God’s Top Ten – Exodus 19:16-20:17

• September 12, 2021
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Exodus 19:16-20:17

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Exodus 19. We’re beginning a new series today on the 10 Commandments and I’ve titled the first message God’s Top 10. Everybody has a Top 10. The FBI has it’s top 10 Most Wanted. David Letterman used to have a Top 10 every night. One of my favorites, although I don’t get to see them often, is ESPN’s Top 10 plays of the week. So, let me ask you what’s your Top 10. Maybe it’s your Top 10 movies, or cars, or travel destinations, or songs, or Bible verses?

As you think about your Top 10’s, I want you to notice something about your lists. Unless someone specifically asked you to name your Top 10 most disliked in a specific category, almost every Top 10 list that we create is made up of our favorites. Have you noticed that? They’re special. They’re the most meaningful to us. They’re what we (the giver of the list) consider to be the best. Well, the same is true for God. His Top 10 sheds light on what He considers the best rules for life.

So, I’m going to take us back to Exodus 19, even though the 10 Commandments are found in chapter 20. We want to look at some preliminaries this morning, before we settle into each of the 10 commandments over the coming weeks. I want us to ask a few questions. Why study them? What were they, exactly? Why were they given? And what relevance do they have for our lives today, if any? So, we go back to Exodus 19 – beginning in verse 16 and continuing through Exodus 20:17.

16 On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. 18 Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. 19 And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. 20 The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

21 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the Lord to look and many of them perish. 22 Also let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves, lest the Lord break out against them.” 23 And Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for You Yourself warned us, saying, ‘Set limits around the mountain and consecrate it.’” 24 And the Lord said to him, “Go down, and come up bringing Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord, lest He break out against them.” 25 So Moses went down to the people and told them.

1 And God spoke all these words, saying,

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Our God and our Father, we’re grateful for the revelation of You that we have in the Bible – that every portion of it reflects a different aspect of Your character, all of it to be studied and considered and applied. Lord, it’s marvelous how the Holy Spirit seems to take what we read on Sunday and brings it to bear in our lives the rest of the week. We pray that would happen again. In Jesus’ name, amen.

So, the first question I want us to tackle is why study them?

Why Study Them (Importance)

The argument in some Christian circles runs like this, “We’re believers of the New Covenant, which was made in the blood of Jesus shed on the cross for our sins, and the Bible says that because of Jesus’ sacrifice we’re no longer under the Law, but under grace. Therefore, I don’t need to be concerned about the Law and since the 10 Commandments are part of the Mosaic law, I’m not bound by them.”

That statement, or something similar to it, is referred to as antinomianism (meaning “against the law” – anti is “against” and nomos is “law”). What the person has done, perhaps unintentionally, is to take a biblical teaching and apply it in such a way as to arrive at an unbiblical conclusion. Let me untie the knot and we’ll move on to why we should study the 10 Commandments.

Here’s the knot. The biblical teaching is that Christians are not required to observe the Old Testament Law as a means of salvation. That’s true. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He fulfilled the Old Testament Law. Romans 10:4 says, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” In Ephesians, the letter that we just finished studying, Paul says that Jesus death “abolish[ed] the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross” (Ephesians 2:15-16). So, it’s true that we’re not saved by keeping the Law.

But the unbiblical conclusion that’s smuggled into the statement is that there’s no moral law that God expects Christians to obey. That’s not true. 1 John 5:3 tells us, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” Perhaps you remember Jesus’ response to one of the Pharisees in Matthew 22, when He was asked about the greatest commandment, “And [Jesus] said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’”

Now some of you are thinking, “Yes, I follow all of that, but Jesus didn’t quote the 10 Commandments in His response. He simply said to love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” That’s true. Jesus didn’t explicitly give the 10 Commandments as His response, but what we’re going to discover is that the first 4 commandments are focused on our relationship with God and the last 6 are focused on our relationship with our neighbor. So, while Jesus didn’t explicitly say, “Obey the 10 commandments,” His response certainly carried that implication.

The straight line is this: we are NOT saved by keeping the Law, but by grace through faith in the person and work of Jesus. That’s how we’re saved. At the same time, we’re called to live holy and righteous lives – often marked by keeping God’s commandments – and that’s only possible through the power of the Holy Spirit. Let me offer one final verse to hopefully clarify this. 1 John 2:3-6 says, “We know that we have come to know [Jesus] if we keep His commands. Whoever says, ‘I know [Jesus],’ but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys [Jesus’] word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in [Jesus]: Whoever claims to live in [Jesus] must live as Jesus did.”

So, we’re not free to ignore the 10 Commandments. We’re saved by grace through faith and we’re called to live holy lives. Quickly, let me give you five (5) more reasons we should study the 10 Commandments.

They’re found in Scripture. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” Part of the “all” Scripture that Paul is referring to there is Exodus 20. The Bible is God’s curriculum. It’s His owner’s manual. It’s His revelation to us.

They’re foundational to faith. Let me ask you this question: What was the Bible that Jesus quoted from? The Old Testament. Whenever Jesus said, “It is written…” He was quoting from what is now our Old Testament. Many Christians don’t understand the foundations of our faith. Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:7). If Jesus came to fulfill the Law, doesn’t it make sense that we should know something about the very law that He came to fulfill?

They’re fundamental to society. American jurisprudence used to have its basis in the 10 Commandments. I’m not so sure these days. C.S. Lewis, speaking about the 10 Commandments, in his book The Abolition of Man says, “Many ancient cultures have a surprising agreement in these ethical and moral standards despite cultural differences. Man has a basic understanding of these standard that God has established for His creation.”

They’re forsaken in the culture. When you push God’s law to the side, you’ve got to fill that space with something and what our culture has filled it with is relativism. There’s no absolute truth anymore. What’s good for you may not be good for me. My truth may not be your truth. What was once evil we call good, and what was good we now call evil. If that sounds familiar that’s what Isaiah says happens to a nation when they forsake the law of the Lord (Isaiah 5).

They’re forgotten by the church. What’s true of the culture has revealed itself to be true in some Christian circles too. A Barna poll from 2016 indicates that 62% of professing Christians say there’s no absolute standard of right and wrong. It goes on to say, “In some denominations, the vast majority of clergy do not have a biblical worldview, and it shows up clearly in the data related to the theological views and moral choices of people who attend those churches.”

What Were They (Substance)

Well, they’re part of a greater covenant that God made with the children of Israel when they left Egypt. We all remember the story; after the Israelites were delivered from slavery in Egypt, 90 days later they end up at the base of Mount Sinai where God calls Moses to re-establish His covenant and gives him these 10 Commandments, not 10 suggestions, or 10 ideas, or 10 proposals. Exodus 19:7 says, “So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him.”

Also notice that there are 10 of them, not 5, or 19, just 10. And these 10 are sufficient to give us God’s “general will” concerning the great issues of life. And these instructions weren’t just limited to outward actions. While murder and adultery and stealing are external, there are commandments, like coveting, that focus on the internal attitudes of the heart. In fact, Paul says, in Romans 7, that it was coveting that awakened him to the reality of his sin. “Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness” (Romans 7:7-8).

And that was Jesus’ point in the Sermon on the Mount, wasn’t it? You have heard that it was said you shall not murder, but I say to you, if you’re angry with your brother without cause, you’re in danger of judgment. You’ve heard that it was said by those of old that you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that if you look upon another woman to lust after her in your heart, you’ve committed adultery (Matthew 5:21-28, paraphrased). The Law governs external actions and internal attitudes.

That brings us to the third question for us to consider.

Why Were They Given (Significance)

Well, let me give us four (4). First, they were given to regard God. In other words, they were given to show visible, tangible expression of our love of God. Again, in Exodus 19:5 you’ll find an “if/then” construction, “If you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all peoples.” Our obedience is one way that we demonstrate our love of God.

Second, they were given to relate man to man. Now follow me here. The first four commandments are what we call “theocentric,” meaning they have everything to do with how we relate to God. The last six are “anthropocentric,” meaning they’re man-centered. They have everything to do with how we relate to one another.

Third, they were given to restrain evil. If you gave man complete and unfettered reign to do as he pleases, it would be pandemonium and chaos all the time. Paul writes to Timothy and says, “Understand this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:9-10). So, these commandments, like all laws, were given to restrain the raging evil and sinfulness of human nature.

Fourth, they were given to reveal our need. Do you remember when you were introduced to a microscope for the first time? It was probably in junior high or high school, and your teacher said, “Take out one of your hairs from your head and put it under the microscope.” Now, you just washed your hair and it was silky and smooth, and you thought it was the best hair on the block until you put it under the microscope. Do you remember what it looked like? Gnarly, nasty, irregular, big cuts in the shaft. That was your hair under the microscope. Our lives under the microscope of the law looks that way for a reason. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul says the law was our schoolmaster, our tutor, to drive us to Jesus. It shows us our need.

So, we’ve looked at their importance, their substance, their significance, and lastly their relevance.

What Do They Mean (Relevance)

What are we supposed to do with these verses? Well, there are at least four (4) ways we can apply these verses, even today.

Number one, treat them as a compass. As we look at these individual commandments over the next several weeks, we’re going to see 10 categories, 10 reference points for us to use in order to make our way through life, things we don’t ever have to pray about. They’re just fixed. You never have to say, “You know, although I’m married, I’m really interested in this other person and I’m sort of thinking about having an affair, so I’m going to pray about that.” You don’t even need to pray about that. It’s done. We’re going to find 10 principles that will be our reference points and give us direction.

Number two, treat them as a thermometer. Thermometers measure temperature, and these 10 commandments are a great way to measure our love for the things of God. Are we hot or cold when it comes to the things that God says are important? We saw we love God, but what does the gauge of our obedience say?

Number three, treat them as a mirror. We all have a love/hate relationship with the mirror. They tell us the truth. That’s what the 10 Commandments do. They tell us the truth. They don’t fix the problem, but they do a really good job of showing us where the problem area is.

Fourth, and finally, treat them as a road sign pointing us to Jesus. Okay, so we’re going to see the truth about ourselves, the dirt so to speak, and it ought to motivate us to run for cleansing and that’s in the blood of Jesus.

I love the story of the young boy that got lost in London. At the heart of the city is an intersection called Charing Cross. All distances across the city are measured from its central point. Locals refer to it simply as “the cross.” One day a little boy became lost in the bustling city, and a police officer heard his cries and came to his aid to try and help him return to his family.

The bobby asked the little boy a variety of questions in an attempt to discover where the boy lived, to no avail. Finally, with tears streaming down the boy’s face, he said, “If you will take me to the cross I think I can find my way from there.”

Each week, the commandments are going to point us to the cross. That’s where we find our way home. Not because we kept the law perfectly in attitude or actions, but I need to be cleansed and forgiven and changed, and it only comes through Jesus.

Fuel for the Fight – Ephesians 6:18-20

• September 5, 2021
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Ephesians 6:18-20

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn, for the final time, to Ephesians 6. Today’s message is the last in our series on Paul’s letter to the Church in Ephesus.

Many of you know that I’ve acquired a new truck, and this new truck is a diesel, and thus it requires diesel fuel. Now that’s not a major issue, but when you have to re-educate your family, particularly your teenage boys, on the importance of using the right fuel, well it can be a challenge. Habits are hard to break, as you know, and this is true when pulling into the gas station to fill up. So, there’s this constant reminder when they drive my truck of two important facts: 1.) it’s not a race car – that’s true of all vehicles teenagers drive – and, 2.) “Remember, it takes diesel.” So, when I ran across this story from pastor and author David Jeremiah it rang true.

I was invited to speak at a Bible conference back on the East Coast. It meant a sort of mini-vacation for my family. The conference was several miles from where my family was staying, so I borrowed a car from a friend at the conference to drive over and see them. I noticed that the car I had borrowed was a bit unusual. Right on the front of the hood it said, “Oldsmobile Diesel,” and there were also words on the fuel gauge that said “Diesel Fuel Only.”

Immediately after filling up it started to sputter and choke and belch out great clouds of exhaust, and finally stopped right in the middle of the small, rural New York town I was passing through. People in town gathered around to see what was wrong, and an old farmer began asking questions. When I told him that it was a diesel and that I had just finished filling it up, he raised the hood and immediately said, “Son, diesel engines don’t have spark plugs, and this engine does. You don’t have a diesel engine.” My friend had recently converted the car from diesel to regular unleaded, but had failed to mention it to me.

He continued with this thought. As I thought about that incident over the years, it became a great illustration to me of the spiritual life. We have the label “human being” pasted all over us (like my friend’s diesel car); but as Christians, we’ve been converted. Our spiritual lives won’t run on the same kind of fuel they used to. We sputter, choke, and ultimately come to an embarrassing standstill if we don’t fuel ourselves with the right kind of fuel.

Of course, the fuel for the Christian life is prayer. Without prayer, we simply cannot maintain the power and energy needed to be victorious in the fight that’s known as the Christian life. It’s no more possible to live the Christian life without prayer than it is to run a gasoline engine on diesel. Paul concludes his teaching on spiritual warfare with an emphasis on prayer, and so will we.

