7. Armor of God: Helmet of Salvation

Okay, as you can see, we are on the lesson, The Helmet of Salvation, and who wants to tell me where we can find the scriptures about the armor of God? Ephesians chapter six. All right, we're gonna read 10 to 12, 10 to 15, and then 15 to 20.

Very good, all right.

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

Therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist in the evil day and having done everything to stand firm. Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with the truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to 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.

With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the spirit and with this in view beyond the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints and pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains that in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.

All right, that's the culmination of putting on the armor. So again, we're just gonna do a quick review. The belt of truth, offensive or defensive weapon? Defensive, right? The truth of the cross, your sins are paid for, covering your sin and shame.

Your sins have been paid in full. Breastplate of righteousness, offensive or defensive? Defensive. You've received the righteousness of Christ and are in right relationship with God because of Jesus. His perfect righteousness is given to you as a gift so that you could stand before God without owing God anything.

His perfect life becomes your perfect life. Shoes of peace, defensive, defensive. You've been able to stand, fight, and carry the message of hope that will change the world. Just do it, right? The hope that has changed you, faith and trust in Jesus Christ is the same message that's gonna affect the people that you bring it to, right?

Where to bring the gospel to every creature under heaven and earth. Shield of faith, offensive or defensive? Defensive, all right. Faith connects you to the power and promises of God to quell your doubts and fears.

God is your shield. Remember, we don't have faith in faith itself. Faith is not a force. We have faith, it's the object of our faith that matters and our faith is in God who makes the promises and has the power to carry them out.

That's where our confidence comes from, okay. Helmet of salvation, offensive or defensive? Defensive, all right. So the helmet of salvation is basically the shield of faith for your head, right? So when the enemy tries to attack you with lies and deception, you put on the helmet of salvation that goes back and recognizes the belt of truth.

Your shame has been covered, your sins are paid for. You don't, when the devil says, oh, you're not good enough, you say have the breastplate of righteousness, I have Christ's righteousness. Oh, that's not gonna matter to anyone.

Well, that message of hope matters to me and it matters to the rest of the world. Ah, and he's just gonna throw darts of doubt at you and that's when you hold up the shield of faith and you trust in the power and the promises of God, all right.

Your helmet is just a shield for your head to guard you against the lies that the devil throws at you. We know this as the battlefield of the mind, right? The devil's gonna tell you you're a sinner. He's gonna tell you you're not good enough.

He's gonna tell you there's no hope for you. He's gonna try to convince you that God doesn't love you. And that's what all this armor being put on helps us to remember, especially the helmet of salvation.

Okay, the first three are fastened to the body. In other words, they're not taken on and off easily. The last three, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit are all things that you can pick up and put down, okay.

You wanna pick these up and not put them down. You wanna continue to hold on to them. All right, let's get into the lesson. The spiritual application of the helmet is obvious. The apostle is drawing attention to the head, to the mind, to the brain, the understanding, the thinking of the Christian.

We have already dealt with the feelings and the sensibilities, the emotions and the desires and have seen how the enemy tends to attack us at those various points. But now we have to direct our attention to the particular aspect which involves the consideration of the mind and the understanding, the intellectual part of our whole position as Christians.

There was a comedian named Ben Stein. Ben Stein? No, not Ben Stein, Brad Stein, right. And in the beginning of his routine, every time he would say, put a helmet on, like he would bring up these stupid statements that people make.

He's like, put a helmet on. In other words, the ideas that you have are so dangerous, you're gonna hurt yourself by hitting your head. We put the helmet of salvation on because that's where the word of God protects our minds once we dwell in it.

What it means is that the devil succeeds at times in persuading us to become preoccupied with the details of the Christian life that we forget the grand truth covering the whole. We lose the forest for the trees.

We are so concerned about the trees that we miss the forest. We're so immersed in the local tactics that we forget the great campaign, right. We might have minor losses in the skirmish, but we remember we win the war.

Ultimately, the victory belongs to Christ and we're part of the plan. We get to participate in the victory. So if you're in Christ, you know that you're going to win. That gives you the boldness to take chances, to take calculated risks for the sake of the gospel, to stand for your king and serve him.

