Embark on a journey through Ephesians 6, focusing on the Armor of God. Gain profound insights into how each piece of this spiritual armor protects and empowers you against deception. Prepare for our Madison Multiply series on discipleship with a deep dive into the essential role of truth in spiritual warfare.
Drawing lessons from John 8, we reveal how the devil's primary weapon is lies, not temptation, and how the belt of truth is our best defense. We'll challenge the misconception that spiritual battles are a choice between good and fun, using a fun parallel to "The Emperor's New Groove." Understand how lies distort our reality and the importance of grounding ourselves in truth to navigate life's challenges.
We'll also discuss the transformative power of internalizing truth, likening it to a soldier girding their loins for battle. Personal reflections on counseling highlight the significance of self-awareness and honesty. The armor of God is a divine gift to help us live authentically and resist deception.
By the end of this exploration, you'll appreciate the critical role of truth in spiritual warfare and be encouraged to seek God's help in your journey towards wisdom and authenticity. Join us for this meaningful exploration!
Embark on a journey through Ephesians 6, focusing on the Armor of God. Gain profound insights into how each piece of this spiritual armor protects and empowers you against deception. Prepare for our Madison Multiply series on discipleship with a deep dive into the essential role of truth in spiritual warfare.
Drawing lessons from John 8, we reveal how the devil's primary weapon is lies, not temptation, and how the belt of truth is our best defense. We'll challenge the misconception that spiritual battles are a choice between good and fun, using a fun parallel to "The Emperor's New Groove." Understand how lies distort our reality and the importance of grounding ourselves in truth to navigate life's challenges.
We'll also discuss the transformative power of internalizing truth, likening it to a soldier girding their loins for battle. Personal reflections on counseling highlight the significance of self-awareness and honesty. The armor of God is a divine gift to help us live authentically and resist deception.
By the end of this exploration, you'll appreciate the critical role of truth in spiritual warfare and be encouraged to seek God's help in your journey towards wisdom and authenticity. Join us for this meaningful exploration!
Good morning everyone. How are you doing today? Hot, right, holy smokes. It's summer, it's definitely summer and this isn't even the hottest day, but my name is Houston I'm one of the pastors here Really glad to be with you guys this morning.
Speaker 1:As you heard from the reading, we're in Ephesians today and we're continuing in this series in Ephesians. We've been in this series for 12 weeks now. Maybe that feels like a long time. Some of you who have been here maybe it feels like we've been in Ephesians for 24 weeks, 52 weeks but 12 weeks we spent in Ephesians and what we've been doing is we've been answering this question who are Jesus' followers and what do they do? And so we've looked at this book, ephesians, because it is a letter written to answer those questions. It was written to go around from church to church in the first century to tell Christians okay, who are you, what do you do? And if you have your Bibles open, we're in Ephesians, chapter 6, and what you'll see, what you'll notice, is that we are in the very last chapter of the book and we're actually in the second to last section of the book. But maybe don't get your hopes up, because we're not finishing soon, or maybe you're excited by that. Who knows, who knows where we're at this morning? Or maybe you're excited by that who knows, who knows where we're at this morning. What we're doing is we're going to slow down and we're going to go through this section that we're in that talks about the armor of God, and we're going to go for six weeks and we're going to talk about each piece of armor that Paul lists and we're going to break it down. We're going to see what the piece of armor is for, what it does, all that kind of stuff, and we're going to break it down. We're going to see what the piece of armor is for, what it does, all that kind of stuff. And so this section again, we're going to slow down as we reach the end and really take our time here and chew on this and then just to kind of cast some vision for where we're going. After this, after we finish this mini-series on the armor of God inside the larger series of Ephesians, this kind of inception thing, series within a series. It's very cool.