18 [P]raying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

Gracious God, as we turn now to the Bible, we pray for the help, the enabling of the Holy Spirit, to teach and to listen, to understand, to believe, to obey, to live in the light of its truth. Accomplish Your purposes in us, Lord, we pray. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Well, as we come to the end of Ephesians – and we’ve spent some significant time in this final section – it’s important for us and helpful for us to keep in mind that this is not a section that exists on its own. It’s the closing part of one letter, and it’s also the concluding part of what we referred to, as we began chapter 4, as the more practical part of the letter.

You might remember – when we started this series several months ago – that we noted the structure of Paul’s letter. It’s 6 chapters broken down the middle into 2 sections. The first section (chapters 1-3) focuses on the indicatives, which means the first section is Paul’s statement of doctrinal facts. This is who we are “in Christ.” This is our identity as “children of God.” Then, after establishing the facts (as it were), he switches in the second section (chapter 4-6) and offers the imperatives – the “so whats,” the “therefores,” the “what we do in response” section.

So, chapter 4 begins with a call to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, and that means putting off the old self and putting on the new. It means getting rid of certain behaviors and lifestyles and embracing new ones. It means walking alongside others in the family of God – people from different backgrounds and stages of life. It means walking in a worthy manner in our marriages (as husbands and wives), walking in a worthy manner in our homes (as parents and children), and walking in a worthy manner in our jobs (as employers and employees). And Paul concludes his letter (in chapter 6) by saying, “Hey, all of this walking in a worthy manner is actually being done in a war zone, in a battlefield, in a spiritual conflict between people who are seeking to follow Jesus and the enemy, Satan. Therefore, we need to take up the armor of God.” And so, it’s from there that we conclude our study of Ephesians by considering the fuel for the fight.

There are four “alls” that are listed in verses 18-20, and they will provide the framework for today’s message.

Praying at All Times

First of all, then, our praying is to be “at all times” (v. 18).

Whenever we’re on the receiving end of an exhortation from someone, it’s almost inevitable that we say, “Well, I wonder if he/she is actually doing that?” And we need be in no doubt concerning Paul, because we can go back through the letter and find him saying, “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers” (Ephesians 1:16). In other words, he’s absolutely true to what he’s now urging us to do. He’s praying all the time.

And that brings me to this thought: this whole matter of consistency or constancy of prayer is (if we’re honest) something we’ve all struggled with. Alistair Begg shares the story of a friend named T.S. Mooney, who has since died and is living in heaven. Mooney was a bachelor his entire life. He was a banker and taught a boys’ Bible class. He lived in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and one day Begg asked Mooney, “What’s your plan and purpose with these boys?” To which Mooney replied, “My plan for the Bible class has always been to give every boy a Bible in his hand, a Savior in his heart, and a purpose in his life.”

Mooney routinely prayed for each boy, and kept in touch with them as they grew up. Begg said that when he visited Mooney in his apartment one day, Mooney had photos of men who were judges, and surgeons, and teachers, and mechanics, and plumbers and all sorts of other professions – all of whom were influenced by Mooney’s teaching and prayers.

Mooney died in 1986. His housekeeper found him in the morning – fully dressed and kneeling over his bed. As she pulled Mooney back from the bed, she found a little black book alongside his Bible. It contained the names of all the boys/men that had gone through his classes, along with the other people and ministries he prayed for regularly.

Whose ministry is being held up on the strength of our disciplined commitment to prayer? Some of you are prayer partners to people. Do you realize what an amazing privilege that is, that you’re able to go to the living God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, and seek Him on behalf of a brother or a sister? All the time? Continually. Not spasmodically. But you know, such a call makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Because the battle goes on continually; therefore, the need for prayer is in the same realm.

In short order, this call to pray “at all times” is an expression of our dependence upon God. It’s not optional; it’s essential, it’s impossible for us to enjoy an intimate relationship with God without it, no less than the fact that you can’t enjoy an intimate relationship with your spouse apart from the engagement of communication. Not necessarily talking all the time! You can drive in the car for fifteen or twenty miles and never talk. But there’s communion.

Praying with All Prayers

Then the second “all,” you will see, is right there in the text as well: “Praying at all times,” and then, “with all prayer and supplication.” What does that mean? Well, the word “supplication” comes from the Greek word deésis. It means “to be in need.” That’s helpful, and I think that’s exactly what Paul is saying. He’s talking about the way in which we come to God in prayer.

Some of you have heard me refer to the ACTS prayer model. It’s an acrostic – where each letter in the word A-C-T-S represents something else. “A” is for adoration. We begin our prayers by acknowledging who we’re praying to and give Him adoration and praise. “C” stands for confession. Martin Luther said, repentance is not only something that begins our Christian life but is a daily experience; saying to God in the course of a day, catching ourselves, “I confess to you, Father, that I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5, paraphrased). “T” is for thanksgiving. Leona Von Brethorst wrote a hymn called He Has Made Me Glad and it includes these words:

I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart,
I will enter His courts with praise;
I will say this is the day that the Lord has made,
I will rejoice, for He has made me glad.

And what’s really amazing is learning that we don’t just thank God when the skies are blue and the breeze is at our back. In fact, simply acknowledging that “this is the day the Lord has made” immediately reminds me that He’s God and I’m not. I didn’t see to it that the sun came up this morning. I didn’t see to it that I slept all through the night and woke up healthy today, instead of dying in my sleep. Many of us just assume these things – as if God isn’t extending His grace to us each and every day that the sun comes up. Finally, “S” stands for supplication, or petition, or expression of our need. It’s coming to God and acknowledging that it’s entirely legitimate to ask, to knock, to seek (Matthew 7:7). Indeed, He tells us to do this. He bids us come and tell Him exactly what’s going on and where our concern lies and what we’re really interested in. And sometimes they’re big things, and other times they’re small things.

Folks, this is one area of my Christian life that’s a chore. It’s not a chore to pray, but it’s a chore to make sure that I don’t fall into the habit of saying the same thing time and time again. In fact, I said to myself this week (as did the disciples), “Lord, teach me to pray” (Luke 11:1). “Teach me to pray when I walk along the road, when I lie down, when I get up. Teach me to pray formal and structured prayers, as I have to. Teach me to pray standing or kneeling, audibly or inaudibly, publicly or privately. Teach me to pray groaning. Teach me to pray crying. Just teach me to pray.”

You see, often prayer is actually in the groaning and in the crying. You know, it’s true that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). You remember when Isaiah, in the midst of his circumstances, he says, “Oh! that you would rend the heavens and come down” (Isaiah 64:1). There’s a ton just in the “oh.” God listens to our “ohs.” He listens to our groans. In fact, Paul says that the Holy Spirit actually makes sense of our groans, (Romans 8:26) so that we pray constantly, and we pray variously.

Praying with All Perseverance

And thirdly, we pray “with all perseverance.” In other words, we dare not be overcome by carelessness. You remember Jesus’ conversation with the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest, “Watch and pray [so] that you [do] not enter into temptation” (Matthew 26:41). And they did neither. They didn’t watch and they didn’t pray. What did they do? (They slept.)

In many ways, what we have here is an echo of the words of Jesus. But it’s also in keeping with what Paul said to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20. Before he left them, he said to them, “After my departure there will arise fierce wolves who will seek to draw away people after them and draw them away from all that I have taught you about Jesus and about the gospel” (Acts 20: 29-31, paraphrased). And so, he says, “Keep alert! Stay awake! Be watchful!” And it’s the watchfulness which then is the key to the perseverance. Sinclair Ferguson, in his commentary on Ephesians, says, “Christ is building His church on territory that has been occupied by an enemy. Alertness is always essential when living in a war zone.”

Perseverance is tough. It’s hard. No matter what you’re doing – whether it’s playing a sport, or exercising, or being married – sticking it out, gutting it out, hanging in there to the bitter end is part of what it means to “work out your salvation in fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). That doesn’t mean that we work to earn our salvation. No, it means that we persevere in our obedience to Jesus, and as we persevere to the end we actually demonstrate and confirm that we’re actually saved. In 1 John 2:19 we read a warning about the end times and false teachers and people that “claimed to be” saved walking away from the faith. Listen, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” Praying with all perseverance is one of those areas of our Christian lives that’s tempting to quit, tempting to give up on.

Most of us remember the days before computers and e-mail. Some of you even remember the days before home telephones. I remember being in elementary school and also in Bible school at church and having pen pals – friends that we would write back and forth to. In those days’ answers didn’t come immediately. You would write a letter and then maybe 2-3 weeks later you’d get a response. We learned to wait. But today, when you can call and text and e-mail, we get upset when we see a text is delivered and read and we don’t get an immediate response.

Jesus even told a parable in Luke 18 about a persistent widow, and the introduction to that parable says, “And [Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, once said, “some blessings are like ripe fruit in autumn, which falls readily into our hands; but for some blessings, you need to give the tree a good shaking.” And some of us have been shaking some of these branches for a while, have we not? Some of us are going to have to be content to trust God that He will fulfill His covenant promises, and that should we not see it this side of eternity, we will on the far side realize that God who loves us, the God who reigns, the God whose will is best, will fulfill His promises. And in that, we continue.

Praying for All the Saints

That brings us to the fourth and final “all.” “Praying at all times,” constantly. “Praying with all prayer,” variously. “Praying with all perseverance,” unstintingly. “Praying for All the Saints,” expansively or globally.

Now, I looked at this again and again. I said, “It would have been so much easier if it had said ‘some’ instead of ‘all.’” Because then we could’ve all relaxed, you know. Praying sometimes: “Oh, yes, I do it sometimes.” And some perseverance: “Yes…” And for some of the saints. Because there’s a number of them I don’t want to pray for!

You see, it’s natural and it’s entirely legitimate for us to pray about our own personal needs. The Bible encourages us to do that – to bring the concerns of our own hearts and our own homes to Him. But when we ONLY do that, we’re no different from unbelievers. That’s what non-Christians think about prayer. It’s something that’s like a divine ATM that you can get stuff for yourself if you just go about it the right way. No, what Paul is calling for is to look beyond ourselves to the needs of “all the saints.”

Our prayers, individually and corporately, will always languish and will finally stutter to a halt without two things: 1.) a God-centered perspective, and 2.) a God-centered trust. So, in other words, we’re asking ourselves, “What’s God’s plan for the world? What’s God promised to do?” Well, He’s promised to put together a people that are His very own from every tribe and nation and language and tongue. Therefore, we can legitimately pray to the end that many people from many places, both in our own immediate area and throughout the entire globe, will become the committed followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, we pray for saints in Afghanistan, and Somalia, and Sudan, and North Korea, and China, in addition to the saints in America, and S.C., and Greer, and Greenville, and Landrum.

We have to acknowledge that if we’re going to pray for all the saints, it’s going to force us to a radical shift in perspective. It’s going to call us as Americans to stop seeing the world as spinning outwards from Washington, D.C. or wherever we are. Listen, have you noticed how modern maps have changed. Used to, when you were going on a trip you had to pull out the road atlas. You had to stop in a gas station and buy a map of the state or city that you were in. Remember those days? Now, with the advent of the smart phone and GPS navigation all you have to do is plug in your destination and instead of traveling from “A” to “B,” we travel from “me” to “B.” Did you notice that clever little shift? The focus has shifted from having a global perspective to only having a self-centered perspective. Because every time I look at a map, guess what? I’m at the center. And yet, there’s a world of people (correction: saints) out there that need our prayers.

The task to reach the world for Jesus Christ is unfinished. And the task won’t ever be accomplished absent God-centered praying. Without sincere, sensible, Spirit-filled outpouring of our souls to God, asking Him for such things as He has promised – His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Father, we bow down before You, and we acknowledge the mystery, the necessity, and the calling of prayer. We desperately need the enabling of the Holy Spirit in this righteous endeavor. Lord, we ask that you teach us how to pray at all times, and pray with all kinds of prayers, and pray with all perseverance, and pray for all the saints. As we approach Your table, God, we ask that You come and sit with us, be with us, draw near to us. May Your Holy Spirit fill the hearts of us, Your faithful, and enkindle within us the fire of Your love. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Armor of God (Part 2) – Ephesians 6:14-18a

• August 31, 2021
• Pastor
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Ephesians 6:14-18a

As always, let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Ephesians 6.

Last week we began considering the picture that Paul paints for us in these final verses of a spiritual battle. And let’s be honest, at least in the church, we’re a little bit uncomfortable talking about spiritual warfare. It could be that we’re unfamiliar with the concept that we’re at war against Satan and his demons. This language is just strange to us. We’re vaguely aware of medieval art and Hollywood portraits of the Devil, and we’d just assume not think about that.

In a similar vein, it could be the fact that we live day to day without much fallout, without much in the way of consequences, without much in the way of evidence that this battle is indeed raging. We get up. We get ready and we go about our day checking off our lists of accomplishments – whether that’s going to work, or going to the grocery store, or taking someone to a doctor’s appointment – and then we come home and do a little yard work or house work and eat dinner and go to bed. And we never really have a sense that we’re in this spiritual war.