Paul calls the Christian's headgear the helmet of salvation, an image that like the breastplate of righteousness is again borrowed directly from the description of the divine warrior in Isaiah 59, 17.

So this is not something new that Paul is explaining to us. This teaching is found rooted and grounded in the Old Testament, specifically the book of Isaiah. In fact, God's righteousness and his people's salvation occur together frequently in the book of Isaiah.

They have a cause and effect relationship. God's righteousness, his reliable commitment to fulfill all his promises to his people means that he must act to deliver them from their enemies. So if anybody is saved, if anybody is walking rightly with God, it's because God has acted in his righteousness to save them.

This means that he must act to deliver them from their enemies. This includes not merely their physical enemies, such as the Assyrians and the Babylonians, but the greatest enemy of all, their own sin and the separation from God that sin causes.

So we know in the fall, man and God were separated. Man is not the one who can reconcile the relationship. The relationship has to be reconciled by God. And he gives us the terms, unconditional surrender, lay down your arms, you are the offending party, not the offended.

You need to come to God on his terms. What's that? Surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord. Stop trusting in yourself. You continue to trust in yourself. How's that working out for you?

Right?

You continue to trust in yourself, you're gonna fail. But when you continue to trust in Christ, the armor bearer, the one who's bore the armor for you, you're guaranteed to win, you're guaranteed victory.

So remember, the breastplate protects the heart, the helmet protects the mind. The breastplate is basically protecting you from the emotions that you're apt to move in. The things that you feel on a regular basis, and that changes.

The helmet is designed to protect your mind. I hide God's law in my heart that I may not sin against him. You're feeding your mind the word of God so that you stand in the midst of that evil day. So Isaiah 51, the Lord declares, my righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples.

The coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait. Lift up your eyes to the heavens and look to the earth beneath, for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner.

But my salvation will be forever. My righteousness will never be dismayed. So whose righteousness do you wanna count on? Your own or his? His righteousness is gonna stand forever. His salvation is gonna stand forever.

Anybody know what the word salvation is in the Old Testament?

Yeshua.

That ring a bell? Somebody in the New Testament? Yeshua is Jesus. So my salvation, Yeshua, will be forever. He's the one who's going to come and save his people from their sins. Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law.

It's a promise of the new covenant. I will write my law on your heart. Fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. We do not fear man, we fear God. Jesus tells us, do not fear him who can kill the body, fear him who can kill the body and soul and cast you into hell.

Our fear, reverence, is to God, not man. For the moth will eat them up like a garment and the worm will eat them like wool, but my righteousness will be forever and my salvation to all generations. This is God's plan of righteousness, not yours.

You trust in his plan, not yours. Because of God's righteousness, Israel's ultimate salvation was assured in the midst of the very real trials of the Babylonian exile and the resulting doubts about whether the Lord had abandoned them because of their sins, God's people could be encouraged by the confident hope that God's promises would not fail.

People come and go, empires rise and fall, even the earth and the heavens themselves will one day wear out like a garment, disappearing like the smoke that rises from a smoldering fire, but because the Lord is righteous, he must and will fulfill everything that he has promised, including the deliverance and restoration of his people.

That's God's promise. He is the righteous one. He is the one who's going to come and rescue his people. It's about God's righteousness. Our righteousness is not what causes God to love us. His righteousness is what makes that happen, right?

God's righteousness is a gift to the guilty, not a reward for us who are supposedly good. This firm promise of God provides the basis for their secure hope in the midst of life's trials and difficulties, that God will save and deliver his people in the end.

This is why in 1 Thessalonians, which Pastor Chris got right earlier, Paul describes this piece of armor more fully as the hope of salvation. Now, I'm not gonna ask you now, but in the next slide, I'm gonna ask you, what is the hope of salvation, right?

The Christian's helmet is his or her sure hope of salvation, the hope of salvation. Well, what is the hope of salvation? Give me an answer. This isn't a rhetorical question. Who wants to raise their hand, shout out?