Speaker 1:After we do this, we're going to go into the Madison Multiply series. So, if you don't know, madison Multiply is this church network that we're a part of and what we do every year is all of us preachers we prepare a sermon and we go around to the three different Madison Multiply churches and we preach our sermons. And it's really neat. We get to hear each other, we get to visit each other's churches, we get to hear from other pastors. This year, we're talking about discipleship. As we got together, as we talked from Madison Multiplies, we talked to all our leaders. What we felt was that we needed to talk about what it means to follow Jesus in discipleship and what that means. And what we're going to do in this series is we're going to talk about essentially five things that discipleship is and five things that discipleship isn't. I think it's going to be a really sweet series. It's really come out of our heart together. I think it's going to be. Yeah, I think it's going to be really sweet. I think it's going to be good. I always enjoy. I think I say this every year. We'll get to hear some of these other guys James Davenport at Divine, one of my all-time favorite preachers. So buckle up, it's going to be great. I think so.
Speaker 1:So for the next six weeks, we're here. We're in this passage in Ephesians. We're talking about the armor of God, and here's what I want to do right now. I want to name something.
Speaker 1:This is a difficult section for some of us. This is complicated, this passage and what I mean by that is not just that the ideas are complicated which they are but the feelings around this passage can be complicated For some of us. We grew up in church contexts where we talked about the armor of God and you can still see the green felt board with the pieces of armor up there, or some of you still have the clip art picture of the Roman centurion etched into your memory, right A lot of nods, and for some of you, that elicits very warm feelings. This is good stuff. You're excited to talk about the armor of God, and that's great. I'm very glad.
Speaker 1:For some of us, this does not elicit good memories or good feelings, because for some of us, we learn this armor of God passage in, let's say, a fundamentalist context, and when we got the armor of God, we also got a lot of other things along with it that were hard, and maybe things that we don't feel are true and good anymore, and so what I just want to do is I just want to name some of us are very comfortable and excited with this idea, with this passage, and some of us are not. Some of us are very uncomfortable and hesitant, to say the least, and before anything, I just want to say that's normal, that's okay. I find myself in that second section. Some of these subjects, they come along with some baggage for me and my story in the church, and so, if that's where you're at, man, I just want to encourage you. Let's come at this open-minded as much as we can, and see what the word says, see what Jesus is saying to us, because I think there's a reason that it was preserved in scripture for us, because it's important, because it's a reality that we are facing. It's something that we deal with every day in our lives, whether we really know it or not. And what I want to do before we start, before we do anything else, is I want us to consider some things, help us get in the mindset of reading this passage with an open mind, and the first thing that I think we all need to do is to consider and be aware of our modernist bias.
Speaker 1:Here's what I mean by that. We live in a culture that tells us, whether we recognize it or not. Our culture tells us that new is good, old is bad. And if you need any proof for this, I'm going to give you two words. It's the phrase. Okay, boomer, you know this phrase, right? I'm not saying I believe it, but this phrase has come to mean that anyone who is old, is outdated, is out of touch with reality, doesn't know how the world works. And again, if that's you, I'm not talking to you today. I'm not going to look at anybody or make any eye contact, no, but what we have to recognize is our culture says our culture is telling us old is bad, ancient is an insult, right, this thing is ancient. It means this thing might be untrustworthy, this thing might be wrong. So we have to be aware of that. Our culture is telling us that only new is good and old is bad. And, in particular, in this passage, our culture is telling us that ideas about spiritual evil are ancient Ancient as in bad. And that's the second thing that we need to consider. We need to consider that the Bible tells us of the reality of spiritual evil and we need to consider what the Bible tells us of spiritual evil. Here's what I mean.
Speaker 1:For a lot of people, let's say you don't come with this modernist bias and, let's say, you're open to the idea of spiritual evil, a lot of people are they going to go in a direction where it's okay, I'll accept everything, and then, when we accept spiritual evil, we also accept all kinds of other supernatural ideas and things. And what we find, I think, is that people who tend to be okay with this concept of spiritual evil and spiritual warfare can tend to be okay with a lot of things that the Bible is not, and it's this kind of pitfall on either side. We can come with this bias that says all of this stuff is nonsense, none of it matters, and we disregard it all, and that's dangerous. And we can also come with this bias where we say, okay, yes, this and everything else is true and real, and that's also dangerous. You see, both sides are pitfalls that we can fall into and both sides lead us to dangerous places, and what we're going to unpack today a little more is that. I think that's intentional. I think if we're talking about spiritual evil, if we're talking about this idea that we have an enemy, it makes a lot of sense that he would want either everyone to believe in everything and not know what's up and down and left and right, or he would want people to believe in nothing and not be aware of these attacks that are coming. So that's where I think we find ourselves. Right here, madison, wisconsin, 2024, dead of summer. That's where we find ourselves.