But perhaps, even greater than that, it is the fact that we’ve been conditioned, in our western American churches, to focus solely on the Bible’s portrayal of Jesus and God in loving and merciful terms rather than in terms reminiscent of war and bloodshed and horror and so forth. That is to say, most of us grew up with an emphasis upon these images: “the Lord is my Shepherd…” (Psalm 23:1) or God as our loving Father, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20) or God as our King, “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of His robe filled the temple” (Isaiah 6:1). And indeed, He is our Redeemer, our Savior, our Father, our Shepherd and King – and we praise Him for that.

But the Bible also describes God in these terms: “The LORD is a man of war…” (Exodus 15:3) or “Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle…” (Psalm 144:1) or “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:11). And indeed, God is our Rock, our Shield, our Fortress, and our Commander – and we praise Him that He is.

This morning, we’re going to continue our examination and meditation upon the armor of God as outlined for us here in Ephesians 6. So, let me invite you to follow along with me as I read our text.

14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

Our gracious God, thank You that one of the means employed to hold us fast is in Your Word itself. And so, as we turn to it now, we pray that You will bring it home to our minds and to our hearts in such a way that we trust and believe and follow Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Last week we considered the first three pieces of armor that Paul mentions. We were drawn to the fact that Paul starts with a piece of clothing that most of us wouldn’t even include in our portrait: the belt. And he equates it with truth. How vital it is for us – in this day and age where truth is under attack and seems to be whatever people want it to be – that we begin each day buckling up with the truth of God. We stopped long enough to notice that this means objective truth (i.e. God is truth) and subjective truth (i.e. we’re called to be people that tell the truth as opposed to telling lies).

We also recognized the importance of the breastplate of righteousness – the Kevlar vest, the modern body armor – that covers the vital organs: the heart, the lungs, the liver, the spleen. How important it is for us to protect these organs, if we’re to live. And this reminds us that without the righteousness of Christ covering our sinful hearts we’re exposed to the holy and pure gaze of the Lord. But thanks be to God Christ shed His blood, and by our confession and trust the blood of Jesus covers our sins.

Finally, we considered another overlooked piece of armor: the shoes of the gospel of peace. We think about what it feels like to walk barefoot outside on gravel or at the beach on hot sand – how tender our feet are. Then we compare that to the confidence that we have when we walk on that same terrain wearing boots or flip flops – some kind of footwear that allows us to move about freely. The gospel, the Good News of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, the free gift of God’s grace through Jesus gives us peace with the Father. Paul puts it this way in Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

By the way, let me pause and just interjection something super important here. Let’s not read the verses and think that we have to win the battle in order to make it to heaven. The victory is already ours. Amen? Jesus has already won! If you’re “in Christ” today, if you’ve repented of your sin, if you’ve recognized your need for a Savior, and you’ve acknowledged Jesus as the Lord of your life, then victory is assured.

See, it’s possible to hear me say “Try and be as much like Jesus as you possibly can, because it will be good for you, and others will benefit also.” That’s not what I want you to hear. Paul’s writing here isn’t an attempt to get us to become something (present tense). It’s the reality that in Christ we have been made something (past sense).  When we came to trust in Christ, He already clothed us with the gospel armor. We already have all of these pieces of the armor. All Paul is doing, and all that we’re doing today, is reminding ourselves of the armor that’s already at our disposal because we’re in Christ.

You say, “Well, pastor, if the battle is already over and the victory is already ours, then why do I feel this internal anguish when I sin, why do I sense the pressure to compromise the teaching of the Bible on things like sexuality and marriage and the inerrancy of the Bible, and so forth, why do I travel to places or visit people and get a real sense of darkness and evil if the battle is already over and the victory is won?”

I heard someone describe this paradox using the language of a chess game. If you’ve ever played chess, then you know that the winning move is called checkmate. When you have your opponent in checkmate they still have a move, right. The ball is in their court, so to speak. It’s their move, but any move they make means the game is over. That’s kind of like the spiritual reality of Jesus defeating Satan. The game is over. Checkmate has already been sounded from heaven, but Satan technically still has a move – although whatever move he makes will end in his ultimate destruction.

Today we’re going to resume and cover the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. This last one isn’t primarily armor. In fact, some would argue that it’s offensive in nature and doesn’t act as armor at all. Nevertheless, we’re going to include it.

The Shield of Faith

Scripture often refers to God as our shield. For example, Genesis 15:1 says, “After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: ‘Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’” The Psalmist writes these words in Psalm 5:12, “For you bless the righteous, O LORD; you cover him with favor as with a shield.” Or how about this from Proverbs 30:5, “Every word of God proves true; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.” So, what does this mean when we come to Ephesians 6? Let me give it to you in a sentence: we are taking up the shield of faith when we are trusting the gospel to shield us from Satan’s lies. Trusting in God – that is, lifting up the shield of faith – is to rest in Him as our protector, as the One who keeps the assaults of the Devil from destroying us.

He does this for all of His people in an ultimate sense, guarding us that we might persevere in faith. But the Lord also shields us from temptation as we look to Him daily to help us walk in holiness. When we remember to turn to Him in our hour of need, He will direct us faithfully on the right path and help us make decisions that will honor Him.

The actual shield that Paul’s metaphor would have brought to mind for his first-century audience was not a small disc, but rather it was a large, body-length shield. Again, think Gladiator featuring Russell Crowe. If you’ve ever seen that movie the Praetorian Guards – the guys dressed in black that guarded the Caesar – they carried this type of shield. There were a few instances in that movie where you actually saw a group of soldiers form a protective barrier using these massive shields. That’s what the shield of faith does. It serves as a wall, or a barrier against the flaming arrows of the enemy.

Our faith isn’t itself a substance that has magical sheltering properties, but because it’s the means by which we lay hold of God and all His promises, it protects us from the fiery arrows, the darts, the missiles of the Evil One. Those flaming arrows may be ugly thoughts and memories from your past. It could be things like lust, lies, rumors, gossip, jealousy, covetousness, temptations of all kinds. Take up the shield of faith and rest in Christ, who absorbed the blows of temptation and even demonic attack, finally emerging victorious. Turn to Him (daily) in faith, as evil forces are too powerful for us to resist on our own.

The Helmet of Salvation

This piece, like the breastplate of righteousness, is easier for us to accommodate. A soldier’s helmet, even today, protects his/her head and is an essential piece of the armor for the battlefield.

The Roman soldier’s helmet was a combination of decoration and protection. You’ve seen pictures of it with a plume on the top, often made of brass or of bronze, filled with felt or with sponge in order to make it possible to wear, a bit like a crash helmet or today’s military helmet. And it was of such significance that only an axe or a hammer would really be able to penetrate it.

It’s no surprise, then that we would be given protection for our heads and, therefore, protection for our minds. So, to put on the helmet of salvation, which is the exhortation here, is then to trust in all that Christ has accomplished. That’s why it is called here “the helmet of salvation.” Because our protection from the enemy of our souls and all of his evil schemes is once again grounded not in how I feel but in what I know.

This is why it’s vitally important that we understand how we obtain salvation. How is it that we’re saved? How are we redeemed? At the end of the day; when all of the chips are on the table, and all of the theological dust from all of the academic debates has settled, what’s required for us to have our sins forgiven and our names written in the Lamb’s book of life? Again, and again, and again… Over and over and over, the Bible says that it’s believing, it’s faith, it’s accepting in your head and heart that what the Bible says about you is true, and what it says about Jesus is true.

Romans 3:11-12 paints a pretty dark and unflattering picture of us when it reads, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” So much for “I try to live a good life and be kind and loving to other people…” But thanks be to God the story doesn’t end there. Romans 3:21-25 says, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law… the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith.”

Verse 22 doesn’t say “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who attend church.” It doesn’t say, “for all who are baptized.” It doesn’t say, “for all who are doing their best.” It doesn’t say, “for all who love religion.” It says, “for all who believe!” You remember the Philippians jailer in Acts 16 says to Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And what was their response? (“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”) Salvation from sin is for all who believe. Are you wearing the helmet of salvation? Are you cultivating and nourishing and strengthening your belief in the person and work of Jesus Christ?

The Sword of the Spirit

As I mentioned earlier, some commentators don’t see this as being part of the defensive armor as much as the offensive weapon for the child of God. And while that might have some merit, the sword can indeed be used for defense, so we’re going to treat it as such. But understand that the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God is also offensive – it’s the way we proclaim the Good News.

Now, the sword that Paul has in mind here isn’t the large two-handed sword that we commonly associate with Braveheart. No, that kind of sword is mentioned in the Bible. It’s the Greek word rhomphaia, and it’s used six times in Revelation and one time (metaphorically) in Luke 2 where Mary is told that a sword will pierce her heart too. But that’s not the sword that Paul had in mind.

No, the sword Paul likely has in mind is the short-handled sword (perhaps 12-18 inches long) used in offensive, close-quarter combat. It’s the Greek word machaira. It’s the sword that Peter used to cut off Malchus’ ear in the Garden of Gethsemane. Remember that? Hebrews 4:12 immediately comes to mind here, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

I’m reminded of the introduction to the Gideon Bible that’s distributed by The Gideon’s International. If you’ve ever opened your hotel nightstand, then you’ve probably found one. I’m not exactly sure who composed this (probably a group), but it’s fabulous:

The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable.

Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be
holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.

It is the traveler’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass, the soldier’s sword and the Christian’s charter. Here too, Heaven is opened and the gates of Hell disclosed.

Christ is its grand subject, our good its design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure.

It is given you in life, will be opened at the judgment, and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, rewards the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.

Folks, that’s a marvelous description of what you and I are holding in our hands at this very moment. And it’s what Paul says is at our disposal every second of every day in the spiritual battle that’s raging. The best illustration of this is Jesus’ own temptation in the wilderness. Who are we fighting according to Ephesians 6? (schemes of the devil, rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, and spiritual forces of evil). For every temptation, Jesus repelled Satan with the Scriptures.

We need to have the Word of God memorized. Maybe not all of it; indeed, I’m not sure that anyone can do that. But we need to have enough of it in our minds that we can pull out our phones or find a computer and type in a word or two and find what it is we’re looking for. If the sword is the equivalent of the modern-day gun, then many of us are defenseless against the enemy. We’ll either be killed and walk away from the faith, or we’ll be kidnapped and our faith will stagnate. Where are we this morning? Are we properly using the sword of the Spirit? Are we going to the gun range, as it were? Are we studying our Bibles? Are we treasuring Scripture in our hearts?

These are peculiar days, daunting days, exciting days, and we stand on the shoulders of those who’ve gone before. I found myself going back again to my files and was delighted to see that I had a quote from a song from 1929. It was written by a man. You know one of his songs, if you’ve been around for any time at all. This man wrote the little chorus, “Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me whole.” His name was Seth Sykes. He was a very ordinary little man. His wife’s name was Bessie; and Seth and Bessie Sykes were evangelists in Scotland in the first half of the twentieth century. And when going back into my files under “The Bible,” I found one of his classic little songs. It goes like this:

Many folks are sad and weary, and they often fret and pine,
For they read what many critics have to say
About the dear old Bible, blessed holy book divine,
But for me, I’ve proved its worth, and I can say,

I’m acquainted with the Author, and I know God’s Word is true;
In times of grief it brings relief and tells me what to do.
Now I dearly love its pages, for I’ve found the Rock of Ages;
I’m acquainted with the Author, and I know it’s true.

That’s not arrogance. That’s faith. That’s belief.

Father, thank you for the Bible. Thank You that You equip us as soldiers in Your army. Thank You that the lessons that we’re given are to be heard and acted on as a company, that we’re not solo in this endeavor, that we’re not on our own. We’re not supposed to be on our own; we’re better together. And whether it is in holding up the shield of faith or helping one another get on the shoes of the readiness of the gospel of peace, or whether reminding one another, “Don’t leave your sword, now, make sure you have it by your side,” Lord, help us with these things, we pray.

Give us a heart of compassion when we have to say things that run counter to the thought forms of our culture. Give us wisdom and grace in a boldness that is at the same time winsome. Remind us that our words are to be full of grace and seasoned with salt. Give to us something of the kindness and compassion of the Lord Jesus, Himself, who was particularly willing to make space and time and extend the story of His mercy to those who were most in need. We thank you that you have made us part of the company that runs from age to age until finally we’re gathered into Your presence. We bless Your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

The Armor of God (Part 1) – Ephesians 6:14-18a

• August 22, 2021
• Pastor
• 0 Comments

Ephesians 6:14-18a

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Ephesians 6. We’re getting ever so close to concluding our study of Paul’s letter to the believers in the church at Ephesus. I know that it’s been a long road, but I trust that it’s been a good journey. You know, I’ve had several people say to me over the years – as we walk little by little through various books of the Bible (both Old/New Testaments) – that they never really appreciated all that was to be found in whatever book of the Bible it was until we went chapter by chapter and sometimes verse by verse through it. And if that kind of describes you, then let me just encourage you with these words: Me Too.

