Behold What Christ Has Provided For You To Stand

Isaiah’s Promise of a Redeemer Who Comes to Zion

Please stand for the reading of God's Word, which he speaks to us. Today's Old Testament reading will be Isaiah chapter 59 verses 14 through 21, which can be found on page 619 in your pew Bibles. Justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away, for the truth has stumbled in the public squares and uprightness cannot enter.

Truth is lacking and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. 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.

Then his own arm brought him salvation and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation is on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

According to their deeds, so he will repay wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies, to the coastlands he will render repayment. So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun.

For he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of the Lord drives, and a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, declares the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord.

My spirit that is upon you and my words that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children's offspring, says the Lord.

From this time forth and forevermore.

Jesus’ Temptation in the Wilderness and His Victory Over the Devil

The New Testament reading is on page 809 of your pew Bible, Matthew chapter 4 verses 1 through 11. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

And the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

Jesus said to him, Again, it is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.

Then Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

This is the word of God. I don't know if you should stand or sit. I'm sorry about that. You may be seated. Thanks.

Good morning.

The Call to Stand Firm in Ephesians 6

Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6, please. Book of Ephesians chapter 6. It's good to be here back before you once more, and this time with power, so that's always good. Although I kind of enjoyed not having power.

That was kind of cool, but it's good to have it again.

I.

Did want to mention.

That.

As a way of, I hate to go back with announcements, but.

On.

November 18th and 19th, there is a training for New Path called Focus on the Heart. It's a two-day training. It's Monday and Tuesday, and if you have ever been interested in helping out New Path and talking with the ladies that come in, and you're just interested in it, consider going to that training.

It's good anyways, even for your own soul, let alone if you are interested in ministering to other people. And so consider that. Again, that'll be whatever date I just said, which I already forgot. Let me look again.

November 18th and 19th. Consider doing that. If you have any questions, let me know. Again, even if you don't plan on, you're like, I don't know if I'll even, you know, minister at New Path, just the training itself for your own soul is good.

So talk to me if you're interested at all in that. But with your Bibles open now to Ephesians chapter 6, let's read the text, and we'll go to our Lord in prayer. Let's go to Ephesians 6. We'll start in verse 10.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, having done all to stand firm. Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows 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 words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare the gospel boldly as I ought to speak.

Let us pray. Oh Father in heaven, help us to stand. Help us, Father, to not be lazy, or not to bury our head in the sand as if there's not a battle to be fought as we live this life here in this already not yet time.

Oh God in heaven, it is a wearisome task. It is tiring. Sometimes it is overwhelming. But Lord, in those times we are, and every time, we are to look to our Savior. We are to meditate upon Him. We are to find our hearts rest in Him.

And so I pray, Lord, for those who are even before me now who feel overcome with burden, overwhelmed with the battle. Oh, would you help me to encourage them to put on the armor that Christ has provided by His blood?

Would you, Father, those who are complacent in their sin or in their lethargy, I pray that you would even use this words from this text to awaken them to see that there is a battle to be fought while they still have their being.

May we, Father, your people, your church, be eager to receive the armor from our Lord and to fight for His glory. Thank you for this call. God, may you be glorified in it. In Jesus' name. Amen. So we are again at the end of this book, at the end of this book of Ephesians.

And again, we are at this call to suit up for battle. And as we said last week, it is a little bit of a different feel from the beginning of the book in which it is all about the mercies and grace that God has done for us.

Here at the end, it's in light of that. There's this great call to strap on armor, to battle the enemy before you. And this is what we detailed last week. We detailed the scariness of the enemy. In order for us to want to put on that armor, we must understand the danger that the enemy poses on us right now.

And we have an enemy that is dangerous. We have an enemy that is invisible yet works in what is visible all around us. He has tremendous authority with power and is the leader of a pervasive dark kingdom that goes everywhere.

It is encroaching on you right now, whether you want to believe it or not. The enemy is attacking. He always attacks while we're in this already not yet time period of our fallen flesh yet redeemed by Christ.

This enemy is dangerous and he's scary and he should scare us as we look at him. His attack is not just physical, but he is on the prowl to devour your very soul, to pull you into his lying schemes, Paul says, to keep you from enjoying God or even to pull you away from God altogether.

Every one of you should be able to articulate what is the lie, the scheme he has been pressing upon your heart this week. You should be able to locate it and know that you have been enamored by it. There is a battle to be fought.