Speaker 1:These are the things that we're bringing into this, and this is a lot of baggage. This is hard. We're going to spend six weeks in this and I think each week we're going to unpack a little more baggage, we're going to process a little more of what's going on. My hope is that as we unpack each piece of the armor, that we're going to see a new thing that God wants us to internalize, a new piece of armor that God wants us to apprehend for ourselves. My hope is it'll be beneficial and encouraging to us, and so we're going to jump in today and we're going to look at the very first piece of armor listed in verse 14, the belt of truth. We're going to unpack this passage and what we're going to find is that the belt of truth is the foundation of our defense in spiritual warfare. It's the foundation, and we're going to see this in three parts today. We're going to look at it in three parts. We're going to first say what is the threat that we're up against. Then we're going to see what the belt does and then, finally, we're going to ask how can we use it. So what's the threat, what does the belt do and how can we use it? But first let's pray.
Speaker 1:God, I just thank you for this day. I thank you for this group who's here today. I thank you for your word, this chance that we have to sit underneath it. God, I just pray that as we unpack your word today, that you would open our eyes and ears and hearts to receive what you have for us. God, we just again we name that a lot of us carry a lot of baggage into this concept the concept of the armor of God, the concept of spiritual evil, spiritual warfare. This is complicated, like I said, not just in that the ideas are complicated, but our experience with these ideas are complicated and I just pray, god, that you would speak through that noise. I pray that you speak through any noise today, physically, emotionally, and I pray that you would speak to each of our hearts. Help us to internalize these things that you have for us. I pray that we'd speak to each of our hearts. Help us to internalize these things that you have for us. I pray that we'd walk out of here strengthened, and I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts would be glorifying to you, lord, our God and our Redeemer, and I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:Okay, first let's look at what we're up against. What is the threat? We're going to look at the first three verses of our passage, 10 through 13. Let's read it with me. Oh, it's the three verses in your bulletin. It says, 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 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 in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. There's a lot here, and each week we're going to reread this section and we're going to pull out something different, and we're going to process this over time, but today I want you to focus on verse 11. It says put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. And already some of us are struggling Because this passage assumes something that Western culture, for hundreds of years, has been trying to discard, and that is the idea that there is real personal, spiritual evil, in this case the devil, and that he is an evil being who has a specific and malicious intent.
Speaker 1:In other words, we have a hard time with the idea that the devil exists and that he is on a war path against God and, consequently, god's people. And really one thing is clear from this passage we are at war. War path is very apt for this. See, this is not just a personal conflict between us and Satan. This is not just a feud that we have. We're in the middle of a war. How do we know that? Because Paul tells us to put on the armor. You don't put on your whole battle armor if you're just going out to talk to a neighbor, right? Armor is how we prepare for war and specifically armor counteracts the weapons and attacks of the enemy, and so each of these pieces of armor that we're going to unpack each week, each of these, is meant to defend us against a specific thing that the enemy has got going on, a specific thing that he is doing, and today we're focusing on the belt, and the belt of truth. What does this defend us against? It defends us against the devil's maybe greatest tool, and that's lies.
Speaker 1:In John 8, jesus is talking to a group of Jewish leaders and he goes on about the devil and he talks about what he's like and he says this Jesus says the devil was a murderer from the beginning. He does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he's a liar and he is the father of lies. You catch that he's a liar, the devil is a liar, and Jesus makes it sound like the devil can't help but to lie. It's the only thing inside of him, and so it's the only thing that comes out is lies. And this sounds like that kind of big exaggerative language that some of us are familiar in church context. I remember growing up you go to these little country churches and I feel like I just vividly picture the scene of some guy standing behind the pulpit, just pounding the pulpit, saying the devil is a liar, and you know, all the people in the audience just very solemnly, amen, amen. And I think what happened for me is like the drama of that has led me to downplay that reality. Here's what I mean In our culture, when we think about the devil tempting us or lying to us, I think we get like a really specific image come to mind, and I think we see it best in the movie the Emperor's New Groove. Okay, so you know this movie.