Listen, let me tell you something. Like a movie producer or editor, there’s so much more that I leave on the desk or the office floor because I just can’t fit it into a sermon. Those of you that have ever taught a class (of any kind), but particularly on the Bible, you know this is true. And while I wanted to preach an entire sermon on each piece of armor, I just felt like we needed to keep moving.

In fact, if you think that my treatment of these verses is a bit slim, then let me recommend a two-volume set of books by the late Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Dr. Lloyd-Jones was a Protestant minister and also a medical doctor. He served for nearly 30 years as the minister of Westminster Chapel (not to be confused with Westminster Abbey) in central London. Dr. Lloyd-Jones wrote a 375-page exposition of Ephesians 6 in 1976, and a year later he finished its companion 365-page exposition to supplement the parts that he left out in his first book.

So, you have somewhere in the neighborhood of 750 pages of homework, which is your assigned text. Some of you just had a momentary flashback, a temporary triggering of PTSD, remembering those dreaded days in school classrooms. In any event, I’m sure that you will find whatever else might be missing from the gaps in today’s sermon in The Christian Warfare: An Exposition of Ephesians 6. Speaking of Ephesians 6, have you found your spot? Follow along with me in your Bibles or on the screens.

14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

We come, gracious God, entirely dependent upon the work of the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to the truth of your Word, to grant us grace in order that we might believe and rest in it. So, accomplish your purposes, we pray. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

This morning, we’re going to consider the first three pieces of armor that Paul lists: the belt, the breastplate, and the shoes. Next week we’ll consider the shield, the helmet, and the sword.

As I mentioned last week, we’re called to “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.” So, let’s be sure that we start with the proper perspective. Paul doesn’t see this as a call to me-centered spiritual warfare: “Be you. You’re powerful when you’re you. Here’s a key: Nobody can beat you at being you. Be you, because when you’re you, you activate your anointing.” No, Paul sees this through the lens of the gospel. Be strong – yes! But be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Stand firm – yes! But do so wearing God’s armor, not your own.

Why am I refocusing our attention on Jesus and the gospel? Because, again, the temptation of this world is to do things in our own strength, to take our eyes off of Christ, or to even outright forget God. Think about it. If we were completely honest, how many of us got out of bed every day this week and before we left the house for work or play or appointments or whatever – how many of us began with prayer? The truth of the matter is that most of us (pastor included) can get sucked into the ordinary and mundane nature of life to such a degree that we unconsciously say to ourselves and the watching world, “I’ve got this. I can do this. This is no problem.” And while I want to acknowledge a healthy view of self-esteem, I also want us to recognize that on most days we wake up and begin to engage in a spiritual, moral, and ideological battle in our own strength, and in our own armor, rather than in the Lord’s strength and in God’s armor.

While these verses are written to us, and they involve us, and they concern us, and there’s a personal application of these verses in our everyday, mundane, ordinary lives – the focus of these verses is NOT on you and me – it’s ultimately on Jesus and our victory in the battle because of His sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary. He’s the One that ensures victory. He’s our Savior. He’s our Redeemer. He’s our Defender and Protector. The glory belongs to Him. It’s all about Jesus.

The Belt of Truth

Now, we’ve spoken in the past a little bit about lists in the Bible and how to understand lists, what conclusions you can and can’t draw concerning lists, and that sort of thing. Well, these pieces of armor, in some sense make up a list. And while I want to be careful not to establish an incorrect emphasis of certain parts of the armor of God to the detriment of other parts; nevertheless, I find it absolutely fascinating that Paul began with the soldier’s belt. And I’m, perhaps, even more surprised that he equates it with truth.

Again, think about it with me. If I gave you a picture of a modern-day soldier, and told you to use that as your inspiration for describing the armor of God where would you start? I’d be willing to bet that almost every single person would begin with the soldier’s weapon, right? We’d start with the gun, right? Paul’s version of the gun was the sword, and it’s the last thing he mentions. He starts with something that most of us wouldn’t even include in our list: the belt.

The BDU (battle dress uniform), more commonly known to us as cammo or fatigues, consists of a pair of pants, a t-shirt, and a button-own shirt. So, there’s still a need for a belt. And it still serves the same basic function as the one in Paul’s day. To be fair, Paul’s Roman centurion didn’t have a separate pair of pants (his was a single robe, or something akin to a kilt), but he used the belt to hold the extra material up when he ran or engaged in combat. So, you took the long robe/kilt-like part and you hiked it up and tucked it into the belt. That way your legs were free to move. You were less likely to trip or be hampered when moving about. And while most of us wouldn’t have included it on our list of armor, trust me; the last thing a soldier wants is his/her pants falling down in the middle of battle. So, Paul begins, and perhaps we should too, with the belt.

Paul equates it with the “truth.” And we’re left with this question: is Paul referring to “objective truth” or “subjective truth?” Objective truth would be a statement such as the one Jesus makes in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Is that what Paul means, or is he speaking more subjectively like when we talk about speaking truthfully as opposed to being liars? The commentaries are almost split 50/50. And the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced in my own heart and mind that it doesn’t need to be an either/or proposition. It’s both.

We begin by appreciating, as Paul said in chapter 1:13, “In Him [Jesus] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” Truth is founded in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Truth is founded in God, and Jesus was God in the flesh. The truth of our salvation is found in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection for the forgiveness of our sins.

At the same time, however; when we accept the truth of Jesus and the gospel, the Bible is clear that we become a near creation and there are new realities and responsibilities. So, when I say to myself and others that I’m a Christian, I’m a Christ-follower, I’m a believer in Jesus, what I’m also saying is that speaking truthfully is my new mandate. Again, Paul says in this same letter, in Ephesians 4:15, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ.” So, the truth that is represented in the belt is both objective truth (Jesus is God and thus the only way of salvation) and it’s subjective truth (as His child, I should desire to speak truthfully).

And that leads me to one last comment before we move on. What’s one of the primary things that we complain about today? Not knowing who or what to trust, right? Whether it’s politics, or healthcare, or sexuality, or education, or even religion, trust and truth are absolutely essential. We’re living in a world where truth is whatever people want it to be. Yet Paul, over 2,000 years ago, writes about the armor of God and starts with the belt of truth.

As followers of the Truth, we have an opportunity to step into the moral void and shine the light of Jesus and an understanding of God and truth that corresponds with reality – not a faked version to further someone’s partisan agenda or nefarious fantasy, but a real and true version that points to salvation and redemption from sin in Jesus alone.

The Breastplate of Righteousness

This was the hardened leather plate, perhaps even metal, that was worn over the upper body of the Roman soldier. If you’ve ever watched the movie Gladiator (featuring Russell Crowe), this is the black breastplate that had the image of two horses on it (Argento and Scatto). It would be the equivalent of our modern body armor or tactical vest with Kevlar or ballistic plating. Obviously, it covers the most vital organs: the lungs, the heart, the liver, and the spleen.

Like the belt of truth, this, too, can be spoken of in objective terms and subjective terms. For example, in 1 Corinthians 1:30, Paul writes, “And because of [God] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” In other words, it’s because of our union with Jesus that we even have a right standing before God. It’s objective. It’s concrete. It’s positional.

However, although I’ve been made right before God on account of my faith in Jesus and therefore I’m positionally righteous, that still means that as a child of God I’m supposed to seek to live righteously. In other words, just because my standing before God is as a righteous person, that doesn’t give me the right to live any old way I want. Because I’ve been made righteous by Jesus, I ought to likewise seek to live a holy and pure life and make decisions that reflect my position before God. James 1:19-20 puts it like this, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” See how that works?

See, the person who falsely declares themselves to be a Christian and who believes they have a right standing before God (when in fact they don’t trust Jesus), but who continuously lives outside of God’s will and, in some cases, obstinately refuses to change his/her lifestyle is vulnerable to every attack and is susceptible to every temptation.

If the vital organs are exposed, all it takes is one shot and you can be mortally wounded. While you don’t want to hurt your legs or arms or waist (or any part of your body for that matter), there is a sense in which those are not as important. That’s why we call these organs “vital.” It’s vital that we have the righteousness of Christ covering our hearts. When Satan accuses us of being unworthy, stand firm with the breastplate of righteousness that you received the moment you trusted Christ for your salvation.

The Shoes of the Gospel of Peace

I need to be careful talking about this, but I can hardly walk into my closet (or my bedroom, for that matter) because of all of the shoes. Ladies, what’s up with all the shoes? I single out ladies, but it’s not just women. Have you noticed the variety of footwear that’s available today? There’s a shoe for almost every conceivable outing.

There are shoes for basketball and running and tennis and golf and wrestling and auto racing and football. There are shoes for working in the yard and boots for riding horses and boots for working on the factory floor. There are shoes for church and shoes for the office environment and shoes for going out on the town. Name a scenario, any scenario, and there’s a shoe somewhere that was made specifically for that occasion. Then there are the shoes made specifically for an outfit, right ladies. Sandals for this dress and heels for that dress. Flats for this outfit and pumps for that one. Wedges over here and stilettos over there. It’s crazy, but the point is this: you need the right shoes for the job at hand.

Like the belt of truth, we don’t normally associate shoes with military armor. Nevertheless, it’s true. They’re just as significant as the other parts. Let’s go back to our soldier. Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century said that part of the military prowess of Caesar’s army had to do with their shoes. Because they had superior footwear, they were able to march longer distances than their enemies. And because their enemies had inferior shoes they weren’t able to go as far.

What shoes are we wearing – shoes of readiness to share the gospel of peace. You know, we’re told in Scripture “how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news” (Isaiah 52:7). Ephesians 2:17 says, “And [Jesus] came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.” Shoes of peace represent the fact that we are no longer at war with God. Because of Christ’s atoning work upon the cross, we’ve been reconciled to Him.

How are we doing in sharing the gospel? I don’t say this to make us feel guilty. I say it to myself. In all of our encounters and all of our opportunities, have we taken the time to speak a word for the gospel, to speak a word for Christ? Are we ready to share the Good News of the gospel? That’s our commission. Those were, in fact, the last words of Jesus to His disciples. We normally think of the Great Commission as offered in Matthew’s gospel, but listen to Mark’s gospel, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15-16a).

As we fight spiritual battles, as we take our stand for moral and righteous living in evil days, we must remember that our goal isn’t to return vengeance or hatred to the very people that need to be redeemed, that need to be saved, but rather to proclaim peace with God through Jesus Christ.

Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for the awareness that the task is never finished. Thank you that in every generation you raise up those who will take a stand, those who will take up the full armor, those who won’t tie themselves up in knots but will have an adaptability so as to seize the opportunities that are presented.

God, give us those eyes, give us that care, and grant that as we think about the future of our church, our community, and our world, that we might take seriously the exhortations of Scripture here. And we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

A Call to Battle – Ephesians 6:10-13

• August 16, 2021
• Pastor
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Ephesians 6:10-13

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to 1 Peter 5. I failed to list these verses in the bulletin, but I want to start with 1 Peter 5:6-11, and then we’ll flip back over to Ephesians 6:10-13 and read those few verses. Our Men’s Bible study has been studying 1 Peter, on Tuesday mornings, and these verses go nicely with our text from Ephesians. Also, for those of you that are our guests today, we’ve been slowly making our way through Paul’s letter to the saints in Ephesus now for about 5 months, and we’re finally on the last chapter (literally). The light is at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps we can land this plane by the end of August, the end of Summer. We’ll see.

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 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. 13 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.

Father, we pray now for Your help both in speaking and listening, and understanding, in trusting and in believing the Bible. We pray that beyond the voice of a mere man we may hear from You, that Christ may be our preacher through the Word. To this end we seek You. In His name we pray. Amen.

I know it’s a bit tedious; especially for those of you that are here every week, but it’s important that we refresh ourselves periodically about the obvious. For those that are our guests, this will be quick, but helpful. Okay.

Paul is writing from jail in about the middle of the first century. He’s writing to real people who live in a real place at a real point in time. And the Ephesus to which he writes, is the Ephesus to which he had come as described in Acts chapter 19. (You can read that later this afternoon if you’re having trouble going to sleep.) He’d gone there from Corinth, and he had begun his teaching ministry in the synagogue, as was his pattern. According to Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, that lasted three months before he was essentially kicked out. So, he moved to this lecture hall of Tyrannus, and again, Luke tells us that he taught the Bible faithfully there for two years.

He was explaining the Old Testament – that’s the only Scriptures they had at that time – and Paul was telling them that the Messiah had to suffer and to die. And then he would say, “And this Messiah is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ,” (Acts 17:3). The Jesus who had made Himself known to Paul and transformed his life was now transforming the lives of others.

Now, the people who were living at that time in Ephesus were living in a really nice place. Ephesus was a significant city of the first century. Jews and Gentiles rubbed shoulders with one another in the everyday events of life. It was cosmopolitan; it was wealthy; it was, in every sense, luxurious. At the same time, however, it was a very superstitious place, and a place that was marked by all kinds of magical potions and pagan notions. This was most evident in the Temple of Artemis (Greek), or the Temple of Diana (Roman). And if you’ve visited Ephesus, you’ve seen evidences of this, along with the large open-air arena, which had a capacity of somewhere between twenty and fifty thousand people.

