say, hey,
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I'm a Christian. The Bible's my only authority. Maybe your ticket will be even worse. Right? Like, don't do that.
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No, no. The Bible's not our only authority. The Bible is what? Our highest authority. There is no authority that exists above the
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Bible. What about God? No, the Bible is the way God mediates His authority. Because it is
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God's Word. And so we study the truth. So in honor of Reformation Sunday, let me read to you from Baptist J .L.
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Dagg on the Bible. Listen to this, brother. What a precious gift is the Bible. Who will not prize it?
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Who will not bind it to His heart? We stand on the narrow isthmus of life between two oceans.
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The boundless past and the boundless future. The records of eternity past are beyond our reach, but the
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Ancient of Days has opened them and has revealed to us in the Bible whatever it is necessary that we should know.
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The vanishing present is all important to us, because on it depends our everlasting all.
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But who will instruct us how to use the swiftly passing moments as we ought? The only wise
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God has condescended to speak to us in the Bible and to teach us how to order our steps in life's short way so as to ensure life eternal.
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The future world is just before us. For myself, I realize that I am standing on the shore of the boundless ocean with but an inch of crumbling sand remaining.
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I hear the shrieks of the dying infidel at my side to whose view all is covered with impenetrable darkness.
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He too has come to the brink and would gladly refuse to proceed, but he cannot. Perplexed, terrified, shuddering, he plunges in and sinks.
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He knows not whither. How precious at this trying moment is the book of God!
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How cheering this light from heaven! Before it, I see the shades retiring.
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The Bible lifts its torch. Nay, not a feeble torch such as reason may raise to shine on the darkness and render it visible.
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The Bible sheds the light of the noonday sun on the vast prospect before me and enables me, tranquil and joyful, to launch into eternity with the full assurance of hope.
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Mortals hastening to the retributions of eternity, be wise! Receive the revelation from heaven presented to you in the
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Bible. Attend diligently to its instruction and reverence its authority as the word of the final judge before whom you will soon appear.
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Hooah! We got a book from God! You're all gonna die!
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Hooah, that's terrible, that's not encouraging. You're all gonna die! I'm gonna die! We're gonna stand before God one day, but God has shown us the way that we are to meet
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Him in favor and not judgment. In the book, which shows us
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Christ. So study the book. Oh yeah, this sub -point has sub -points.
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Study it congregationally. That is, in the context of the church.
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Well, I'm here today, preacher, amen. Thank you. We sit under the preaching of the
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Word. We hear, thus saith the Lord. Study it congregationally.
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Study it personally. We read the Bible. We memorize the Bible. We seek to study the truth, to know it, to love it.
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We read the Bible in our, if you want to use the term quiet time, fine, but we have a devoted time that we read the
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Bible. Thirdly, we read it jointly. That is, we read the Bible and study it with others outside of Sundays.
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So I study it congregationally. I study it personally. I also like to read the Bible with others, right?
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And study it together. And then fourthly, in our families, we study the truth with our spouse and with our children.
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How do we grow up into a place where the truth owns us? We study the truth.
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We give ourselves to the Bible as our highest authority. We trust its sufficiency.
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We seek out its clarity. We understand its necessity. Are you a lover of the
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Bible today? What a glorious book we have. Men have given their lives.
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They took William Tyndale and they tied him up to a stake and they tied a rope around his neck and they strangled him to death for this reason.
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He translated the Bible into the English language.
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Men have died so that you could have access to the Bible. Study it.
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I'll make one more comment and I'll move on. Participate in the memorization of the
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Bible. Just a few moments each week as brothers and sisters.
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We'll memorize portions of the Bible together. Give your time to that.
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Ten minutes a day. Maybe only three or four days a week. Maybe some of you it's longer.
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It takes 15 minutes every day. Walk through the memorization of the
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Bible with us so that when we come here on Sundays and we recite it, you're part of that.
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It's not my desire to beat anyone down. I just want to encourage you. If we want to be people of the truth, let's study the truth.
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Alright, secondly, we've got to move on. Serve the truth. Serve the truth. Put on the belt of truth.
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Study the truth. Serve the truth. We serve the truth by being clear and convictional.
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We do not seek to compromise with this dying culture. We have no interest in that.
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Right? So we have to be careful here. We serve the truth by being clear and convictional, which means we don't nuance things into oblivion.
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That's the big thing evangelicals want to do today. They want to take sharp truth and they want to nuance it until the edge is blunt.
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We want to qualify things to death. No, no, no. We don't serve the truth that way.
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And since we don't own the truth, but the truth owns us, we publish the truth to our neighbors and the nations.
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And listen to me here. To those who are willing to listen and to those who are unwilling to listen, you go to people who are willing to listen.
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Yes? And people unwilling to listen? Yes. The studies have shown if you go door to door in evangelism that people don't like it.
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So why are you doing it? Because before I'm serving people,
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I'm serving the truth. Do you understand? I'm not serving people first and foremost.