Somebody, anybody. What is, huh? Going to heaven, okay, that would be part of it, yeah.

Okay.

So we're called to put on what? The helmet of salvation. You put on a nice floppy sun hat, right? You think that's gonna help you if somebody's shooting at you? You think that's gonna help you if somebody's coming at you with a bat?

How well will that hat protect your head? It might protect you from the sun. Is it gonna protect you from somebody who's trying to rob you or beat you?

No.

You need that kind of hat, right? You need the helmet. You need something firm, something that's not going to move, something that's impenetrable, something that's actually gonna protect your head, not leave it exposed like the sun hat.

Real hope is a settled conviction, a confident expectation about where one will spend eternity. Like Tom just said, knowing that you're going to heaven. It's knowing it, being confident that your final destination is in the presence of the Lord.

Biblical hope is sufficiently sure that you can give a reason for it. 1 Peter 3 .15, always be prepared to give a reason for what? The hope you have. What's the hope that you have? That Jesus died on the cross for my sins, that I'm made right with God because of him.

Yet many people can't give a good reason for their vague feeling that they are going to heaven. Hope is not wishful thinking. Mm, I really hope I'm gonna get there. If you really hope you're gonna get there and you're not sure, let me make a suggestion to you.

You're trusting in yourself because you don't know if you're good enough. Here's what you need to know, you're not. Here's what you need to know, he is. Stop trusting in you and start trusting in him.

Eternal life is the free gift of God. Salvation is a shield for your head so that you recognize and remember, God is, this is God's righteousness, this is God's plan. He's the one who's gonna rescue me.

John says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. So many people today of various Christian traditions tell you, you can't be sure.

You can't know if you're elect. You can't know for sure you're going to heaven. And all that tells me is somehow, some way, they think it depends on us, on humanity. The moment you start thinking it depends on humanity, you're on shaky ground.

Show me one person aside from Jesus that was perfect. What's the requirement to heaven? Perfect righteousness. If you're not perfect yourself, you have no hope. I can tell you now, if you're hoping in yourself, you're doomed to fail, you're not going to get in.

But if you're hoping in the one who did it for you, ah, that's where the power comes from. We must access the storehouse within the human mind in order to bring about biblical change in people's lives.

According to God's word, the mind is not only the battlefield, but also the spoils for the war of enemy. That's where he's going to try to get you. What was the promise in Genesis 3 .15? I'm going to send one who's going to crush the head of the serpent.

The head in turn wants to crush the head of God's people. He wants to distort their mind, get them to think something different. And like we were talking about before, when you read the scriptures and you believe what they say, you're thinking God's thoughts after him.

Now God's thoughts are perfect, no? When you think God's thoughts after him, you're thinking perfectly, you're thinking biblically, you're thinking godly, those are good thoughts. The Bible depicts Satan as the father of lies, John 8 .44, who completely envelops the minds of those who are alienated from God.

So those people who don't know God, their minds are fodder for the enemy, a field for him to sow seeds in. People like who don't know what a woman is, who don't know when life begins, who thinks that men can be women and women can be men, all that kind of stuff, those are all lies from the enemy.

You cannot do those things. Life begins at conception. Marriage is between a husband and a wife. It's only two genders, male and female. And seeks to change the minds of those who walk with God, us, those things, like Pastor Chris says every week, the world is trying to catechize you.

And understand this, the way you live your life is a commercial for your worldview. How you comport yourself as a Christian is a commercial to the people around you, telling them what you actually believe.

So when you compromise, they say, ah, yeah, I see. But if you compromise, recognize it and apologize for it. Say, you know what, what I said to you was wrong, I apologize. Let them know that there's forgiveness in Christ Jesus.

This is why Paul holds the life that grasps the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God, one transformed by the renewing of your mind, right? You know this verse. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

When we read God's word, we meditate on it, we study it, we memorize it, we hide God's word in our heart that we might not sin against him. That transforms how you think on a daily basis. That's why it's imperative that you be in the word of God every day.