So, it wasn’t some little backwater place with a few strange individuals just kicking about; it was a significant spot. And the temple dazzled people with its marble splendor as the sun shone on it. But it also cast a large shadow over the city itself, because everyone in the city was aware of these dark forces, and many of the people were afraid of them. They were magical. They were demonic powers. And so, that’s the context. That’s the background. And these new believers – some of whom had practiced this kind of stuff – find themselves in the middle of a cultural and spiritual war.

Now, it’s easy for us to disengage at this point and say, “Well, thanks for the history lesson, Pastor, but we don’t live in a place where people worship little figurines of Artemis or Diana, and where people practice magic and so forth.” If that’s your take on America in 2021, then you’re out of touch with reality. We might not worship Artemis or Diana, but Benjamin and Andrew and Ulysses work just fine (and in case you didn’t recognize those gentlemen, their faces are on the $100, $50, and the $20). We might not actively practice magic or eastern mysticism, but there’s this thing called the internet and all sorts of nonsense is found and practiced and believed out there.

Might I also point out that the battle isn’t limited to the world “out there,” wherever “out there” is. It’s not just “other” people, the “bad” people, the “evil” people that we need to guard against. Notice that the preceding chapter and the beginning of this chapter talk about marriage, and family, and work. What Paul is trying to help us understand is that the Evil One (Devil, Satan) isn’t just interested in disrupting our world and causing chaos in some peculiar or special category of our lives. He’s attempting to do that right under our very noses.

That’s why you and I might find ourselves saying, “Why is it so hard to be married? Why is it that our children don’t turn out the way we’d planned? Why is it that work can be such a raging area of discord? Why is it so hard to be the church in a contemporary world such as our own?” Because Satan, although he’s unable to prevent us from becoming a child of God, is doing everything in his power to prevent us from living as children of God. And that’s important. In fact, that’s worth the price of admission right there. If you don’t get anything else out of today’s sermon, get that. Satan is unable to prevent us from becoming children of God, but he’s most definitely working to prevent us from living as children of God.

The Bible is rather clear that Satan is real. He’s not just some figment of our imaginations, or the personification of evil. No, he’s real; and he’s a vicious enemy of Christ and anyone that would seek to follow him. His primary methods of warfare are deceit, and doubt, and division, and ultimately destruction. He fights against us morally and intellectually. He seeks to rob us of our assurance of salvation, and of our holiness in Christ. In doing so, he possesses supernatural power. Notice that I didn’t say it was unlimited. He’s not omnipotent. Only the Lord God is omnipotent. Nevertheless, Satan’s power is supernatural, and it’s ultimately under the sovereign limitation of Jesus, who came to destroy him and his works. 1 John 3:8 says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” So, the powers of darkness are defeated; but they’re not yet finally destroyed.

Now, given that understanding, it’s imperative, then, that we heed the exhortations that Paul provides in these verses. There are only two of them, and so rather than three points we just have two. The first is…

Be Strong

Verse 10, again, says “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.” This kind of language. This kind of thinking. This kind of conviction was routine for Paul, and I hope it is (or will be) for us too. Remember, back in Ephesians 1, when He’s praying for the Ephesians, one of the things he prays for is that they would know “what is the immeasurable greatness of [God’s] power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might” (Ephesians 1:19) And then, again, in chapter 3, when he’s praying for them he says, “that according to the riches of [God’s] glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being” (Ephesians 3:16).

Folks, this kind of talk, this type of mentality is vastly different from the kind of reflection that you read in books today. For example, see if this quote aligns with Ephesians 6:10 or cuts against the grain of verse 10. It goes like this, “When you’re comfortable with who you are, when you’re not trying to impress people, you’re not trying to be something that you’re not, then your own uniqueness will come out. You’ll be more creative. Your talent will come out in greater ways. The right people will show up. Why? Because you’ve stepped into the anointing on your life. Be you. You are powerful when you’re you. Here’s a key: Nobody can beat you at being you.” That’s Joel Osteen in his book Next Level Thinking. Folks, that passes for Christianity in most places. You come in, and it’s an encouragement for you to feel better about yourself, to engage yourself, to find your real self, and so on.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Don’t misunderstand what I’m trying to say, although I might not be saying it as clearly as I’d like. Yes, naturally, we should be encouraged when we come to church, when we worship. But the difference between Ephesians 6 and Next Level Thinking is who the focus is on. The Bible says it’s all about Jesus. It’s all about God. It’s all about the Holy Spirit. “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.” Man says it’s all about you. “Be you, because when you’re you, you activate your anointing. There’s a favor, a blessing, a grace that is unique to your life… The only competition you have is with yourself, to be the best that you can be.”

Really, the only competition you have is with yourself? Why, that’s strange. Look at Ephesians 6:11-12 again, “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.” The only competition you have is with yourself? Not exactly.

See, what I tend to find myself saying is “But, God, I’m not strong.” And the Bible says, “That’s right! You’re not strong, but God in Christ is.” I’m reminded of Isaiah 41:10, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Or Deuteronomy 31:6, “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” Or Exodus 15:2, “The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise Him, my father’s God, and I will exalt Him.” Do you hear the difference? Do you see where the focus is?

By the way, just a side note; did you notice that all of those passages came from the Old Testament. Of course, there are passages in the New Testament, like the one we’re considering right now (Ephesians 6:10), that speak about strength in Christ Jesus, but it’s just a good reminder that the Old Testament is vital for a healthy Christian faith. Please don’t fall victim to the false notion promulgated by some pastors and preachers and faith leaders that the Old Testament is of little/no value for the Christian.

The difference is that rather than focus on ourselves and gain strength from within ourselves, we’re strengthened “in the strength of His might,” strengthened in His grace – the grace that’s made clear to us in the gospel: knowing that God loves me, knowing that God forgives me, knowing that Jesus helps me, that Jesus comforts me, that the Spirit enables me, that the Spirit secures me, and not on account of my merit, but all on account of His mercy. Indeed, be strong, but be strong in your faith in the Lord and in the strength of His might, which is found in the truth of Scripture.

Stand Firm

Finally, a word or two about standing firm. It’s mentioned three times. Once in verse 11, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” And then twice in verse 13, “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.”

Some of you might recognize the name Watchman Nee. He was a Chinese church leader and Christian teacher. His ministry was influenced by the Plymouth Brethren. In 1922, he initiated church meetings, he published many books expounding the Bible, he established churches throughout China and held many conferences to train Bible students and church workers. Following the Communist Revolution, Nee was persecuted and imprisoned for his faith and spent the last twenty years of his life in prison. One of his books actually takes its title from the book of Ephesians. He called it Sit, Walk, Stand. It was published in 1957, and each of the three sections of the book follows Paul’s exhortations.

In the first section titled “Sit,” Nee described the believer’s position in Christ; raised with Him to the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6). In the second section, under the heading “Walk,” he tackles the ongoing experience of life in the world: “Walk, then, and not according to the way that your previously did” (Ephesians 4:17-24, paraphrased). And then, in the final section, under the heading “Stand,” he uses these verses to outline our attitude towards the enemy.

How are we going to stand? How are we going to make sure that we can withstand these attacks? The answer is by putting on the whole armor of God – by “taking up” the armor of God, as Paul puts it in verse 13. And while the picture that Paul paints in the following verses mimics the armor of a Roman soldier (perhaps the one chained to him as he writes this letter), the armor is really just faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, faith in the completed work of Jesus on the cross of Calvary. We’ll look at that in the coming weeks, but to put on the armor of God is not to sort of try and do things ourselves, or make things happen in order that we might be more acceptable and more effective. Rather, it’s actually to take ahold of that which has already been given to us.

See, Satan wants us to abandon righteousness. He wants us to abandon faith. He wants us to abandon peace. He wants us to abandon truth. In short, he wants us to abandon the gospel. He wants us to abandon Jesus. And folks, in the cultural and moral and spiritual battles that we’re facing in 2021, people that once called themselves Christians are abandoning their faith.

Let me just offer you a quick real-world example of what Ephesians 6 looks like and feels like. On Tuesday, I received this e-mail:

Good morning Pastor Lee,

Rick and I are new residents of Glassy since November; we attend Mountain Hill on the weekends we are at our home (we still reside in Boiling Springs, NC to care for my dad). We are active members/leaders in our NC community church, yet we truly enjoy services at Mountain Hill. In the future when we make Glassy our permanent home, we look forward to more time with the church community.

Our daughter, Nicolette, is scheduled to wed on Friday, October 8th at the Glassy Chapel assuming COVID does not impact her wedding, as it did our other daughter’s last year. Nicolette did have to scale it down to only 50 guests. A little history about her (and why this ask). She is a physician assistant at Prisma Health living in Simpsonville. The church she was attending was a megachurch across the street from her townhome. It closed, of course, during COVID and she never made a connection in the church. They are hoping to move to the Traveler’s Rest area in the next few months (prayers their home offer comes through this week).

Our pastor (and hers for over 25 years) in NC has a son getting married the same weekend as Nicolette, so he is not an option to perform her ceremony. Our other friend/pastor has a new baby, and is leading his church through a difficult transition, and is too far away geographically for Nicolette and James to complete their marriage counseling based on his new schedule and her busy PA schedule.

I suggested asking you, as I appreciate your foundational theology and leadership at Mountain Hill. We recognize this is a “late” ask (at least feels late to us for one of the most important roles in the ceremony), and the young couple know they would need to spend time with you prior to a ceremony.

The ceremony is at 4:30 PM…

On Thursday I responded:

Please accept my apologies for such a delayed response.

I’d be happy to meet with Nicolette and James and help them through some pre-martial counseling. And I’d be honored to officiate their wedding. You mentioned Nicolette living in Simpsonville and the couple hoping to move towards the Travelers Rest area. Where does James presently live?

(Now, folks, here’s where Satan whispered in my ear. Here’s where the “feel good” religion and faith of our contemporary society was really challenging me. My next statement could go one of two ways, right? Biblical or cultural.)

Just so that everyone is on the same page; I will ask them not to cohabitate (if at all possible) before the wedding. I understand that some previous decisions might make this impossible, and we can discuss that. Otherwise, I think it’s best if couples not live together. I will also be more than happy to meet at a time/location that’s convenient for them, but my office and the church is always available.

Speak with your husband and Nicolette and James, and simply let me know what they’d like to do.

And this was the response:

Good evening,

No apology needed relative to your timing. It is a busy time generally speaking in all of our lives.

I have to be honest, that I am smiling with a warm heart regarding your comments about their living arrangements. They both have their own apartment/townhome even though they are in the same neighborhood. Rick and I have been very clear about our beliefs, and fortunately they have listened. They have been trying to buy a home for about six months (two official offers this week and both declined). Their hopes are to live in the middle between Glassy and Greenville.

Now, again, I don’t offer that to you as a way of bragging or boasting (heavens no). I’m as feeble and frail and vulnerable and sinful as any pastor that stands behind a pulpit. I’m only offering it to you to as an illustration that Satan’s schemes are crafty. Satan wants us to abandon our convictions, and embrace societal norms and the whims of the day. But “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.”

Rather, in the words the Rev. Dr. George Duffield in his hymn Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus:

Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
Stand in His strength alone;
The arm of flesh will fail you,
Ye dare not trust your own:
Put on the gospel armor,
Each piece put on with pray’r;
Where duty calls, or danger,
Be never wanting there.

Lord God, we thank You that Your Word is fixed in the heavens, and that even as we speak and listen now, we realize how completely countercultural and counterintuitive it is to say these things, how hard it is for us to go against the mainstream. Lord, we don’t take these positions or make these stands to be antagonistic or disruptive, but because we firmly believe that Your Word is true. Help us, we pray, to be strong and to stand firm in You and in Your Word. Enable us, and help us to this end, we pray. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

A Word to Husbands – Ephesians 5:25-33

• August 10, 2021
• Pastor
• 0 Comments

Ephesians 5:25-33

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Ephesians 5:25-33. This is the last sermon in chapter 5 (amen?). Before I read today’s scripture, let me say a word (or two) about my own marriage because it seems to me that if I’m going to talk about marriage, particularly the task of husbands, then you should know a little bit about me and be immediately relieved of any thought that I have a perfect marriage.

I’ve been married to Melissa for 22 going on 23 years – half the time as many of you (I know). We have two boys: Jordan (18) and Parker (16). We were foster parents for Jordan when he was 11 months old, and we simply hung on and turned that into adoption about a year later. Parker came to us by way of much medical assistance and invitro fertilization.

Secondly, thanks to the counsel of many of you, I know that parenting doesn’t end when your child(ren) turn eighteen. You never stop being a parent. That is, you never stop carrying the burden that your children will walk with the Lord, that their marriages will last, that their children will grow up to know Christ, that they won’t make shipwreck of the lives in any foolish way. You never get beyond carrying that burden. Like Job, every morning you get on your face and you intercede for your grown children that they will walk steadfastly with the Lord. Of course, you do that with your little teeny ones as well.

