The Full Armor of God- January 26, 2025

Ephesians chapter 6 10 through 17 I ask that you hear now the word of the Lord finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power put on the whole armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the Ws of the devil for our struggle is not against blood and flesh but against

the rulers against the authorities against the cosmic powers of this present Darkness against the spirit spiritual forces of evil in the Heavenly places therefore take up the whole armor of God so that you may be able to withstand on the evil day and having prevailed against everything to stand firm stand therefore and belt your waist with truth and put on the breastplate of righteousness and lace up your sandals in preparation for the gospel of peace with all these take the shield of Faith with which you

will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God pray in the spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication to that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints this ends our reading of God's holy word may God add to our understanding and application of its truth in each of Our Lives will you join me in a prayer of preparation please Lord we thank you for these words penned by the Apostle Paul thousands of

years ago and yet it is as important for us to hear these words today for the living out of our lives in service to you we thank you for this Lord and now we pray that the words of my mouth and that the meditations and thoughts of all of our hearts and Minds will be acceptable in your sight oh Lord our strength and Our Redeemer for it is in Christ Jesus we pray these things amen well to be perfectly honest I am totally surprised that I am still here actually I'm totally surprised that you are here here as well

because looking back I think about the fact that um as a kid you know writing in cars we had no seat belts no airbags I remember sitting in my aunt Helen's car as she was zooming through the hills I say that with a smile of Indiana northern Indiana as she would turn those corners and we would slide down this way and then she'd turn and we'd slide back trying to hold on the best that we could I remember that people used to SM smoke in cars with the windows rolled up I remember sitting there in that Haze

thinking that I was going to be sick as my eyes swelled shut think about it we had no medicine proof B childproof medicine bottles we had no latches on our underneath our sinks or in the laundry room we did not have those little plastic covers over the electrical out Outlets children could easily go up and curiously stick their fingers or anything else in there for that matter I remember riding my bike without a helmet and I remember in the summertime taking the garden hose and if I was thirsty boy I just drank right out of

that hose it's truly amazing children would leave home and say going out to play and they were gone playing with their friends all day long until maybe they got a little hungry and needed something to eat or perhaps as some of my friends when the the street lights went on they knew it was time to go back home things have certainly changed haven't they now Americans perhaps you could say are obsessed with safety now I have to say that it's not a bad thing I believe in safety I think that many lives have been saved because

of the laws and rules we've mandated seat belts and bike helmets and band lead Bas paint do you remember Duck and Cover I remember being in elementary school and they led us all out into the hallway and we all had to crouch up with our heads facing the wall and we had to put our hands over the back of our necks you see I lived in St Louis Missouri and we had tornadoes and so they thought that by ducking and H covering next to the hallway wall was going to protect us from all of the falling debris when the

tornado struck our struck our school but you know my friends in this day of school shootings things have really changed a lot in 2022 there there were 51 51 school shootings in the United States in 2023 there were 38 and in 2024 there were 39 and just this January this month there was one school shooting already I'm all for safety I am all for safety we uh have the privilege of living fairly close to our granddaughters we have two granddaughters my husband picks them up at the B the uh bus stop and brings them

to our house until their parents come to get them and I remember just being in conversation with the six-year-old the other day now they're always excited to share what's going on at school and whose friends are doing what but Elsie turned to me and she said today we did a drill she said we went into our quiet place I said where's your quiet place she said it's a closet and we go in there and we have to be very quiet until the school security dog comes and tells us it's okay to come out I thought

wow we have come so far so far the Apostle Paul was also concerned about safety as well perhaps not from School shooters or some mentally deranged individual who would kill people but he had some things to say about safety now Ephesians this letter that he wrote to the church in Ephesus is really a lovely letter it's a loving letter and and in Ephesians to this point he's talked about Christ and the unity that we all should have in Christ what a beautiful concept what a wonderful thing that Jesus even prayed that we would be

one that we would be unified that we would not be divided by differences of opinion and pettiness and gossip and all of those awful nasty things that communities can succumb to but that we would look to lift each other up that we would look to give advantages to those in our midst who are struggling that we would in fact see ourselves as one Ephesians addresses the Christian household how even in the house we are to submit to each other because of our love of Christ that we are to care for one another he addresses the relationships

of parents and children certainly that of spouses and he talks even in that day of the relationship that they had slaves and how Masters were to treat them with respect then halfway through the sixth chapter this Final Chapter he says finally finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power his strength comes from the Lord not ourselves too often we in the United States like to be happy of our self-sufficiency that we can be a strong nation and that we can all make our own decisions this may be good as far as

running a company or perhaps even governing but when it comes to serving the lord we need to recognize that our strength does not come from ourselves but comes from God what Paul is saying is there is strength and there is power available for any Christian and it is not our own it comes from God he goes on then and instructs all of us to put on the whole armor of God now the good news is this armor is a one-size fits-all you know those ball caps that you can get that are adjustable in the backs so everybody can

wear it the whole armor of God is adjustable no matter whether you are petite like me or whether you're a large person every one of us can fit into the whole armor of God this requisition that has come from our Lord and savior is something that we must choose to put on it is available to All God's Children and unfortunately there are those who forget or don't even think about putting on the armor of God let alone the whole armor of God how effective would a football player be without his his helmet or his

padding every part of the whole armor is important and important for us to remember to to put on every single day there are plenty of people walking around who are believers in Jesus who follow Christ but they're not completely covered they've got the shoes on and the helmet on but no breastplate or the belt is on and the shield and the sword but they forgot the helmet perhaps they were concerned about having a helmet head you know helmet hair but I've got news it is definitely worth a helmet head