If you can't be in the word of God every day, get an app on your phone and do the app memorization of the verse, memorize it, pick a verse, memorize it, have it drilled into your head, do it, memorize one verse a week.

You'll be astonished at how that changes the way you think. Second Corinthians, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete.

So when you memorize God's word, when you read God's word and study it, you use that to destroy arguments. Where are arguments found? Are arguments found in the library? Are they found in the grocery store?

Are they found in the movie theater? Where are arguments found? People's minds, ideas and arguments exist in people's minds.

Why?

Because they've been lied to by the enemy. Our minds have been filtered and changed by the word of God so that when somebody tells me, oh, a man could be a woman, I say, no, here's why. God said, this is what it is.

We counter their arguments with the word of God. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. What's our ultimate foundation? Where do we start? The foundation of God's word.

God's word is truth. Whatever they tell you that's contrary to God's word.

Is a lie.

They're believing the deception that the enemy has planted in their minds. We combat that with the word of God. All right, so exposing lies and teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

That's one of the tasks of an elder. So this morning, I wanna teach you sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it. Here's how the enemy uses lies and systems to get into your mind. You guys all heard of the Council of Trent?

The Council of Trent was an anti-Reformation response. In other words, after the Reformation came and people started entrusting in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation and moving away from the errors of the Roman Catholic Church, they didn't wanna split the church.

They wanted to correct the errors. Well, some people stuck their heels in the ground and didn't wanna move. So the Protestants, they protested the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome's response was the Council of Trent.

And here's what they say in Council Nine. If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared or disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.

The word anathema means eternally cursed. So if you believe, if you trust in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, you're not trusting in anything that you do, Rome pronounces you anathema. Canon 12, if anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence, which is another word for faith, confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema, eternally cursed.

So the two things that the Bible teaches, they reject, and they say that we're accursed, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, right? We are justified by placing our faith and trust in Jesus as a free gift, not something that we earn.

I used the illustration yesterday, I was talking to somebody. If I came to your house and I was counseling you and I took something out of my bag and I gave it to you and you unwrapped it and it was like a gold Rolex watch, you're like, wow, Anthony, that's really nice.

And in the awkward, because that's a really expensive gift, right? In the awkwardness of the moment, you stick your hand in your pocket and say, here, take this, you got like 20 or $30. How would you make me feel if I was giving that to you as a gift?

You'd insult me, you'd insult me. Now, if I took the money, what would the watch no longer be? Wouldn't be a gift, be a great deal on a Rolex, but it wouldn't be a gift. A gift is given freely, it's received freely.

The moment you have to give something for it, you negate the fact that it's a gift. Eternal life is a gift. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith.

Apart from the works of the law.

So the works of the law include the 10 commandments. You are not justified by that. Now, when God comes in and changes your heart and writes his law on your heart, on your new heart, of course, you're gonna follow those things, but that's the fruit of salvation, not the root of it, right?

Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. This is even before the New Testament was written. This is Genesis 15, this is in the Old Testament. The Old Testament saints were saved by faith, why?

Once you place your faith in the Savior, he gives you his perfect righteousness. That's what Abraham received. That's what, in the book of Romans, right after this, that's what David received. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.

All right, so what I wanna do is, Shane, if you could pull up this video. Just a couple of days ago, the Pope was in Singapore and what he did, he gave a talk. Okay, so the Pope is in Singapore and he has a panel of people of various different faiths.

And I want you to listen to what the Pope tells to the people of various different faiths what to do. All right, notice the title, Together for Unity. Together for Unity, that's ballpark. Go ahead, Shane.

In unity.

Because every religion is a way to arrive at God. Sort of a comparison, an example would be they're sort of like different languages in order to arrive at God. But God is God for all. And if God is God for all, then we're all sons and daughters of God.

But my God is more important than your God. Is that true? There's only one God and each of us is a language, so to speak, in order to arrive at God.

Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian.

There are different paths.

Understood?

In order to have inter-religious dialogue among young people, it takes courage.