If you are a follower of Christ, you have a mark on your back and Satan is attacking you, whether you know it or not. And so this ought to sober us up as Christians. Even we can see the beauties of God and his salvation in Ephesians 1 through 3, but as we see the battle that must be fought, it ought to sober us up that we have an enemy that hates us completely.

Christ Has Gone Before Us and Given Us His Armor

But yeah, as we look at the scariness of our enemy, we need to look to Jesus. Jesus is not scared at all. In fact, I find it fascinating as we look at this topic, Jesus isn't scared. In fact, he says in John 17, 15 through 19, he praying to God the Father, he says, I do not ask you that you take them, the church, out of the world, but that you would keep them from the evil one.

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. So sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into this world, O Father, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth.

You see, Jesus isn't scared. In fact, he says, I ask you, Father, not to take them out of the world. Even though there is this battle waging that is terrifying, Jesus says, I ask you not to take them out of the world, Father, but to keep them in the world because I have consecrated myself to sanctify them.

See, that was the whole point that Jesus came, is he came to enable us to do this battle, to do this fight. He consecrates himself for our sake. And this is what we read, and I think Jason read it in Isaiah 59.

Remember what the prophet said? And just listen to it as I speak. 16 and 17. So this is our Savior who puts on armor himself, enters into creation and fights the battle and wins. And what he does with his victory is he then says, and here, here is my victory.

It is now your victory in this world. Put on my armor that I have crafted by my death and resurrection. He doesn't want to take us out of the world. He wants to sustain the world and do the scary fighting because it's his own armor that he provides to us to wear and have the victory.

Jesus has gone before you and created a set of armor, tried and tested from his own death and resurrection and reigning on high. And from his own victory, we know it is sure to work. Jesus stands before the battle with his armor for you in his hands, beckoning you to come to the line of battle and take his armor and put Satan to the flight.

See, in this case, with the armor of God, the armor of Jesus that he provides for this victory against the Satan, we don't want to be like David who went up to the battle line to face Goliath, who couldn't fit into Saul's armor.

Instead, Jesus stands at the battle line with his armor and we want to grab hold of it and fit snug into it. Our whole Christian life needs to be filled with our fitting better and better into this armor that King Jesus gives us.

So ask yourself as we're going through these armor pieces in light of the scary enemy that faces us even in this moment, am I fitting into these pieces well? To overcome the schemes that Satan is pressing down on me in this moment, am I fitting in the armor that will help me to withstand his attacks?

The Belt of Truth Against Satan’s Schemes

So he says in chapter 6, verse 14, as he goes into these different armor pieces that Jesus is handing you at the battle line, he says, stand therefore. You notice how many times he says stand, stand, stand.

The enemy is here. It's like Paul's crying out to you. He's here. He wants to kill you. Stand up and get ready. He says stand over and over again with stand. He says wrestle. And then he details what it means to stand.

Stand therefore. And so every single armor piece you can have the stand therefore before it. Stand therefore, having fasted on the belt of truth. Stand therefore, having put on the breastplate of righteousness.

Stand there as shoes. You know, it goes on and on and on. He says to stand therefore. Because you have a spiritual foe that wants to drag you down to the miseries of hell. Stand therefore, because his power is one with authority, with a darkness as pervasive and vast, and encroaches on you in this moment.

Stand therefore, because this terrible foe hates you with a complete hatred. Who is not happy with just killing your physical body, but wants your very soul. Stand therefore, because you can feel his icy grip on your spiritual throat, even with that little lie your soul has been enamored with this week.

That little scheme that has been making its way in your heart, that you know is there and it's been enamoring to you. Stand therefore, because the enemy is afoot. Stand therefore, because you have a savior who is perfect in power, who enables you to stand.

Who beckons you to the battle line with his entire armor, crafted in the forge of his death and resurrection. So grab it from his hands of grace, put it on and stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

And here's the first armor piece that Jesus gives you at that battle line. In verse 14 still, he says,. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth. And so the first armor piece that Paul is pointing to is that belt that the soldiers of this time would wear.

And this belt was very important as it kept everything in its proper place. All the armor pieces were kept in its proper place by this belt that a soldier would wear. And it would keep your clothes tight on your body so that you can battle.

Can't battle with clothes going everywhere. And so this belt that a soldier would wear would keep all the armor in place and would keep the clothes snug to their body so that they could stand and fight.