day you see our battle is against evil forces that are mentioned in verse 12 and it makes it absolutely necessary that we have every piece of this armor on first we begin with the belt the belt of Truth one of my first jobs when I was old enough to get a job was working for Commerce Bank in Chesterfield Missouri I was a teller and as a teller I got a chance to experience and learn about the inner workings of Banks and one of our responsibilities when someone would hand US money to be deposited was to check

for counterfeit I thought this was really interesting we had this special pen that we could swipe across the dollar bills and it would let us know if it was a counterfeit or or not I thought that was just amazingly cool we in the family of Christ need to be as equipped to to identify counterfeit we need to know the word of God so well that when someone comes to us and quotes scripture that is not right that is untruthful we can know we can recognize that's not right that is counterfeit we don't have a fancy little

pen but we do have the knowledge that God gives to us or someone may be espousing some kind of theory or Theology and we should know our Bible well enough to know whether that is truthful or not a Roman soldier's belt was an essential part of their armor the belt gathered together their uniform form and held it into place it gave a place for the sword to fit on the side it secured their garments so that it would not interfere with the job that they had to do in their fighting you see the belt ties it all

together the belt of Truth ties it all together now some people these days especially might say well you know truth is subjective it just depends on the situation and the person's personal truth but I I've got news God's truth is not subjective Jesus said in John 146 I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except by me God's truth is the belt that we want to have holding our life together the second piece of our that you will want to put on is the breastplate of righteousness now there there was a

story in the news about a police officer in Los Angeles who was sitting watching um his traffic stop and and this truck zoomed through a red light well immediately thought well he must be late for work and so he turned on his siren and started to pursue and he called into the office and said that he was in pursuit of this individual and and the pickup truck pulled over and the officer approached it now meanwhile in the truck the gentleman driving was thinking the cops already know he was scared he

rested his hand on the same gun that he had just used at a a convenience store to rob it he had the sack of money next to him in the front seat and the officer came up to the car and said good morning sir may I see your and at that moment the man in the car took out his gun pointed it Point Blank at the officer's chest and fired well the officer was knocked some s feet away from the car from that blast and seconds later after he came to and to the shock of the criminal in the truck the officer stood up pulled his service revolver and

fired twice the first bullet struck through the window and hit the glass of the car the second one went into the side of the car and hit the man in his leg don't shoot he cried throwing the gun and the sack of money out the window what saved that officer's life was what we call a bulletproof vest made of Kevlar this super strong fabric that helped to keep his chest intact protected all of his vital organs well you see in Paul's day they also had a protective vest to protect their vital organs the Roman

soldiers had a vest that was made out of little metal plates sewn together by straps of leather the vest provided a special protection in case their enemy were to hit them with some blow of their sword it Protected Their vital organs their heart in their lungs without such a vest a a Roman soldier had very little chance of a long life expectancy that's the type of protection that the Apostle Paul is talking about with us we have a bulletproof vest of righteousness held in place with the belt of Truth

the righteousness of God not our righteousness God's righteousness that we can face anything and we will be held together because of God's righteousness when we follow what God has asked us to do doing the right thing loving one another always following what Christ has taught us we will be protected by the the breastplate of righteousness now imagine these soldiers going out they have the warmest clothing the safest helmet and they go out into battle Barefoot not a real smart thing to do I can't even imagine my taking off my

shoes and walking to my car through the parking lot we need good Footwear don't we of course in our day and age we have Footwear for everything we have shoes for church we have shoes for work we have shoes for going to the gym we have shoes for running we've got appropriate Footwear for everything what the Apostle Paul says is that we need shoes of the gospel of peace what kind of shoes are we talking about a Roman soldier would have had shoes that were pointed actually had something somewhat like um football

players cleats that would hold them in place so that as they were fighting in battle they couldn't just be knocked from side to side or forward or backward they could stand their ground this is the shoes of the gospel of peace for us if we know who we are and why we are God's children we have the shoes of the gospel of peace knowing that God chose you and God chose me and we have a place in this King Kingdom because the creator of the universe made us and called us and has forgiven us not because of anything we have done but by

the grace of God God paid the price for us this is our foundation this is our foundation that nothing can knock us from side to side or forward or backward because we have the shoes of the gospel of peace to take us anywhere that we need to go our shoes symbolize the foundation on which we stand but then we have those were the things that we put on but there are then three items that the Apostle Paul's we says that we will take up the belt the breastplate the boots they're never taken off but the shield The Shield is

something that we use to deflect evil deflect the arrows that may come at us we can move the shield around but God has given us a shield to deflect those nasty thoughts those untruths whatever it may be the shield can protect us the other is the helmet now the helmet I joked about helmet hair and all of that but let's really think about it going back to our football analogy how we have learned so much much about what head injuries can do to our football players and how important that helmet is so that they do

not damage their brain the helmet of salvation is as important for us as well you think about it you can have your arm or your leg injured but you get a head injury and you are talking about something that could completely end your life or certainly severely make your life unpleasant for the rest of your life a soldier wouldn't have been of much help to anyone if they were brain dead or had their head hit protection of your thoughts protection of your mind remember the old phrase keep your wits about you it's

talking about being able to use your mind that God has given to us we can protect that with the help moment of Salvation that God has given to us the very final acquisition element was the sword the sword of the spirit the sword of the spirit Paul goes on to say is the word of God if you remember when Jesus was led out into the Wilderness Jesus used the sword of the spirit as the devil was tempting him he kept coming back to the devil quoting scripture it is said when you are being attacked where

when you are in a vulnerable situation do you and are you able to draw upon Holy scripture to protect you as well there is power in the word of God not only just the words themselves but God is there with you anytime the word of God is invoked the sword was very important to the soldier but the sword is perhaps I might say even more important to the child of God we have got to know what God says and what the teachings are of the Lord.