The Bible teaches that we are in a battle against the powers of this dark world. Our enemy, the devil, wants to steal, kill and destroy you and me so every day we need to put on the full armor of God.
In Ephesians 6, Paul shares with us the armor of God. So far, we have looked at the belt of truth. If we are going to survive the battle of the day, we have to be people who say what we mean and mean what we say. No lies, no gossip, no exaggerating the truth. We need to ask God to set a guard over our mouth so we don’t sin against him. Because when we lie our belt loosens up and our pants fall down and we make a fool of ourselves.
The next piece of armor was the breastplate of righteousness.
That word “righteousness” means that we have been made right with God. How did that happen? We have been made right with God because Jesus took our sin debt that we owed God and paid for our sins on the cross. When we ask Jesus to lead our life, he makes us right with God by washing our sin away.
Next, we have the shoes fitted with the gospel of peace. A Roman Soldier wore sandals that had cleats coming out of the bottom of them. This gave him the ability to be sure footed regardless of the terrain that he found himself on.
One of the things that Satan will try to do is he will try to take the peace of God away from you. Satan will whisper in your ear that,
But again, that just isn’t true. Jesus never told us that he would spare us any pain. In fact, Jesus warned us that in this life we would have trouble. Not we could have trouble or we might have trouble, but we will have trouble but he tells us to take heart because he has overcome the world.
Sometimes God will allow us to go through something that is hard and difficult and you will feel like you are facing an uphill battle. God does that not to hurt us but to develop us into the person that he needs us to be so no matter what comes our way we will stand firm and move forward in faith.
And that brings us to our next piece of the armor of God. It is the shield of faith. It’s our faith in God that makes us strong. It is our faith that protects us and keeps us moving forward. It’s our faith in God that causes us to trust God even when nothing in our life makes any sense. And finally, we have the helmet of salvation. This protects your brain.
It reminds us that if we have asked Jesus to come into our life, we are now children of God. We are loved by God and forgiven by God and his opinion of us is the only opinion that matters.
Last piece of armor and this piece is our only offensive weapon and that piece of armor is the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.
Years ago, our pastor Todd went to Colorado to speak at a student camp. His old friend Randall was the leader of that camp.
Every night at dinner the two of them would sit at this large circular table and students would come and eat with them. Todd thought it might be interesting to find out what they knew about the Bible so he asked them questions about the Bible while they ate. Todd asked them “What are the Ten Commandments?” “Where would a person find the Ten Commandments in the Bible?”
He asked them what the greatest sermon ever preached was in the Bible and where it was in the Bible? They couldn’t answer a single question.
On this particular night Todd asked a group of students what the names of the twelve disciples were. In your head, could you name the twelve disciples?
Well, the kids at Todd’s table got not one answer right. They said, “Paul.” Todd said “no”. They said “Moses”. Todd said “Are you kidding me.”
Todd said listen it is pretty obvious you don’t know what their names but can you find a list of their names in the Bible? They couldn't find it.
As they were looking for the answer one girl began to cry. Randall asked her later “why are you crying?” and this is what she said.
“I have been to church my entire life and I should know these answers and it just bums me out that I can’t find a single thing in this book.” Too many students are heading out into spiritual warfare and they don’t know what the Bible has to say about anything. Their sword is more like a toothpick and I am not afraid of a person who is wielding a toothpick. Hey back off I have a toothpick in my hand and I am not afraid to use it.
A Roman Soldier’s sword was about 2 feet long with a double-edged blade.This sword would cut a person going into their body as well as going out. The sword was the soldier’s only offensive weapon so they trained with their sword day and night. A soldier understood his survival depended on his ability to use his sword better than his opponent.
In the same way we have to be certain that we know how to use this book against the darkness of our day. Make no mistake about it, Jesus knew how to use the word of God.
Here is what is sad. There are many people today that don’t have a clue as to what the Bible has to say about life, death, anything because they have never taken the time to read this book for themselves and yet they say they believe everything that is in this book. How can you say that if you have never taken the time to read it?
Listen. Satan would absolutely love it if you and I didn’t take the Bible very seriously. Satan loves it when our opinions trump the word of God. He loves it when we say things like “I think”, or “I heard” or “My opinion on that is”. Satan does not want you to base your life on the word of God because he knows if you decide to base your life on what God’s word says you will become a threat to his kingdom. How do we get what is in the Bible inside of us? This is kind of a no brainer. Anyone want to guess what we should do?
Make a commitment to spend some time in the Bible every day.
Here is my challenge. On the Sagebrush app there is a New Testament Bible reading plan. I want you to use this as a guide. If you click on the passage of scripture and you read the whole chapter that chapter will go away so you never lose your place. I want you to read one chapter of the Bible every single day and it will take you 5 minutes a day to do that. Does anyone have 5 minutes a day to get closer to God and if you don’t I think you might need to stop and consider if you really love God because we love to spend time with the people that we love. Right? If you spend 5 minutes with God every day for the next 8 months you will have read the entire New Testament, anyone who takes the Sagebrush Bible app challenge starts today and completes it. If you finish it and go to Remix after, we will give you a cool hat.
When you sit down to read or listen to the Bible, pray before you start.
Pray a short prayer and tell God that you want to hear from him. Ask God to reveal his plan and purpose for your life today. Ask him to reveal areas of your life that are out of sync with him.
As you read the Bible keep asking yourself two questions.
The Bible wasn’t given to us so we could win at Bible trivial pursuit, but the Bible was given to us to help us make wiser decisions.
How many of you have made a bad decision? I’ve made a few too. If I would have taken my time with God more seriously, I probably wouldn’t have a lot of the regrets that I have today.
Every day you are going into a battle. True. God has given us his armor. It’s time for you and me to suit up. It’s time for you and me to learn how to use this sword and kick Satan’s butt.
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