Speaker 1:So the plot of this movie Emperor Kuzco. He's supposed to be poisoned and killed by his advisor, but instead he's turned into a llama Spoiler alert, I guess, if you haven't seen the movie. And so there's a scene where Kronk, the best character in the movie, is supposed to take Emperor Kuzco and get rid of him, supposed to kill him. And Kronk is taking him out of town, but he's having a hard time with the idea of killing him and so he's going to just send him out to pasture and hope he never comes back. But then there's the scene where Kronk looks away and Emperor Kuzco is in a bag floating down the river. And then, lo and behold, this river goes off the edge of a cliff. And so Kronk has this moment where he says, where he's torn because he doesn't know what to do. I mean, really, he's supposed to kill Emperor Cusco, and so letting him just go off the river, off the cliff, this works right, but at the same time he doesn't really want to kill anybody.
Speaker 1:And then do you remember what happens? He has this little devil of himself and this little angel of himself pop up on his shoulders and they tell him, they argue about what he should do. And the angel, you know, tells Kronk, you should pick the path of righteousness. And he's got this little lyre or harp or whatever. And the devil he's like don't listen to this guy, he's a nerd, he's got this dumb string thing. He said I'm cool, I want you to pick the path. That rocks and I can do this. And he does a handstand. And the whole point is like hey, this angel guy, lame, boring, stuffy. I'm the cool one, I'll tell you how to live the life. That is fun and awesome and rad and awesome and rad.
Speaker 1:And I think this is the picture that we get of the battle, of the temptations that the devil brings. We think, inevitably that it's like this tension between am I going to do the good and right thing or am I going to do the fun thing? Am I going to do the fun thing, I can do the awesome thing, but that's not the tension, that's not the battle. In fact, my guess is that's intentional, that's part of his strategy. He wants us to think that we're fighting on an axis that we're not. He wants us to think that the tension is between what is good and what is fun, when really what the Bible says is the battle. The conflict is between what is true and what is a lie. And see, the picture is not that the devil is some chill dude standing on your shoulder telling you you can party if you want to.
Speaker 1:The picture is he's feeding us lies, because what he wants is he. He wants these lies to go deep down inside of our hearts and he wants the lies to take hold inside of us too. And the goal is that these lies would go into, let's say, structural places in our lives, in our hearts, and that they would be so deep down that it would warp our view of reality. It would warp the world around us. In other words, he wants us to believe things that are untrue, so that we don't know how to navigate this world that we're in. And this might feel dramatic to say, okay, but consider this. Anyone have a construction background here. Yeah, okay, a few guys have a construction background.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you what happens if the people who built this building all had tape measures that were inaccurate? What if every single one of them had a tape measure that was off by a tenth of an inch? We're in trouble, right. This building's going to come down on us any minute. It's a wonder that this ancient building has not collapsed. Trouble, right. This building's gonna come down on us any minute. It's a wonder that this ancient building has not collapsed already, right, because what happens when you build a building with inaccurate measurements? It's disastrous. It's the same thing.
Speaker 1:That's what the devil wants for us is. He wants us to build our lives on inaccurate measurements. He wants us to internalize lies so that the structure of our hearts and our souls is all off base and makes us fragile. We see this play out in relationships all the time. Man, isn't this the problem that we have interacting with each other.
Speaker 1:You know, I have a family member who can be really difficult to spend time with time with, and what I experience with them is that they want to manage the people around them and manage their experience. And I don't know exactly what this comes out of, but, man, I know in my life it has come from believing lies very deep down. Lies like I'm only okay if everyone around me is okay, or lies like I am only valuable to the extent that I can help the people around me. I'm only valuable to the extent that I'm useful. And what happens is that these lies get burrowed down deep inside of us and again it warps our reality. It makes it hard to see ourselves and see other people, and then we carry this into our interactions. And people who are like this are very difficult to be around, right, because everything is a big deal, because they're not okay unless you're okay, and it means you can't be okay and it's so hard. Right, and all of it comes out of these lies that have burrowed down deep and they are load-bearing. They're distorting everything. Load-bearing, they're distorting everything. Do you understand? This isn't the battle of trying not to do the fun thing and trying to do the right thing. This is a battle of life and death, because these lies are killing us, they are destroying us. So that's a threat.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the belt. What do we do? Well, paul says put on the armor of God, and the first thing he talks about is this belt of truth. So let's talk about what does the belt do? It's not in your bulletin, but if you have your Bibles, look at verse 14 with me. It says stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth.