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Now I understand that evangelism is about loving the lost, certainly.
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There is aspects of evangelism where we don't want to see people go to hell. We want to hear them get the gospel. We want to understand these things and we want to take the gospel to them before it's too late.
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And there's some good motivations in that. But those aren't our primary motivations. First and foremost,
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I take the gospel to people not willing to hear it because I don't serve those people. I serve the truth.
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So we take the truth to all. We publish the truth. And we show other people its glory.
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And I want to tell you something church, we've been too passive here. We have just allowed, and I don't just merely speak of our church, but churches throughout the generations in this great country, we have just allowed the world to lie and lie and lie and lie and we've left it unchecked.
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We haven't confronted it. We believe these things like, well, you know what? I'm at work and I don't need to say anything because that might be offensive.
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Or, you know what? It's Thanksgiving and we've got family and I don't get to see them very much. I better not press this truth.
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I know they lied, but we'll just let it go. And we've compromised the truth. Well, we better not pray in school and we better not share the gospel.
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Well, what if a Muslim wants to share his truth? I'm like, so be it. Share all truth because all truth is
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God's truth. And I know that what the Muslim shares is a lie, right? And I know that the truth of God will prevail because it is the only truth.
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Does it make sense? Like, we've compromised, we've backed up, and we've just said, well, this isn't the time or place for me to bring up truth.
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And what we have done is we've retreated, complete with the sound effects, into the church.
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And we said, right here is where we can share the truth, but not out there because out there, you know, you gotta make people like you.
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And we have failed. We have allowed people to be more passionate about lies than we are about the truth.
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We have left ourselves ungirded and Paul says, having fastened on the belt of truth, gird up, church.
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Let us be discerning. Discerning in our culture, discerning in our worship, discerning in our lives.
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Let us stand firm and be servants of the truth. You hear things like this, you know.
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I gotta move on, I know. Servant evangelism, servant this, servant that, servant that. Just stop for the love of all that is good.
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Stop. And let us be first and foremost servants of the truth.
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Thirdly, speak the truth. Now this was already in Ephesians, flip over to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11.
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Paul says, And he that is Christ gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attained to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the
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Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.
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Rather, speaking the truth in love, were to grow up in every way into Him who is head and to Christ.
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I must speak the truth of God to my fellow church, not just because I'm the pastor, all church members, one of the pastors, all church members must speak the truth of God and Christ and sin and the church and grace and hope and hell and repentance to one another.
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It is the whole church's responsibility to be truth speakers. Let me also say this, church, you need to speak the truth to yourself.
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I'm not trying to be weird here, but just listen, in our Bible, it's like God just encouraged me with this thought this week in my
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Bible reading. Because in Bible reading this week, we're in Lamentations 3. Now we're memorizing 22 through 25, but verse 21 of Lamentations 3 says this,
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Jeremiah says, but this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.
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So listen, here's the context. In the midst of his lament, in the midst of his pain, seeing
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Jerusalem destroyed and Judah exiled, Jeremiah did what to himself?
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He spoke the truth to himself. Therefore, I will call this to mind and have hope.
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And then what's he say? The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. Speak truth to yourself.
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Truth, not lies. Pop psychology, sometimes your friends, sometimes
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Facebook, they encourage you to speak lies to yourself. Oh, you're so good.
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Oh, you do nothing wrong. Oh, you're so great. I don't know how anyone could ever think that.
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No, no, no, no. Don't speak that junk. Speak truth.
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I'm wretched, but God is gracious. God has displayed
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His love for me in Christ. I stand before Him not on my own two feet, but on Christ's.
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It's what Jesus has done, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Create is your faithfulness.
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As we face the onslaught of lies from the world and the flesh and the devil, we must speak truth to ourselves and to one another.
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The Lord is good. Christ is worthy. Sin is wretched. Heaven is glorious. Don't quit. Fourthly, study, serve, speak.
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Finally, submit to the truth to guard ourselves here in verse 14.
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Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth is to submit ourselves to the truth, to give our lives to the truth, to know what it is that we believe, why it is we believe it, and to refuse to treat these matters cavalierly.
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Right? Like some of us treat the truth like where we're going to go deer hunting. It's not that big a deal.
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Truth, though, will divide. Truth will cause friction at times, but truth also unifies.
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The truth, Jesus says, sets us free in Christ, free from sin and free from guilt, free from condemnation.
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Truth, I'm telling you this morning, is worth living for and truth is worth dying for. Christ the truth owns us and we seek no other master.
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We submit to Him. So here's a simple question. Do I submit to the truth?
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And here's the application. The question is, do I submit to the truth? The application is, if the answer is yes, this is what that means.
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It seems so simple. I'm going to take this book.
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I'm going to open this book. I'm going to read this book.
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And then whatever this book tells me about the human condition, I'm going to believe.