The third observation is that our marriage has been a tumultuous one – a difficult and happy one: one mingled with pain and ecstasy. I don’t know many marriages that aren’t difficult. It seems that all marriages are some combination of the two. Back in 2014, Melissa and I separated for a period of about 8 months. But thanks be to God and His marvelous grace, wonderful Christian counselors, many people’s prayers, and much repentance we were able to work through those difficulties. So, wherever you think you happen to be on the scale from blessed marital happiness to marital misery, I pray
that God would minister to you.

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Eternal Father, as we give our attention now to Your holy Word, I pray that my preaching of this text would drop as the rain, that my speaking would distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb (Deuteronomy 32:2). I ask that we might see and savor the great love that You have for Your church, and how that ought to be reflected in our relationships – especially our marriages. For we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

One other thing came to my mind while I was praying that helps me. It helps me when I counsel families or counsel couples who are feeling hopeless about their relationship. Let’s say you’re forty years old, and you’ve been married for fifteen years. And it feels like it’s a mess. It’s just a mess. “I can’t live with this woman another thirty years.” And you’re tempted to bail out on the relationship. I want you to imagine something. This is what Melissa and I imagine.

I want you to imagine you’re now seventy-five years old, you have grey hair, and your skin is all wrinkled. She’s not shapely anymore and you’re not shapely anymore. You’re sitting across from each other at a little restaurant on the shore of your favorite lake or beach, and outside little birds are jumping between the bushes. Little waves are rippling, the sun is shining, and you’re looking at each other across this table at age seventy-five. Don’t you want to be able to look into her eyes at age seventy-five, and with tears perhaps running down your face say, “We made it; we made it?”

I want that more than ten million dollars. I want to look into my wife’s eyes when I’m 75 – like many of you have – and say, “Melissa, it was hard at times, and I’m very glad that you’re here with me. We made it.” That will be sweet. It will be worth it all. It will be worth it all to be able to say in ripe old age, “We made it.”

Today, I want us to see four ways that husbands are to love their wives. And I say “us” because this isn’t just a sermon directed to husbands – it’s also directed to wives. Just like last week’s message wasn’t solely intended for the women, but the men. In fact, last week’s sermon and this week’s sermon aren’t limited to just married people. They’re sermons for all of us regardless of our marital status.

Now, you might be sitting there a bit confused, so let me explain what I’m talking about. While Ephesians 5:22-33 is addressed to husbands and wives, and there are very real-world lessons to be learned and applied in our marriages from these verses – that’s not the only thing that’s being addressed. Paul takes the opportunity, while speaking to husbands and wives, to also remind everybody (again, regardless of marital status) that if you’re a Christian, if you seek to follow Jesus, then you’re already a part of a marriage. Notice verse 32, “This mystery [referring to marriage] is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

So, ladies: single, widowed, married, whatever your status – while some of you might be tempted today to say to yourself, “Well, my husband doesn’t do that.” Or “I wish my husband were here to listen to this.” Or “If only my husband were that way…” Those criticisms may very well be true, but I hope that you’ll understand that whether or not you have an earthly husband that loves you like this – never forget that you have a spiritual husband that loves you exactly like this. For any single woman that might be contemplating marriage, or widowed woman that might be thinking about re-marriage, or maybe you’re a single gal and you have no intention of marriage – whatever your situation – be assured that your heavenly Father loves you exactly like this.

For you guys here today, the connection is a little simpler to make and at the same time and little more difficult. It’s easier because you can see your role as a husband, and you can evaluate yourself as an earthly husband in light of these verses (which ought to be the case). But it’s also more difficult, because we know that we’ll never be like our spiritual mentor – the Lord Jesus Christ. We’ll never be perfect like Him, and the temptation is to simply give up or settle for less just because we know we won’t be perfect. In that case the challenge is to lean into the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and be a better husband tomorrow than today, and next week than this week, and next month than this month, and next year than this year.

“Husbands, love your wives…” Three times it comes: verse 25, verse 28, and verse 33. In fact, in Greek, the instruction that Paul gives to the wives is 40 words; to the men there’s 115 words. While I’m certainly not going to entertain a debate about who has the more difficult task in the marriage, I will say (on behalf of the ladies), that apparently Paul knew that husbands were hard of hearing and needed to be spoken to at length in the hopes that they would hear just a part of what he was saying (amen?).

Love Sacrificially

I think it’s important that we begin by recognizing what Paul meant when he said “love.” If you’ve been around church circles long enough, or been a part of a Bible study, or listened to your fair share of sermons, then you know that the Greek language has four words that mean “love.”

There’s phileo, or “brotherly” love. That’s the kind of love that we have in our friendships with one another. And certainly, that ought to be a part of our marriages, but that’s not the word that Paul uses. There’s eros, from which we get the word “erotic.” It’s a word that describes desire. Again, that ought to be a part of our marriages, provided our desires are ONLY for our spouses, but that’s not the word that Paul uses. There’s also storge, or familial-love, the love that a parent has for their child(ren). Again, a type of love that ought to be characteristic of our marriages, but not the word that Paul uses here. Which leaves us with what (agape)?

That’s right. It’s a word that is expressive of self-sacrifice and of self-abasement. It doesn’t focus on what I’m getting; it focuses upon what I’m giving. It’s not about what I’m due, or what I deserve; it’s about what I owe. It’s not about my self-satisfaction; it’s about giving myself up for the satisfaction of another. In the New Testament, it’s almost always used to describe the love that comes from God.

So, husbands, let’s not get off on the wrong foot by thinking that we’ve done our job because we’ve loved our wives and yet have the wrong understanding of what’s being said. Someone once said that it doesn’t cost a lot to get married, but it costs a lot to be married – and that’s true. Love that isn’t costly isn’t love, because true love is sacrificial. That’s why Paul grounds this love in the image of the gospel. That’s why he points to Jesus’ sacrifice for the sins of mankind, and specifically the church.

Husbands, are we sacrificing ourselves daily for our wives? Are we giving up our own egos in order to esteem our wives? Are we going before the Lord everyday in prayer asking that He would help us to put to death, to sacrifice anything that might hinder us from becoming the husband that our wives need us to be? Are we forgiving our wives as Christ forgives us?

Love Purposefully

Notice what verses 26-27 says was the reason for Christ dying on the cross. It was so “that He might sanctify [the church], having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” You say, “Ok, I can see how that relates to Jesus and the Church, but I’m not understanding the connection between me and my wife (or if you’re a wife, my husband and me).” Can you put that in a way that I’ll understand it? Well, I’m going to try.

While the husband isn’t responsible to God for his wife’s spiritual purity – I can’t make my wife spiritually pure – nevertheless, my goal in loving my wife is to create an environment in which she can become all she was meant to be for God. In other words, a husband’s love ought to encourage his wife to reach her full potential in Jesus. The reason a husband loves his wife this way is because although he can’t force her to be holy, he most definitely wants to do everything he can to encourage her spiritual growth in Christ.

I found the teaching and preaching of one of my heroes, Alistair Begg, to be particularly helpful in these verses. Listen to what he said, “The husband’s role is not ultimately to make sure his wife is physically and emotionally sustained. That is part. But the real objective is that his wife will be prepared to meet Jesus on that day when she takes her part in the great company of the bride, where there are no wrinkles, where there are no spots, where there are no stains.”

Let me see if I can illustration this using the life of Charles Thomas Studd. (By the way, what an awesome last name. “Mr. Studd?” “Why, yes, that’s me.”) Anyway, C.T. Studd was a British missionary to China and later founded The Heart of Africa Mission, which ultimately became a world-wide evangelical mission agency to spread the gospel to unreached peoples. He made his wife say a little poem every day to when she did her Bible reading. He wanted her to understand this. So, she had to say, “Dear Lord Jesus, You are to me, dearer than Charlie ever could be.”

Here’s the deal. He wanted her to know that there was going to be a time when he wouldn’t be there. And unless he was preparing her to love Jesus wholeheartedly – if she loved him more than she loved Jesus – then when he left on mission, or when he died, then she’d be stuck. Husbands, are we loving our wives with a purpose – to help them grow spiritually?

Love Passionately

The passion that I’m talking about here isn’t the bedroom kind, it’s the kind that we have for life in general. Paul says that husbands are to love their wives with the same care and concern that they exercise for themselves. How do we do that?

Well, we eat, we sleep, hopefully we go to the doctor when we’re sick. We spend the money that’s necessary and we invest the time and energy required to keep ourselves “operational,” as it were. Paul says that’s the way we ought to love our wives – with the same care and concern. The reason is tied back into the Genesis account. Notice that Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 here. In other words, when a husband cares for his wife, when he loves her in this way, he does so because the two have become one.

Now there are two actions that a husband (or a man) will take (v. 29): he nourishes and cherishes. And I want to take just a quick second and focus on those before we conclude.

Husbands, nourish your wives. What do I mean by that? Well, think about the word “nourish.” It’s the word from which we get our word “nutrition.” We live in a day and age when dietary health and wellness are all the rage. People are so worried about ill health that they’re swallowing pills of all kinds to add everything to their bodies that they aren’t getting in their diet. Now, some of this is necessary, I get that. But when we nourish our bodies what are we doing? We’re eating a healthy diet, exercising, get plenty of rest, and taking whatever next steps that we need to in order to thrive.

A husband who nourishes his wife will do the same thing in her emotional, mental, and physical life. He’ll do whatever is necessary to make sure her needs are met. He’ll be diligent in the areas of their marriage and homelife that are his responsibility. In other words, he’ll do everything he can to make sure she’s living in a healthy state of mind and spirit.

Second, husbands, cherish your wives. The Greek word that Paul uses is thalpo. It means “to warm up”, as in to revive their health. It’s only used one other time in all of the New Testament, besides here in Ephesians. In 1 Thessalonians 2:7, Paul and Silas and Timothy are writing to the church in Thessalonica and they say, “But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.” That’s the picture of this word. It’s this idea of being tender.

Guys, we’re called to be tender with our wives – the same way we would be with a tiny infant. Now, I’m not meaning to imply that our wives are “helpless” or “needy” like an infant. Not at all; this isn’t speaking about a wife’s condition, rather this is about the attitude a husband takes with his wife. We need to put away the Macho Man image and learn to relate to our wives in a tender and loving fashion.

Men, do you love your wives? And who would say “no,” right (at least out loud). But I wonder, do we really love our wives the way Paul (and God) call us to? Let me conclude with this illustration. If you listen to country music, first of all, I forgive you; and secondly, I’m prepared to join you from time to time. But here’s the test for husbands. I call this the Garth Brooks Test. Remember the song If Tomorrow Never Comes:

Sometimes late at night,
I lie awake and watch her sleeping,
And she’s lost in peaceful dreams,
So, I just turn out the light and lie there in the dark.
And the thought crosses my mind,
If I never wake up in the morning,
Would she ever doubt the way I feel
About her in my heart?

If tomorrow never comes,
Will she know how much I loved her?
Do I try in every way to show her every day
That she’s the only one?
And if my time on earth were through,
And she must face this world without me,
Is the love I gave her in the past
Gonna be enough to last
If tomorrow never comes?

You say, “Well, that’s just a bunch of country, western sentimentalism.” It doesn’t need to be. Let’s consider if we’re loving sacrificially, loving purposefully, and loving passionately. Does she know?

A Word to Wives – Ephesians 5:21-24

• August 1, 2021
• Pastor
• 0 Comments

Ephesians 5:21-24

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Ephesians 5:21-24. If you’re visiting with us this morning, boy did you pick a fine time to stop in. We’ve been going through Paul’s letter to the saints in Ephesus, and today we get to some verses that are . . . well, they’re tough on our western ears and modern sensibilities. In fact, I was trying to figure out how to introduce today’s message in a way that would set us at ease, and at the same time maintain a proper sense of reverence and the following group text actually developed on my phone.

Here’s how this went down. On Thursday, I texted my uncle – our illustrious music minister – to ask if he’d be willing to give the closing prayer. He responded, “Ha. Maybe Mel. Let me ask her.” (Mel is my aunt Melissa, also known as Gammy.)

At this point I get a group text message from my uncle that also includes my aunt Melissa. So, there are three (3) of us on this text thread. You got the picture? Aunt, uncle, and nephew – and the nephew also happens to be the pastor. Here’s how it begins.

James: Melissa, we have you down for the closing prayer on Sunday. (Did you notice that sleight of hand – we have you down???)

Melissa: You serious, Clark? (Clark is a reference to Clark Griswold, made famous by actor Chevy Chase. That’s Fox-family ribbing.)

James: Lee? (As if to ask for my assistance.)

Lee: Gammy, I asked James and he put it off on you. Shocker.

Melissa: Not surprised…

James: I like hearing Gammy pray.

Then there’s a 20-minute hiatus on the texts. Finally, I get a response from James that says, “Ok, Gammy will pray. Lee is preaching on wives submitting.”

Melissa: Ha.

Lee: (rolling eyes emoji) I see that I have my work cut out for me on Sunday.

James: Lol

Melissa: Oh yeah…

Lee: You can be sure this little exchange will find its way into the sermon as an illustration.