Speaker 1:Now, here's the very first thing we need to know. Is that literally, in the Greek, it says something different. It says literally Gird your loins in truth. But we don't say that. That's a weird thing. If Jacob and I are talking and we're hanging out, I'm like, hey man, how's it going? I'm not even going to say it, I don't even like where this conversation is going, right? We don't say this. It's weird. Gird your loins is specifically what it says Gird your loins in truth. We don't say that. And so the translators give us something to help us understand. They say fasten the belt of truth, but gird your loins with truth.
Speaker 1:So let's break this into two sections. First of all, what does it mean to gird your loins and, second of all, what does it mean in truth? So what does it mean to gird your loins? Well, first century, especially in the Middle East, people men especially in the Middle East people men wore big, flowing robes and flowy cloths. Because on days like this, when it is hot, those cloths catch breezes and they make airflow and ventilation and it is very helpful in the heat of summer. But the problem is that it is not good for mobility. But the problem is that it is not good for mobility.
Speaker 1:So any time that you are going to go do something physical, you have to gird your loins and what you do is you have all this cloth here, like your robe, and you're going to hike it up and you pull it and you feed it through the back of your legs and tie it around like a belt, and so you've gone from robe to battle underwear I guess is the best way to say it. And anything that you're going to do, anything physical that you're going to do, the first step is to gird your loins, because otherwise you can't. So if you're going to the farm, you're going to work the pasture, work the field, first thing is you gird your loins. Or if you're going to take a difficult mountain trail or navigate a pass, gird your loins. Or, as is the case in our passage, if you are a soldier preparing for war, the very first thing you do is you gird your loins. And so, consequently, this phrase, which refers to a specific action, come to mean prepare yourself, get ready, get yourself ready, and soldiers in particular, when they gird their loins, they take a belt and they fasten it tight so that everything stays in place and nothing falls and trips you up during the battle.
Speaker 1:And so this step girding your loins is the first step to putting on the armor of God. It's the foundation of any soldier's armor. In fact, a lot of commentators will tell you that this is such a foundational thing that you really would compare it more to underwear than to armor. And if Paul was writing in 2024 to us, I think he would probably say something like put on the underwear of truth. But that doesn't sound metal at all. Right, that sounds super lame, but still, paul is explaining. This armor that we put on piece by piece starts here with girding your loins, and that's key. Keep this in your minds as we go throughout this series. Paul is describing this armor in the order that a soldier would put it on and consequently, he's telling us about the armor in the order that we should put it on.
Speaker 1:So, again, the first thing we have to do as a Christian, preparing for war, is to gird our loins in truth. So let's talk about what that means. What does the truth piece mean? Because that's really key here, isn't it? What does Paul mean by truth? That's tough to say. It's tough because it's ambiguous. Tough to say. It's tough because it's ambiguous, and I think that's intentional. I think Paul and the Holy Spirit left it intentionally ambiguous Because what they want us to see is that preparing ourselves with truth is not about internalizing any one true thing, but internalizing truth.
Speaker 1:Here's what I mean by that. Do you remember what I said earlier about how the devil uses lies to undermine us? So your enemy wants to feed us lies and he wants us to internalize lies in such a way that they warp our realities and they cause us harm, so that it'll warp our perception, so that we'll make bad decisions, so that we'll sin, so that we'll destroy ourselves right. And so the defense against that is to put truth internalized in those same places. As a defense against these lies. We need to internalize truth in our minds, in our hearts, in our souls. We need to have truth working as the foundation of our lives so that when we come to a difficult situation, when we come to a difficult interaction, when we come to a difficult interaction, the thing informing our decisions, the things informing what we're seeing, is truth and not lies. That's great. What does that mean?