And I think it's very, it's important that the different spiritual points that he puts with each armor piece, it's important not to get too ridiculous with like, why did he say that particular spiritual point with there?

But I do think there is a rhyme and reason to many of it. And I think that he chooses to say belt of truth because truth is the general thing we need in order for all the armor pieces to fit snugly on our spiritual body.

Truth is what keeps all the armor together and in the right place in order to go against the lying schemes of the evil one. Now, if you remember, he says earlier in these verses, he says that you might be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

Schemes is how the devil attacks you. He's always attacking and the way he attacks is with schemes. That's like very organized lies pieced together to bring you into a whole world of deception. Schemes is a lying, I can't think of the word right now, but it's a holistic lie that you are in.

And so it's important that he combats that with the belt of truth, not a world of lies, but rather a belt of truth that you are to grab from Jesus and put on. You know, those who are caught in the devil's schemes, in that paradigm, right?

In which he's attacking you with to bring you in, to bring you away from Jesus. Those who are caught in the devil's schemes, they never say, I'm for falsehood. You'll never hear them once say that. I'm all about falsehood.

I like falsehood. You'll never hear that. But they are for their own way, which is the same thing as being for falsehood. And so the contrast with having the belt of truth is to say, I'm for my own way.

I'm not interested in a truth that's outside of myself that I'm adhering to, but I'm for whatever I say is right. What's that Frank Sinatra song? My way, I did it my way.

Whatever, however it goes.

That is the theme of the chorus of our world, of the devil's system. It is a scheming system to say, don't put your mind and heart upon a truth outside of yourself, but put it on your own way. That's always better.

Judges 21, 25, the very end of that book summarizes the book well. If you ever read Judges, it's insane. That book is insanity. And the summarizing statement fits it well. In those days, there was no king in Israel.

Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. They did it their own way. In our culture, when you hear things like speak your own truth, you know, that's, I'm saying be false, falsehood. The objective truth outside of yourself is offensive.

When there is no King Jesus in our land, in your heart as a belt of truth, you'll do what's right in your own eyes, which is to follow the prince of the power of the air, which is to be deceived in falsehood.

And that's what's fascinating about the way Satan works. As he doesn't, the people who are in that system, who are not in Christ, it's not like they say, I'm a falsehood. I'm following the prince of the power of the air.

But that is what they're doing in his scheming plan. That's how he schemes his people into it. They have no idea they're in it, but they're in it. And the one who grabs the truth, the belt of truth from Jesus's hand says, I'm no longer following my own way.

I'm no longer following whatever feels right to me. I have a standard outside of me that I look to, and it changes everything I do. Satan's scheme is to pull you in what seems right to you. There's one truth, but a billion falsehoods.

We could all have our own different ways in here, and it would all be false. But the person grabbing the belt of truth from King Jesus is now devoted to a standard outside, rooted in the God of all the universe, rooted in reality, rooted in truth.

And this person is devoted to God's truth, no matter how nice and easy the falsehood of their own way seems in the devil's scheme. And that's where the rubber hits the road. That's why people want to do their own way, because it seems easier than an objective truth outside of themselves.

And the person grabbing the belt of truth from Jesus says, I don't care how difficult the truth is, I am according to that, no longer what seems right to me. Young people need to hear that so bad because they're being told in a world it's about what you feel like.

It's your truth, Oprah tells you. That is a bunch of falsehood, sinful scheming from Satan. It's from the very depths of hell. We are to grab the truth, the belt of truth from our Lord Jesus Christ, who is truth itself.

I remember, I think about this, and I remember there's this man, I probably told this story before behind the pulpit, but I think about it often. I remember being at Radnor,.

About to go up and preach.

There's this new guy that comes in, and I introduced myself and I said, how are you?

And he says, he's good.

I'm like, well, what brings you here? He says, I'm tired of being lied to and the deception, and I'm declaring war on all sin. So I either think he's insane, or he actually is like, Christ just grabbed a hold of his heart big time.

But I'm leaning on he's probably insane. Like I'm keeping my eye on him, making sure he doesn't have like a knife on him or something like that. Because you don't normally introduce yourself that way.

And this man so happens to be Daniel Ponder. And I can safely tell you, we just brought him in as a deacon. He panned out well. But it always makes me consider that,.

Like, you know,.