Does it take courage to tell anyone, someone else, that Jesus is the only way to salvation, or does it take courage to tell you any way leads to God? All pathways lead to God. A pernicious error. This is why you need to wear the helmet of salvation, to start to stop yourself from flowing in that, well, God must love all people.

All people are children of God.

No.

John tells us, to those who receive him, he gave the right to become children of God. We do not all start off as God's children. Ephesians chapter two says we were objects of wrath. God's wrath doesn't abide on his children.

You have to put on the helmet to stop yourself from absorbing these things because this can tend to work on your emotions. How can I believe that my Muslim neighbor, who's really a sincerely good guy and a good neighbor, how can he be cast into hell?

Because he doesn't have a savior. He rejects the savior. There was Muslims, there were Sikhs, there were Hindus there. They all heard that their pathway is the path to God. Yes, John?

Yes, both of them.

Yeah, so, exactly. Good point. And this is one of the things I meant to say. So all paths lead to God, except the Protestants whose faith and trust is in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. We're separated from them.

They have the truth. Then, this is called inclusivism, where all religions at some point get to God. So what I like to tell them is, listen, if you're gonna persist in believing that all roads lead to God, this is what I'm gonna tell you.

I agree with them. I say all roads do lead to God as judge. Only one leads to them as his child, and that's through Jesus Christ, right? All roads lead to God. You will all stand before God to be judged, but he does not judge his children.

They've been judged in Jesus Christ already. That's why the message of salvation is so important. That's why we need to put on the helmet of salvation and be able to convey the gospel to the people who believe these lies, who the largest supposed Christian denomination in all the world is telling them all roads lead to heaven.

This is a pernicious era. Now, before you get so angry at the Roman Catholic Church, have mercy on the people who believe the lie, right? We are on a rescue mission. You do need courage to share the gospel, but share it boldly.

Share it confidently, because he is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one gets to the father but through him. So you're standing. You have the gospel of readiness, the shoes of the gospel of peace.

Stand on your firm foundation and share the gospel. This is how we bring God's kingdom to earth, okay? Let's continue. Confident assurance. Genesis 3, one through seven, describes the far-reaching and devastating blow to the human mind that would affect every human being who lived thereafter.

Without question, Satan waged war against God and the human race in this monumental passage, where the battlefield turns out to be Eve's mind. In the end, Eve exchanged the truth of God for the lie of Satan, and the human mind has never been the same since.

So when Adam taught Eve, okay, don't eat of the fruit of that tree, Satan comes to her, starts talking to her. Did God really say, are you really gonna die? So what does Eve do? Let me test this. Let me step off what God says.

Let me stand on what the enemy says. She didn't know he's the enemy. Let me stand on what this angel says. Let me see how it works out. Disaster. Plunges, and Adam's standing right there, allows it to happen.

This plunges the whole human race into sin. So our minds, because of Adam's sin, our minds are stained, polluted by sinfulness. So we're all born into this world, not as children of God, but as enemies of God, and we need to be reconciled to him.

That's the blow that Satan hit to the human race. So, has God said? That's the question that the enemy asks, and this is what you need to know. This is what he said, and I call these the nevers of scripture, and it was in a message by Steve Lawson.

Listen to this. If you're a child of God, John 3, 16, you'll never perish. If you drank of the waters that he gives you, you will never thirst. If your trust is in Jesus, you'll never be judged. You'll never hunger.

Jesus says, if you trust in me, you'll never be cast out. John 6, 39, you'll never be lost. John 8, 51 and 52, you'll never see death. He talks to Martha in John 10, 28. You'll never perish. If you're part of the resurrection, you'll never perish.

He says, do you believe this? That's my question to you.

Do you believe that?

John 11, 26, you're never gonna die. You're never going to walk in darkness. You're never going to be orphaned. You're never going to be left alone and not protected. That's what the whole book of Ephesians is about.

And you're never going to be unguarded. In Jesus's high priestly prayer, he prays that he would protect all his people. Do you believe that? Or do you believe what all the other religions tell you? If you're in Christ, all of those things, all of those nevers apply to you.