James: Ha.

Melissa: Yikes!!!

Let me just say, that’s great. That’s real marriage. And clean humor, too. That’s two people that know each other, and love each other, and aren’t afraid to give each other a little bit of a hard time. With that as our introduction, let’s read Ephesians 5:21-24:

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Our Father and our God, I ask that Your Holy Spirit would give us a clear and right understanding of these words – that we not regard them with disgust, as our world and society do, but that we might receive them as they are: the words of the Living God. Help me, I pray, to speak that which is true of You and Your plan for marriages and families, through Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

One of the benefits or, in my case, challenges of expository preaching, book-by-book, and chapter-by-chapter, is that you’re forced to deal with these things. We truly get the full counsel of God – not some cherrypicked verses here and there, or only the “good stories”, as if to suggest that all of God’s Word isn’t “good.” Nope, my calling is to faithfully present the Bible and let the Spirit of God bring it to bear on our hearts and minds, as we humbly seek to follow Him.

So, for those of you that were not here last week, or you haven’t listened to the replay, we took a step back in order to make sure that we understood a number of things. First, unless we believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and fully authoritative for the way we conduct ourselves privately and corporately, there’s no basis for me to offer these truths…there’s no reason for us to believe them…there’s no mandate for us to live according to them. Of course, by implication, this means that we’re careful to faithfully interpret the text and not simply refashion and revise the text for the feelings and attitudes of the day.

Second, I hoped to make sure that we noticed our identity is NOT primarily based upon whether we were married or single, but rather that our identity is first and foremost as people made in the image of God, and then, secondly, as redeemed by the grace of Christ. In other words, just because these verses speak directly to husbands and wives, if you’re single or divorced or widowed, don’t think that you can tune them out. Ultimately, Paul says, in verses 32 and 33 that this is about Christ and the church. So even if you’re a widowed spouse, or a single young person, if you’re a Christian and you’re a part of the church of Jesus Christ, then this has an application for you. Paul calls it a “mystery” in verse 32, and the idea is that you’re a part of a marriage even though from an earthly perspective you may not be married.

Third, because of sin, each of us comes to a text about husbands and wives, about marriage, and relationships with scars. Some of us come to verses like this looking for affirmation that our view of marriage was and is “right,” and our attitude is self-righteous. Others approach these texts with our defenses raised, knowing that people have abused these verses and used them to justify their own selfish means. Still others may be completely apathetic. You’re tired of all the back and forth between Christians and non-Christians concerning marriage: what is and isn’t a marriage, all the opinions concerning sexual orientation and gender identity. Your tempted to just throw in the towel and say “What difference does it make? Can we just move on?” So, because of sin, I think it’s important that we remember – as husbands, as wives, as single people, as widowed people, wherever you happen to be on that spectrum – God, through Jesus, forgives sin and can restore us and strengthen us to live faithfully and joyfully for His glory.

I’ve gathered my thoughts, today, under three (3) rather simple headings: The Connection, The Direction, and The Explanation.

The Connection

Look back at verse 21, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” There’s some question among commentators as to whether or not this verse provides the conclusion to the earlier section, or whether it’s the introduction to our verses. In my own opinion, I think it’s an irrelevant discussion, because it seems pretty obvious (to me, at least) that it serves both purposes. There are two reason that I even mention it.

First, we have to remember that we’re reading a letter. The chapters and verses wouldn’t have been in the original letter. Now, that doesn’t mean that we simply throw out the chapter and verse markings. No, they’re really quite helpful and almost indispensable in Bible study and preaching. Just imagine how long and hard it would be to study the Bible without easy reference to specific places within the text. “Hey everybody, turn to the story of Balaam and his talking donkey.” “I didn’t know Shrek was part of the Bible.” See how hard that would be if we didn’t have chapters and verses (by the way, the reference is 2 Kings 2:23-25).

I’m simply pointing out the fact that if we were reading the letter, as it was originally written, we probably wouldn’t have even considered the question. It would just naturally flow as concluding one part of Paul’s letter to the next.

The second reason that I mention it is because verse 22, which is the verse that gives everyone such heartburn, doesn’t even make sense in the original Greek text without verse 21. The word “submit” in verse 22 isn’t even in the Greek text. Literally, the reading of verse 22, in the Greek is “wives to their own husbands and to the Lord.” We have a subject (wives) and we have an object (their own husbands and the Lord), but there’s no verb. There’s no word informing us to the action of the wives to their husbands or to the Lord. So, in this technical sense alone, there’s a need to have verse 21 remain connected to verse 22, because it’s this verse that gives us the “thing” that wives are supposed to do.

So, while it’s tempting to start my words to wives this morning with verse 22, which is where a lot of sermons about husbands and wives start (and finish, by the way), I can’t really do that. I have to go back to pick up verse 21. And I think that’s a good thing, because it forces us to recognize something that’s obvious, but also overlooked – it takes two to make marriage work. Ruth Graham used to say, “If a husband and wife always agreed about everything, then one of them wasn’t necessary! God gave marriage to us, and He knew we’d need each other’s gifts and strengths.”

Now, having said that, the fact remains that “submitting” to their husbands is what Paul instructs wives to do, which brings me to the direction.

The Direction

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22). As soon as you introduce the ‘s’ word, submission, all kinds of triggers go off. I mean, it can get people really fired up in all kinds of contexts but the Bible uses it fairly straightforwardly and rather frequently (approximately 38 times). It always has as its underlying picture a military metaphor – of lining up under authority. So, for example, it’s the picture of soldiers being brought out onto the parade ground, and they’re clearly under the authority and control of their commanding officer.

If you don’t like that one, then perhaps we could take the choir or a sports team or whatever it might be, and recognize that when people take part in a choir there’s a sense in which they lose something of their own individuality, because this isn’t a solo performance. And although they don’t lose their complete identity, nevertheless, it’s subsumed under the context of the choir as a whole. The group is more significant together than any individual is on their own.

I think it’s fair to say that verse 22 is rather clear, isn’t it? I don’t mean that it’s politically correct or that it’s not offensive. In fact, it’s not uncommon to find Christians who are embarrassed by this statement, who then are defensive and apologetic. And the reason for that isn’t because it’s impossible to understand; it’s because it’s virtually impossible to misunderstand. The word “submit” comes from two Greek words hupo (meaning “under”) and tassó (meaning “arrange”). So, hupotassó properly translated means to be “under God’s arrangement,” to be “under His plan.”

So, if it means what it says, then let’s make sure that we don’t make it say something that it doesn’t mean. Let’s make it absolutely clear that the directive for a wife to submit to her husband doesn’t imply, in any way, inferiority. That’s often the accusation or the charge that people use to justify a hard-edged approach to this idea. No, the Bible is very clear that we’re equal in dignity – as made in the image of God – and that we’re equal in redemption – as saved by and through the Lord, Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 3:7, speaking to husbands, says, “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life…” Our standing before God, as made in His image is entirely equal. Our standing before Christ, as redeemed in Jesus is entirely equal.

Now the reason this is important (and let’s be totally honest) is because in many cases our wives are wiser and more competent in all kinds of areas than we ourselves are as husbands. And you don’t have to get very far into marriage to realize this. So, we’re not talking about ability or inferiority. It’s about God’s order, which is why we started with Genesis 2 last week.

Secondly, the submission of a wife is not passive. It’s active. In other words, it’s not subjugation. It’s not the result of coercion. Nowhere in this text, or the one further down regarding husbands, or anywhere else in the Bible, will you find that it’s the responsibility of the husband to tell his wife about how it is she’s supposed to submit. That’s not part of his job. It’s not part of his identity. So, the wife isn’t coerced into submission by a domineering and tyrannical husband. No, it’s voluntary; it’s joyful.

Third, I want us all to notice that the directive is to “submit to your own husbands,” not to everybody else’s husband. In other words, this isn’t a general principle about the place of women in society. This is specific to the home. We cannot use this text, although some do, to argue that a woman’s place is in the home.

Fourth, the wife’s submission is to be “as to the Lord.” If you still have your Bibles open, look back at the end of verse 21, “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” When Paul gets to the issue of children, in chapter 6:1, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord.” When he gets to bondservants and masters, “Obey your earthly masters…as you would Christ…doing the will of God from the heart” (Ephesians 6:5-6). So, in other words, the whole issue within the framework of marriage is that the desire of the wife to submit first to the Lord is to be revealed in part by her submission to her husband. The wife says to herself, “Part of my responsibility to you, Lord Jesus, is to live under your lordship. And because I’m going to live under your lordship, I’m going to submit to this guy. Not perfect, horribly imperfect in many ways, dumber than a brick in certain areas, but in order to display your lordship in my life this is what I aspire to do.”

Fifth, look down to verse 24, as it closes “in everything.” It’s getting worse, isn’t it? Why can’t it say, “in certain things,” or “in the areas that I want it to be,” or “in areas spelled out in our prenuptials?” Again, God’s order, God’s Word, God’s direction. Now, this is where we have to use proper methods of interpretation (hermeneutics). The wife is not bound to submit to something her husband requests if it’s against God’s command. So, for example, if her husband tells her to participate in something that’s illegal or immoral, then the wife is excused. Similarly, if the husband isn’t a believer and he forbids his wife from praying or attending church or reading her Bible, then there’s an exception. It has to be this way, otherwise there would be no biblical grounds for domestic violence. A husband has no right to subject his wife to physical or sexual abuse by the misapplication of this verse. So, that’s the direction.

The Explanation

That brings me to my final point and that’s the explanation. “Okay, Paul has put forth the instruction – wives submit to your husbands – but on what basis are you grounding this instruction? What’s the basis of your argument, Paul?” And for that you have to look to verse 23, “For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior.” Paul makes two arguments here. The first is from creation, and the second is from redemption.

Do you see, now, why we started with Genesis 2 last week? According to Paul, the reason for the wife’s submission lies in the fact that God has given to man the place and the role of leadership. And this was established from the very beginning of creation. If you look at 1 Timothy 2 or 1 Corinthians 11, in both of those places Paul grounds his argument not in himself, not in his own wisdom, not because Paul was on some ego trip and was a male chauvinist, but in God’s own creation.

In fact, one of the arguments by some people (including some Christians) against these verses comes along this line: “Well, you know, Paul lived a long time ago and he was writing to people in a different society and a different culture. But, hey, we’re better educated and more sophisticated and our world is not his world and so none of this applies today.” But there’s two problems with that argument: first it’s primarily an argument based on the passage of time, and second, it’s an argument based on changing factors instead of unchanging factors.

Let me quickly unpack those for you. The argument that a lot of time has passed since Paul wrote these verses falls on its face, because when Paul was writing this to the original audience he was more than 2,000 years removed from creation. In other words, Paul reaches back to creation to establish his argument. We’re only reaching back to Paul’s time. So, if time makes something like wives submitting to husbands irrelevant, then surely Paul’s audience would have had the better argument. Do you see that?

The second argument is that we’ve changed, we’ve gotten smarter, our world and our culture aren’t the same. To that I say, “You’re right, our world is different, but so was Paul’s world.” Roman architecture was vastly different than it was in Adam and Eve’s day. The clothing of the Pharisees and the Roman guards was very different than the first clothes ever made, which were sewed together by Adam and Eve using fig leaves. Paul isn’t arguing that education and technology and culture hasn’t changed. Indeed, it had. Paul’s argument is based on something that can never change – the fact that man was created before woman. Not superiority, simply chronology.

And if you’re dealing with someone (maybe even yourself) that wants to challenge you on using Genesis because they believe it’s a myth or a legend, well, just remind them that Jesus apparently didn’t have a problem using Genesis. He referred to the days of Noah when He described His second coming in Matthew 24, and He also spoke about Jonah as He described His own resurrection in Matthew 12.

The fact of the matter is this, and our world (and even some Christians) simply don’t want to acknowledge it, God made man and woman. He made them equal in dignity, but He didn’t make them identical in role. God made you (ladies) wonderfully different, purposefully so, equal under creation, equal as heirs of the grace of Jesus Christ, and He’s done it in a way that’s good for humanity, be He knows best. He’s the Creator.

The reason that some of us bristle at these verses and we’re just ready for this service to be over is because of Genesis 3. The serpent comes and deceives Eve, and she listens to the serpent rather than to Adam. And guys, what’s worse is that Adam was present. Adam was there. Adam didn’t step into the leadership role that God intended. And worse still is that neither of them obeyed what God had instructed. And the result was disastrous. In fact, ladies, do you want to know why so many women struggle with submission? One of the resulting consequences from the Fall, as recorded in Genesis 3:16 is this, “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband…” Instead of desiring to submit to your husband, you’ll just try to assert your leadership over him. “But he will rule over you.” Whether that means he will rule over you the way he should (probably not), or he will rule over you in a desire to dominate you (probably so).

But you see, this is where the Good News of Jesus comes into play. In Jesus, we have a second Adam. The first Adam disobeyed, rebelled, created chaos. Christ comes as the second Adam and obeys, even submits, to the Father’s will. He takes the judgment that Adam deserved, so that the broken and twisted and distorted results of sin can be renewed and repaired.