Speaker 1:Well, let's think about this family member I was talking about earlier. If this family member has truth deep down inside of their heart instead of lies, well, what looks different? Well, what if, instead of the lie that they are only okay if other people are okay, they had the truth that their value is not tied to other people's emotions, that their value is not tied to other people's emotions? It would make interactions much more pleasant, wouldn't it? Every little feeling would not be load-bearing, every little interaction would not be destructive. They wouldn't need to manage all the time and, instead of needing to manage, maybe they can just serve and give of themselves, because they no longer need us to be okay. Instead, they just can serve because they're okay. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:It's like, in these scenarios, what we need to do to gird our loins in truth is to take truth and work it down deep in our hearts and hold on to it. At this point you say, okay, that's great Houston, hold on to truth, internalize it. I think I read that on a Christmas card last year. Sure, but what does this really mean? Because this sounds a lot like just nice words. Right, this sounds like one of those things that you, like I said, read on a Christmas card, read on a greeting card, and my fear is that we're going to just take these as nice words and we're not going to apprehend that this is a life changing thing, that to internalize truth will affect everything in your life, everything in your life.
Speaker 1:And what I hope is that we will take seriously what Paul says about this battle that we're in, this war that we're in and man. I don't mean a war like for the culture, war like we're not warring for the soul of our nation and man. This war is not a battle between us and like non-Christians. No, it's exactly what Paul says this war is a battle with spiritual evil. He says it's a battle not against flesh and blood, but against rulers and authorities, against the cosmic power over spiritual evil and what the people in this room, myself included, need to believe is that this war is happening here in Madison, wisconsin, in 2024. This is the reality that we're up against, and so the thing to do is to take up the armor, because the attacks are coming. They've already come. We need to take up the armor. But how in the world do we do that? How do we, paul, take up the armor of God and gird our loins in truth? Well, I think the very first step, unsurprisingly, is that we need to understand and internalize the gospel. It's the only way. It's the only way that we can ever hold on to truth in our lives. Here's what I mean by that.
Speaker 1:Why do you think that all of us internalize the devil's lies so easily? It is because truth is hard and lies feel much easier. And lies feel much easier Because, in the words of Jack Nicholson, we can't handle the truth. Because why has my family member internalized lies that they will be okay if the people around them are okay? It's because it is really hard to face the truth that they are not okay, right, because they don't know the Lord. They're lost, they're hurting, they're in their sin, they're broken, and that is a hard truth to face, isn't it? And they are telling themselves the lie that if they can manage the people around them, that maybe one day they will feel okay. Why? Because that is so much easier than facing the truth of the situation, isn't it? But the truth is that managing people will never fix that problem, right? Anyone here ever tried to manage people around them to feel better? It doesn't work, does it? Why? Because we're trying to change external things to deal with internal realities. It does not work. It will never work.
Speaker 1:And man, let's not pretend like this person has their problems and we're all fine. We're all dealing with different lies of different kinds. We're all dealing with lies about our worth, lies about what makes us okay, lies about who we are. This is the battle that we are in and, man, I just think about some of these lies that we experience. Some of us, some of us believe the lie that we can and must work very hard so that God will accept us. We believe that if we can do enough, that we can be good enough and then God will have to be okay with us, right? Or some of us believe the lie that we are so messed up that there's no point because we're too far gone, we're too lost. Nothing can ever fix this, nothing can ever change it. Man, some of us just believe the lie that we're fine. Some of us just believe the lie that we're okay. But I think the question is, how's that working for you? How are these lies really working in our lives? I'll tell you, for me it's not going great. And I wonder, if you believe these lies and you do, we all do I wonder do you feel tired? Do you feel lonely? Do you feel lonely? Do you feel depressed? Man, do you feel okay? I don't.