There is this just realization that this whole world is filled with deception and lies. I'm tired of being lied to, and I just want the truth. And of course, declaring war on sin is the only way that happens.

We are to be people who grab the belt of truth from Jesus. Our eyes are on that. And we no longer are satisfied with the standard of our own way. He goes on with this armor pieces. In verse 14, he says, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, he says.

The Breastplate of Righteousness and a Life That Matches Our Standing in Christ

So having grabbed the belt of truth, and now we're grabbing from our Lord Jesus Christ at the battle line to face the terrible enemy, the breastplate of righteousness. Now the breastplate for the soldier at this time covered obviously a very vital area of the body has very major organs in your chest that it is to cover and protect.

And Paul attaches with the vitality of that, the breastplate of righteousness. Now, when we think of righteousness, there's two major ways to consider righteousness. There's the, I think the grounded way that the first way, and that is there is a righteous standard that God demands from anyone who would be near to him.

There is a righteousness is to satisfy God's moral standard, which is perfection, by the way, nothing less. You can't stand anything less than perfection. You got to understand that. So righteousness is that satisfying the perfect moral standard of the perfect righteous God.

And so again, the mantra that we hear, God just wants me to be happy. No, God just wants you to be righteous. And he's willing to take your happiness away to make you righteous, by the way. The breastplate of righteousness has to do with this righteous standing we have before God.

And it is Jesus is the one who gives you that righteous status, because without Christ and his perfect righteousness, you have no perfect righteousness to put on. It is nothing but folly and unrighteousness to God of your own.

So that's why when we're talking about the righteousness or being made righteous, you need to then put your mind and heart and worship and praise and everything to Jesus immediately. And if you are new to the church, new to this Christian thing, I can't stress that enough to you.

You cannot make yourself righteous. You need Jesus to give you righteousness. But I think Paul here, as he's talking about the breastplate of righteousness that we must take from Jesus, it's connected with that standing perfectly righteous before God because of Christ.

But I think Paul is talking about the practice of that standing. You get what I'm saying there? Paul's detailing the need to stand against the schemes of the devil, stand against his lyingness to drag you into sin.

And he's saying that you need to put on the breastplate of righteousness, the practice of that right standing we can have before God because of Jesus. Thought about this way of perhaps laying this out with my house.

You know, this time of the year, my house starts to get real cold and I don't like putting on the heat. And I start to consider putting it on when I see my wife is a very hard worker.

She is.

But in the cold, sometimes she just ends up shivering on the couch and mobile because she's so freezing. And so what my mind went to is imagine being so cold and just trying to warm up, can't move. And then I would go and buy her a nice warm robe and put it on her.

And then she's warmed by that robe. Now, I actually had to turn the heat on, but for this, it is the robe that warms her up. She gets warm in that nice warm robe and now she's up doing all the crazy activities that she does in the house that keeps it running well.

And the kids are saying, mom, you're up.

You're up.

You're no longer shivering on the couch and mobile. What happened? And she would say, I was bought a warm robe that caused me to work. And the way I am looking at that is that we receive the righteous robe of Jesus Christ.

And that status difference causes us to be able to stand up and walk righteously before our Lord. To stand up and walk in righteousness because of that robe that's put on us that changes our status from sin to righteous.

And now we get to walk like it or we're no longer immobile by our sin. And so I think this is the breastplate of righteousness. Paul is saying that we need to grab hold from Jesus. Is that we have been made righteous by Christ.

And now with this breastplate of righteousness, we get to walk righteously because of Christ. When we go from the state of unrighteousness to righteous because of the robe we've received from Christ, it will always impact our actions thereafter.

To be able and willing to serve God and stand against the schemes of the devil. And it's that service coming from your right status in Christ that Paul details as the breastplate of righteousness. So when you are living in accordance with the righteous standard Christ has won for you, you are protecting yourself from the wicked schemes that target your major spiritual organs.

When you meditate, marvel, worship Christ for that right standing he has given you and it influences the way you live your life, it is a protection against the schemes of Satan to bring you into his lives.

You, as you grow in that armor piece, you more and more see the scheme that's behind the temptation of that sin. And you say, no, thank you, Christ is much better. His righteousness is always better. So we move on from 14.