Husband, wife, single person, whoever you are and whatever relationship you’re in today let me just ask you this: Do you care enough about Jesus and His bride (the church) to bring yourself in line with and under the authority of the Bible, even when it’s so fundamentally demanding, and so politically incorrect?

Marriage: Do-Re-Mi – Genesis 2-3; Ephesians 5:21

• July 27, 2021
• Pastor
• 0 Comments

Genesis 2-3; Ephesians 5:21

Let me invite you to turn with me to Genesis 2-3. When I was just a kid, I fell in love (temporarily, of course) with Julie Andrews. The first movie of hers that I saw was Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins. And when paired up with Dick Van Dyke and his wonderful facial expressions – well, what kid wouldn’t like Mary Poppins as a nanny. Her next film was the musical The Sound of Music, where she played Maria von Trapp. Obviously, a storyline that was a bit more serious and realistic than the fanciful flying nanny of London. Either way, by that time, I was a sucker for Julie Andrews.

The song “Do-Re-Mi” comes to us from The Sound of Music and the first verse goes like this:

Let’s start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
When you read you begin with A B C
When you sing you begin with Do Re Mi
Do Re Mi, Do Re Mi
The first three notes just happen to be
Do Re Mi, Do Re Mi
Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti
Let’s see if I can make it easier

Doe, a deer, a female deer
Ray, a drop of golden sun
Me, a name I call myself
Far, a long, long way to run
Sew, a needle pulling thread
La, a note to follow Sew
Tea, I drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to Do, oh oh oh

So, what does this have to do with Ephesians 5? Well, the more I studied Ephesians 5:21ff the more I realized that there are certain matters that lie behind Paul’s understanding of marriage. And unless we’re clear concerning those matters, we won’t make much headway over the next week or two. We’re going to start in Genesis 2:15 and read to Genesis 3:7.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Finally, Ephesians 5:21 says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (NIV).

“Our God and Father, we pray now that Your Word would be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, that the words which come from my mouth and the thoughts that we have in our minds and the responses of our wills might be in keeping with the wonder of Your grace to us in Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.”

As the song says, “When you read you begin with A B C. When you sing you being with Do Re Mi.” When you talk about husbands and wives you need to start at the very beginning – a very good place to start. So, I’ve gathered my thoughts under three phrases.

The Culture’s Corruption

You say, “Well, why begin with such a word as this?” Well, I take it to refer to the state of marriage in our day. Some of you might say, “How about confusion?” Perhaps. Certainly, it’s a more moderate word, a more temperate word, but I’m not sure that confusion really does justice to the state of marriage today. It’s not simply that men and women are confused. It’s not simply that they don’t understand, rather men and women are actually in rebellion. They’re opposed to what they understand. Just witness the increased incidences of divorce, the stories that emerge every day of children being brought up in broken homes. And even when we’ve said all that we want to say about the mitigating factors, much of it lies at the feet of the individuals who find themselves in rebellion against the Bible.

The Bible is quite clear about the nature of these things, and yet marriage is ignored, in increasing numbers, by those who’ve chosen instead to cohabitate. Other people in our culture regard marriage as a cage, a restriction, a human invention, something that’s been put together in order to accommodate circumstances, and the best that they can do is get out of it as quickly as they possibly can.

It’s been redefined in our day and in our nation so as to legalize what God has never designed. And it is absolutely clear from the Bible, no matter what government legislates, that any other relationship other than a monogamous, heterosexual relationship cannot be and is not a marriage before God. You may call it whatever you choose to call it, but it’s not marriage before God as God has constituted men and women and the structure of society from the very beginning. We read just a moment ago, that from the very beginning God ordained marriage as between one man and one woman for life. And He is concerned about all marriage, in all cultures, at all times, because He’s the very designer of the deal.

Moral decay and rottenness, in this respect, are simply another tangible illustration of the fact that we live in the world, and we wage war not as the world wages war, but we wage war, as Paul says in Ephesians 6 (if we ever get there) “not … against flesh and blood, but against … spiritual [wickedness] in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). And that spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places, expressed in so many different ways, is often clearly seen in the agitation on the part of the Evil One to encourage us to take what God has given for our good and for His glory and to pervert it in such a fashion that the beauty and the wholeness and the enjoyment of marriage is then lost in the pursuit of selfish pleasure.

You say, “Now, isn’t that just a little overstated.” Judge for yourselves. I think it’s fairly evident that our country is falling apart when it comes to this. And I’m not surprised. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t say this in a spirit of judgment, as if somehow or another I am able to stand up here at this pulpit and look out on the nation and pronounce judgment on it. No, not at all! What I’m saying is; if I look at the Bible and I look at the culture – if I look at the design of God and if I look at the departure of a culture – it doesn’t look like it’s going the way it should go. And why would it go that way? Because by nature, man is in rebellion against God. By nature, man says, “I’ll do this my own way.” By nature, man says, “I don’t like that idea. I have another idea. I have another plan.” And it’s impossible for man to continue down that road without it actually having an impact in all these ways.

With that said, here’s the bigger deal: the real issue, the real concern – and this is where I found myself stopping during the week – what is most alarming to me is not that this view exists outside the church, but that this view exists (to a greater and greater degree) inside the church. That within the realm of Christendom, those who apparently profess to believe the Bible are now, for whatever reason, prepared to tamper with the Bible – to twist the Bible – in order to accommodate one’s self to the thoughts and values of the day. The real issue, the real question is: Does the church believe the Bible? Or, more pointedly: Does this church believe the Bible? Or, narrowing it down even more: Do you believe the Bible? Or even more so: Do I believe the Bible?

The Bible’s Inspiration

That brings me to my second thought: The Bible’s inspiration. You see, what’s at stake here in this matter of marriage – and it’s not limited to marriage (of course), but marriage is certainly where most of us will come face to face with it – what’s at stake here is the question of the inspiration of the Bible itself. How is it that we have the Bible? What is the Bible? Why is the Bible authoritative? You remember, those of you who were around at the threshold of the new millennium 20 years ago, we said people will challenge the exclusive claims of Jesus, and they continue to; they will challenge the authority and sufficiency of the Bible, and they continue to; and, we said, it will probably be revealed most expressly in the question of human sexuality, in the matter of gender. Few of us understood how prophetic that last observation was. And few of us could ever have anticipated the speed with which the question of gender would monopolize our lives.

Why is it, then, that there’s this retreat within the confines of Christendom on this matter of clarity and authority of the Bible? I think the answer is very simple. It’s blatant disobedience. It’s rebellion. It’s nothing more than making ourselves God – on this issue and several more – and simply saying to ourselves (if not out loud), “On this issue, at this time, I choose not to believe Scripture.”

So, for example: “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.” That little phrase there is like a lightning rod, even in a congregation like this. I can’t see it, but I’m sure it’s happening – certain ladies are sitting up a little higher in their seat. They’re bristling at the very thought of it. “Do people actually believe this kind of thing today?” Saint Augustine said, “If you believe what you like in the gospel, and you reject what you don’t like, it’s not the gospel you believe, it’s yourself.” So, if you believe what you like in the Bible and reject what you dislike in the Bible, then it’s not the Bible you believe, it’s yourself.

Paul, when he writes to Timothy, you remember, in 2 Timothy 3:16, says to him, he says, “Timothy, all Scripture is inspired by God” (paraphrased). Paul wasn’t informing Timothy of something that he didn’t know; Paul was reminding Timothy of what he already knew. Timothy knew what Paul was saying because he’d read the Old Testament: “The word of the Lord came,” and “This is the word of the Lord,” and “This is God’s word,” and so on. Timothy believed that.

In fact, the very verb that Paul uses is a unique verb in the New Testament. Some have even suggested that he coined the verb in order to make the point – the point being that when we talk in terms of the inspiration of the Bible, it’s not something God breathed into, but rather it’s something that God breathed out; that the Scriptures are not a human product infused with divinity, but they’re actually a divine product produced through human instrumentality.

There’s nothing in the world like this book. That’s why we’ve spoken in the past of the dual authorship of Scripture. When God wants a book like Romans to be written, He raises up somebody like Saul of Tarsus in order that he might be the one who is able to write it. Which, of course, God did through Paul.

For the record, I think it’s important for you to know that I believe that every book, chapter, verse, and syllable of the Bible was originally given by the inspiration of God. That’s my own personal conviction. J.C. Ryle, in his book Bible Inspiration: Its Reality and Nature, writes this: “[Inspiration] is the very keel and foundation of Christianity. If Christians have no Divine tool to turn to as the basis of their doctrine and practice, they have no solid ground for present peace or hope, and no right to claim the attention of mankind.”

See, what’s the basis on which we can say to our culture, “Hey, wait a second!” It’s not the fact that we’re annoyed about things, or that we think of ourselves as more righteous or “better than” the next guy. It’s the fact that we believe the Bible! And the message of the Bible is the message of how God comes to repair and to restore that which is broken and destroyed and mangled and messed up. And that the agony of God for a world that has turned its back on Him has gone to the extent of Him sending His Son in order to make an atonement for our sin and rebellion against Him. That, my friends, is at the heart of it all. It’s not simply that we’re annoyed that America isn’t the way that we wanted it. That can come and go.

Now, in saying all of this, I recognize that as with other areas of Christian doctrine, this is difficult. But the fact that it’s difficult doesn’t mean that we simply ignore the issue of the inspiration of Scripture. The fact that you and I don’t know the answer to every question about the inspiration of the Bible doesn’t call in question the Bible’s claim for itself. It is a difficult doctrine, yes. It’s a biblical doctrine, yes. It’s an essential doctrine, yes.

Think about it. What’s the point of me even going into verse 22 and continuing to expound Ephesians chapter 5 if we don’t believe that every word of this book is inspired? What’s the point? There is no point! Why teach the Bible at all, if we don’t believe this is the inspired Word of God? Incidentally, that’s why so many don’t teach the Bible. It’s not that they don’t study. They study. It’s simply because they don’t believe it to be God’s Word! So, if you don’t believe it, why would you teach it? Why not just say pleasant things that will be encouraging to relatively pleasant people, and have everybody go their own way? (Which some do…) No, this is something far greater than that – something far more significant.

The Bible’s Authority

That brings me to my final thought: The Bible’s authority. At the end of the day – when I’ve done all the preaching and teaching that I can do – you’ll only become convinced of the authority of Scripture by the Scripture itself. The witness of the Holy Spirit working by the Word of God and with the word of God in your heart is the only way you’ll be convinced of the authority of the Bible.

It’s reading Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer for the disciples (John 17:17) and hearing Him say, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your Word is truth.” It’s hearing Jesus preach the Sermon on the Mount and say, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). It’s by watching how Jesus chose to fight the temptations of Satan in the wilderness – by quoting Scripture – “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). And asking yourself, “If Jesus viewed the Word of God as truth and He spoke about God’s Word in this fashion, then how should I view the Bible?”

(By the way, in case you’ve forgotten, this is an introduction to marriage and Ephesians 5:21ff. I just thought I’d remind you of that.)

Here’s why today’s message is focused on Genesis and the Bible: we’ll never think rightly about marriage until we’re convinced of the divine origin of Scripture. The only other way to approach marriage is like a pragmatist: that there are certain principles here that might be helpful for us, and so on – some ideas, some concepts. I can apply them if I choose, I’ll disregard them if I want. There’s nothing here that’s of divine authority; there’s nothing here that makes me have to do anything at all. I mean, I might see that it’s valuable to love my wife as Christ loved the church, but then again, I don’t really like to do that most of the time, and so why should I? Well, of course, you shouldn’t – unless God’s Word is true.

It’s absolutely vital for the church. It’s vital for our church. This is one of the greatest issues of Christianity today. Listen to me carefully: we cannot, dare not, ever deviate in this matter. The authority and sufficiency and inerrancy of Scripture is absolutely foundational to the ongoing work of God. When Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, he bragged on them; he said, “We thank God constantly for this, that when you received the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the Word of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

Before Paul writes 2 Timothy 3:16, which talks about Scripture being breathed out by God, he writes verses 14-15: “As for you, [Timothy,] continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” That’s all we have.

Folks, if the Bible is not what I’ve been describing, then we’re actually involved in the greatest fabrication that the world has ever seen. If the Bible isn’t the inspired Word of God and fully authoritative for us, then I’ve lied my way through every funeral service I’ve ever conducted by assuring believers in Jesus that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).

When I stand at the graveside and read John 14, “Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” on what possible basis can I say that? On the authority and sufficiency of the Bible. Nothing else. I’ve got nothing else! And neither do you.

It’s imperative, before we tackle Ephesians 5:21ff, that we understand that marriage, as God intended it, is between a man and a woman. That due to the effects of sin, we’re all coming to the table on the topic of marriage with stains and scars and perhaps unbiblical expectations. And most importantly, if we truly want to see and hear what God has to say to us (married, single, young, old) concerning the relationship between husbands and wives, then we have to be honest with ourselves about the issue of the Bible’s inspiration and authority.