Speaker 1:Regardless of where we're at today, what we need, what we desperately need, is to face the truth, and the only way that we can face the truth is if we believe the gospel, because it is only when we believe what the gospel says that each and every one of us is so sinful and broken that we are more messed up than we ever imagined, and that, despite that, 2,000 years ago, god took it upon himself to fix it, and that God himself came to us, became man and he lived a full and perfect life, and that Jesus went to the cross and he died for us. And the gospel says that Jesus took his perfect life and his good relationship with the Father, and he traded us for our messed up lives and broken relationship. And the Bible says now, because of Jesus anyone who is in him is in good standing with the Father that you are okay Because Jesus was in good standing and Jesus is okay. And then we need to face the truth that because of that, we are perfectly acceptable to God Not just acceptable, loved, cherished. The way that I look at my daughter, stella, is how God looks at you now, and that is the truth. So what we need to do is we need to take this truth, starting with the gospel, and work it down deep in the places of our hearts, because when we believe that we were more sinful than we ever imagined and yet more loved than we ever dared hope, that frees us to look at ourselves and the world around us truthfully. It is then that I can look in the mirror and take an honest inventory and say, yes, this is messed up. Yes, this is good. Yes, this could be a lot better.
Speaker 1:I want to end with a couple of tangible things first. We're going to unpack this more as we go, but what I want us all to know today is that this armor is called the armor of God, because this is God's armor. He has made it and he gives it to us. John Stott, this wonderful British pastor, said it this way he said that every Christian needs to know that this armor is forged and furnished by God. What does that mean? It means, friends, this isn't something that you just make yourself and it is not something that you have to go out and find for yourself. This is something that God has made and is eager to give us.
Speaker 1:Psalm 51 says behold, you delight in truth and the inward being and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. To say it another way, god delights that we would internalize truth and he is very happy to help us do it. It's his joy, and that's gonna be the first step for most everyone here. We've gotta ask God. God, help me put on this belt, help me understand truth, help me to see myself, help me to see the things around me truthfully. And there's a lot of ways this can play out Again.
Speaker 1:For every person in this room we have a different story. We have different baggage, different lies that we've internalized. But, man, I'll share something that's been just a game changer for me For the past, like 18 months yeah, 18 months I've been counseling weekly. Just recently changed that, but every session, every session with my counselor, what I experience without fail is an hour of me seeing myself more clearly than I do otherwise. It's an hour of my counselor reflecting back to me Houston, and it turns into an hour of me having to wrestle with truth, wrestle with the things that are true about me and in my story.
Speaker 1:You know, that means, you know, coming to terms with my story and also coming to terms with my feelings, like my emotions. Man, I don't know if you can resonate with this, but for a long time I grew up believing that I had to lie to myself and to everyone else about what I'm feeling and what I'm really experiencing. You know, emotions are unsafe, emotions are bad, so on, and the result is that I had to lie to myself about what was going on, about what's happening in my heart, and the result is that I was a tough person to live with. I'm not anymore, thank God. You can ask Kinsey she did laugh first at that. No, you can ask her. I have historically been a tough person to live with Because my feelings were not okay and so other people's feelings were not okay, and so other people's feelings were not okay, and for like two years of just being honest, of internalizing the truth about what I feel and what I'm experiencing, it's been a game changer for me.
Speaker 1:And so what I just want to encourage you today is like, again, I don't know where you're at right now, I don't know what lies you've internalized, but I know you've internalized lies and I don't know that the solution to that is counseling, like it has been for me.
Speaker 1:Maybe it is, but I know you're in a shadow of a doubt that what we all need is help seeing the truth about ourselves, and maybe that just looks like a loved one or a friend who can tell you truth, maybe it looks like counseling, maybe it looks like I don't know what, but I'm telling you, the first step for all of us in preparing for this war that we're in is to internalize the truth about who we are, what Jesus has done for us and who we can be in him.
Speaker 1:And I actually end with this Jesus said in John chapter 10 that whoever or sorry, in John chapter 8 he said whoever believes Satan's lies is essentially enslaved to sin and lies. He says it is destructive and and that it is not the awesome, rad life that the devil on your shoulder would like you to believe. And then in John, chapter 10, jesus said this the enemy has come only to kill, steal and destroy, but I have come that you might have life, and life to the fullest, and friends. The first step in that life is the truth. Jesus said that truth will set you free. Let me pray.