We are to stand with the belt of truth from Christ, with the breastplate of his righteousness, both standing in our practice to stand against the schemes. And in verse 15, he says, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

The Gospel of Peace That Makes Us Ready for Battle

Rome soldiers in this ancient period had certain kind of shoes to make them ready for battle. And notice again, he goes to the feet, shoes for your feet to having to put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

The ancient soldier would have certain kind of shoes to make them ready to get to battle and to be in battle. And what made their shoes so special is it had nails protruding from the shoes. So the nails would dig into the earth to help them to march quicker and help them to stand their ground in battle.

And that's what we call cleats now. I remember, I won't go to the story. No story, this isn't story time. But this is what Paul's detailing here. He's looking at the shoes that make the soldier ready to get to battle and to be in battle.

And he's saying the gospel of peace is like our readiness, our shoes that makes us ready to get to battle and to stay, maintain ourself in battle. Jesus is always revealing a sin and battle line for you to approach.

He's always doing that. I'll never forget becoming a Christian in the first wave of sin, I realized, oh, I need to get this out of here. And I got it out of there.

And I was like, oh, I'm done.

No, I wasn't.

There's a whole nother sin beyond that that I didn't see because of the other sin. And I get beyond that. And there it is again. And there it is. It doesn't stop. It is a constant warfare. Jesus in his kindness and mercy.

I hope you see it as that. Even whenever you're tired, he's always beckoning you. And here's the next battle line, my child. And you need the gospel of peace, the cleats, the nails into the ground to get you eager to get over there, to be ready for the battle.

And then as you face that battle, as you face that enemy, as you face that scheme that you're wanting to believe, you need those cleats to dig in, to be ready to continue to battle. And Paul labels that as the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

The gospel of peace, the message of good news that you are at peace with God because of Jesus taking your enmity. And I know if you've been here for any longer than 10 seconds, that has like, it's like tempting for that to go in one ear and out the other, right?

But you must understand the reason why that's said so much, the gospel of peace, the good news that you can be made right and at peace with your maker, that is foundational to everything about your Christianity, everything about your happiness, everything about your wellbeing.

Your greatest problem is that you're at odds with God. And your greatest solution is Jesus has taken that enmity and given you peace instead. And as you proclaim that gospel message of peace to your soul, to yourself, it gets you ready for the next battle.

And it helps you to dig in even further in the midst of the battle you're in. The foundational truth that I have been made right with my God, no longer is he angry at me, but I am his friend, causes you to want to battle.

It readies you, readies you for the hardship at hand. Delight yourself in the foundational principle of the good news that Jesus Christ has made you at peace with your maker. A clear conscience to walk before him and to stand.

There is no greater existence than being at peace with your maker, the sovereign of the universe. And Jesus has made that a reality in his gospel. I think most of counseling myself and anyone else is trying to get myself and anyone else to that same desire.

I want to be at peace with God and to experience that peace. And if God says, I'm going to experience that in this hardship, let it be. Because peace with God is everything. And God says, this is the good news.

Everything that happens is so that you can experience that peace with me through Jesus Christ. So the sin that Jesus points you to, what makes you ready to face it is being at peace with your father, with your God.

And then moving forward in verse 16,.

He says,.

And in all circumstances, this next armor piece, we are to grab hold from our Lord. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts or all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Now, flaming arrows are darts. They're arrows that are set on fire and then launched to the enemy.

And it would,.

If it hits the enemy, it would catch them on fire. And not only would that be bad for the victim itself, but for everyone around him, it would be a terrifying affair. I mean, imagine seeing or knowing that there's arrows coming at you.

That'd be terrifying enough. And imagine seeing the arrows on fire coming at you. That would up the ante. And I imagine your neighbor getting hit by that flaming arrow and not only being pierced by the arrow, but getting caught on fire.

It was a terrifying thing to have arrows set a flame set at the enemy. It was terrifying. And Paul here, he says the schemes, the lies that Satan tries to pull you in can seem like flaming arrows coming down on you.

Terrifying. These schemes are not something to laugh or scoff at, but the schemes that Satan entices you with is like flaming, terrifying arrows to bring you to the depths of hell. Now, many commentators, they label it as burning sinful lusts.

The scheme Satan tries to pull all young, anyone is capable of this, but especially we think of young men, the burning sinful lusts of the heart. It is so deceptive, right? There's so much promise of good.

If you just,.

This 10, 15 seconds of momentary pleasure will be worth it all. It is a burning lust within the frame that a lot of commentators say this is what Paul is referring to with the flaming arrows is like the burning lust that can so grab the heart of Christians.