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Whatever this book tells me about the attributes of God, I'm going to believe.
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Whatever the book has to tell me about salvation, I'm going to believe. Whatever the book has to tell me about ecclesiology,
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That is the doctrine of the church. I'm going to believe it's simple as this folks Whatever it is that the book says
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I'm gonna plant my flag there I'm gonna believe it and I'm gonna live my life in that way
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I'm going to believe it because I'm called to gird my waist with the belt of truth I'm gonna believe the truth and I'm going to live in light of the truth for the glory of God See some of us treat the truth
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Now this is real meddling here. Some of us treat the truth like a speed limit sign. I see the sign
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I Believe the sign. I believe the sign says what it says. I believe it says 75 on the interstate.
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I believe that I Know what it says. I believe what it says. I Set the cruise at 80.
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That's how some people are treating the truth of the Bible. Oh I know what it says. Oh I believe what it says.
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I'm gonna set my life at five miles over the speed limit What a travesty to miss heaven by an inch and Wherever one generation is off an inch
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The next is off a mile So, well, how are we off a hundred miles today because a few generations ago
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People were off but just slightly and it's no big deal Friend if this is you repent and heed our text
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Has the truth taken hold of you this morning has Christ bestowed upon you this precious belt by his grace
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Will you repent and believe the gospel today? Will you come to Christ and live in his truth now?
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Now I think that there's a pointed application here for our church We'll kind of try to land the plane with this.
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I'm talking about Providence Baptist Church of Perryville, Arkansas. I Believe First of all,
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I do not believe we're a perfect church There is no such thing and I believe that there are many ways that we can grow in Reformation but I also believe that we're a church that is working to study and serve and speak and submit to the truth
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So here's an application here's what this looks like to the community We say to our community
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Hey This is who we are. It's not our desire to be unduly confrontational
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We're not trying to be mean or arrogant or rude We desire to be truly loving and Christ honoring but what this looks like then is to be people of truth children of the light a city set on a hill and So here's what
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I'm saying. We say to our community and to our guests and to those inquiring about us Hey, this is who we are
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So so let me give it to you this way. There's a temptation. I failed in this
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I have failed in the temptation before in my life to say, okay. Well to this person We're kind of like this and to this person
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Let's kind of be like that and to that person Maybe we'll kind of be a blend and and the reason that churches are tempted with this and and pastors are tempted with this is
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Because what there can be a proper motivation in the sense that well, we just want to see more people
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We want to see more people in the church and so so sometimes we look like this sometimes we look like this sometimes we look like that and we're ever kind of Malleable because we want to be maybe maybe it's a wrong application of Paul's Thing Paul's exhortation.
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We says all things to all men all things to all men Sorry, so we kind of take that wrongly and we say well our church is like this one day
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We're like this one day We're like this one day and we just kind of change all the time so that we can bring more and more people in and I'm Telling you today.
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We'll look at this more next week Evangelicalism is operating this way this mere Christianity towel style of Truth where we just kind of boil everything down to a few facts and then everywhere else.
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We'll just we'll just change on That's not what we're doing as a church. We stand before our community and we just say hey look
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We're not trying to hide anything. We're not trying to be something. We're not this is who we are We are a reformed
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Baptist Church. We have these biblical Convictions and we are most willing most willing most willing to be patient and desiring to be gracious But look, this is who we are and we're just not going to compromise these truths because these truths are the very
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Foundation of everything that we believe these truths unite us These truths are derived from the very
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Word of the Living God and it is our desire to stand firm in these truths and These truths were purchased at a high cost and We dare not sell them cheaply
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So we hold them and we're transparent and we say this is who we are
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Now we're patient We're gracious We don't break a bruised reed or snuff out a smoldering wick
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We walk in the way of Christ yet at the same time We are girded up with the belt of truth
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Hey y 'all, we know we we're not a buckling Not for a politician
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Not for a threat Not for the sake of popularity or numbers Not because we're gonna go out and canvas the community and say what do you really want to see in the church?
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What kind of church really gets you to come right? We're not going to unfasten the belt of truth for anyone not for money not for politics for nothing
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Why it's God's truth here we stand This is who we are
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When I was 18, I was standing outside of a rodeo arena somewhere in Texas I don't remember but I was with a friend and we were around a group of people and They asked us we told them we were bad this thing they asked us like like are you a serious
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Baptist It's 18 year old quattro. My first instinct was to unbuckle that belt of truth and to be like no, in fact, the word no was coming out of my mouth because like I don't want to be weird and My friend was like before I could say that he was like, yeah, we're pretty serious.
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I was rebuked. I Was convicted For too long professing
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Christians have been living like 18 year old me Afraid to plant the flag of truth boldly and convictionally in the face of a godless world to unapologetically
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Say this is who we are to not waffle to not compromise The truth owns us.
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Therefore we gird ourselves with it Christ told us father.
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Thank you for your word. We pray that you would work it deeply into our hearts