That's why we can have confidence. John 10, 27 to 30, my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. So if you're a believer, it's because you're hearing the voice of God. It's resonating with your spirit.

And you know, you know that this is true. I give them eternal life and they will what? Never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.

I and the father are one. Now it's amazing how many people read this and say, well, you can't be snatched out, but you can walk out. Is that what that's teaching? Okay, my father is greater than all, but you can walk out.

That makes you greater than the father. Just saying. This is not teaching that you can lose your salvation. This is teaching you that you are secure.

In the hand of God.

If you're not secure in the hand of God, where are you secure? Your own effort?

Your own performance?

God forbid. John 10, 24. So the Jews gathered around him and said, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you're the Christ, tell us plainly. Now this verse comes right before this one. Jesus answered them.

I told you and you don't believe. It's as simple as that. I told you I'm the Christ. You don't believe it. Jesus' sheep hear his voice. The works that I do in my father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you're not among my sheep.

His sheep, the people who are not a sheep don't hear his voice. The people who are his sheep hear his voice. My sheep hear my voice. When someone's listening to what Romanists call the vicar of Christ on earth in the office of the Pope, they're believing what the Pope says.

They're not believing what Christ says. You have to go back to the words of God. You have to read what Jesus says about himself. You have to read what the word of God says about salvation and you trust in what God says, not what any man says.

Put it this way. Don't trust what I say. Just go to the word of God and trust that. I'm a human being. I could be wrong, but God can't. That's our foundation. That's why there is nothing arrogant about saying that we know for sure we're going to heaven.

Indeed, we would be incredibly prideful to rest our hope in heaven on our own goodness. But if our salvation is a free gift that comes to us by simple faith in Christ and his work on our behalf, then there is nothing arrogant in claiming such knowledge.

We're simply taking God at his word. We're simply saying, Lord, you said it. I believe it. I trust in you. Not any man, not any system, not any organized religion or church. I trust in you. We can even go further.

We're able to wear the armor of God with confidence because Jesus wore it first for us. He was forever faithful to God the Father. In Isaiah 59, 17, it was the Lord himself who donned righteousness as his breastplate and put the helmet of salvation on his head.

He earned it for us. This means that Jesus not only lived a spotless life, perfect righteousness in our place, he also hoped perfectly in our place. In other words, he had confident expectation. Jesus knows what it is to endure trials and suffering while keeping his hope in the Father's care.

The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising its shame. Why was Jesus confident? Because he was perfectly faithful.

He knows that his sheep will hear his voice and all that the Father gives him will come to him. And whoever comes to him, he will never cast out but raise them up on the last day. For his will is to do his Father's will.

He's perfectly confident that all his sheep will be saved. Not one of them is gonna be lost. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. And my question to you is, does he succeed in that mission or fail? I tried really hard, but I failed.

No, Jesus is not a salesman, he's a savior. He's not bidding you to buy into his plan. Please pick me, I'm the only way you can get to heaven. Jesus says, I'm the only way to get to heaven. You wanna follow me?

Great, you don't?

Okay, go ahead.

Because he's confident that his perfect work is gonna accomplish exactly what God the Father intended it. Jesus' hope has already been vindicated.

Why?

He's now seated at the right hand of the Father and has become the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him. The head that once was crowned with thorns is now wreathed in eternal glory. He's seated at the Father, ruling and reigning until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.

Because Jesus has won the armor of God first, accomplishing perfect righteousness through his spotless life and winning our salvation through his atoning death, we are now able confidently to wear the helmet of the hope of salvation, the confident expectation of salvation because God promised it and we can trust his promises.

Our salvation has already been accomplished for us by Christ all that waits is the future harvest of that salvation. Okay, remember, what is Jesus' active obedience accomplish? Anybody know? His active obedience, what does that garner for us?

What do I mean by active obedience? His life, right? The way he lived his life, he was perfectly obedient. So he earned the righteousness we need through perfect obedience to God the Father. He lived the life that we needed to live but didn't.

Now, what's Jesus' passive obedience? Anybody want to venture a guess?

Okay.

He paid our debt through the substitutionary death.

On the cross.