Paul concludes the book of Ephesians (6:10-20) with an unexpected section about the battlefield of the Christian life. He opens with two basic commands: get yourself strengthened in the Lord, and put on all the armor He provides. These six pieces of armor represent the fullness of Christ’s provision for the Christian in a military metaphor and how each is applied to the believer. Finally, Paul ends with a word about the soldier’s line of communication with his/her Captain: prayer.

If you have your Bibles, open them to Ephesians chapter 6. I want to say, add my thank you to Jeff for that sermon. Not just as a parent, but as a pastor. So helpful. Christianity is a life that's lived on a battlefield.

We're all aware of that and it's easy to say that in a gathering like this. The Bible speaks of two kingdoms, a kingdom of darkness and a kingdom of light. It speaks of a spiritual conflict, of an enduring war, and it describes the Christian using the metaphors of the life of a soldier. But for all of that, when we leave a conference or when we leave our, our, you know, our church gatherings and we go home and we, we face the struggles in a home or at work or in our community, or if you wake up on Monday morning and you look in the mirror and you see the ongoing struggle in your own soul, I find that I am often shocked at the violence and the malevolence of the enemy's attacks, the continuous and repeated nature of the war, the way it touches all of life, Nothing is accepted. Every event, every time, every place, every relationship you have is involved in this war.

Every part of you, your mind, your emotions, your choices, your conscience, your memory is a battleground. So when we say that the Christian life is a life that's lived on a battleground, we may think of human battles and earthly battles, but really we have to be honest and say that this spiritual war is unique in all of the military histories. However, being in the middle of the fight is not always the best place to understand the real nature of the conflict, the constant flow of attack, the hardships, the sleepless nights, the sorrows that cannot be told. What Amy Carmichael described in her work in India, She said there were times when she heard tales of sin that would darken the sun. We all feel like that at times.

These are often the most difficult places for the Christian to get a right perspective on the battle. So for all of us, we have to go back to scripture and hear what this veteran of the wars, Paul, by the Holy Spirit tells us about this battle. So I want us to read verse 10 down through the end of verse 20. And we'll only have time to kind of give an overview of this passage with one application or example of a piece of armor that I hope will kind of set our feet on the path. Paul writes in Ephesians 6 verse 10, finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.

Well, it's a wonderful passage, and it's a passage that we're all pretty familiar with. I remember growing up in church, this would have been one of the passages that I thought was interesting, you know? Some of the passages in the Bible I was uninterested in as an unconverted young person. But even as an unconverted young person, I thought that this had some appeal. But I completely misunderstood it.

And in spite of its popularity, I think that it is largely misapplied in the Christian life. So there are a few things that I want us to look at together this morning before we have lunch. There are some introductory issues that it would help us if we could clarify them. How do you approach this whole scene? And then there are three simple commands.

So let's look at that, the introductory issues. Maybe we could put these in the form of questions. The first question is this. How do we understand the manner in which this passage fits in its context? Now Scott has already mentioned, already kind of beat me to the punch, that this does follow at the end of the long section, chapters three, chapter four, five, and six, where Paul is laying out all the changes that we ought to see in the Christian life, the duties of the Christian life, the principles that flow out of all those doctrines that he gave in chapters one, two, and three.

And it does come at the end of a section immediately following the description of how this would affect our families and what about our workplaces. But when Paul writes the word Finally, how does he mean it? Does he mean it just as the last of a long list of duties? I don't think so. Does he mean it as an afterthought?

You know, like a sermon that's gone a little too long or a letter and you get to the end and then you say, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, postscript, P.S., I almost forgot. Is that what Paul does? I think the best way to view the whole passage is we might think of it as it is the only appropriate way for the believer to move from three chapters of some of the sweetest and deepest and most sublime doctrines of our salvation, and three chapters of some of the clearest descriptions of the Christian life, how do we move from all those truths and all those duties out into the real world that we live in? It's like there's a doorway there and Paul leads us through these doctrines and these duties and he takes us to the door, and over top the door is written this little word, finally. Before you go into the world, you need to understand that every doctrine Paul gives us in chapters one, two, and three, from the work of the Father in election and predestination to the work of the Son in redeeming and purchasing a people, to the work of the Spirit in bringing that gospel to the individual, of sealing us, of being our inheritance, the down payment of what's yet to come.

When you look at all those doctrines, when you think of how God brought us from spiritual death to spiritual life, and in chapter three, how our individual rescue is part of something so much greater than ourselves, as God is unfolding the kingdom of his son, every one of those doctrines will have to be studied and understood and believed while you're surrounded by enemies. And when Paul takes us to this chapter, it's as if he's saying every duty that I just mentioned within the church, how to love each other, how to Use your spiritual gift for the benefit of others. Every duty in your culture, how to respond to the world and to be light, every duty within the home or the workplace, it will all have to be done. Without excuse, you must obey these commands while on a battlefield. How does it fit?

This is the only place that these doctrines And these duties are designed for, for the Christian life surrounded by those who don't understand us and oftentimes are hostile. A second preliminary issue, who is the enemy? Again, this is very difficult, especially when life is hard and perhaps you go to work with unbelievers and because you're a Christian and because you love the Lord they're offended at the choices you make. Or maybe even in your own church, because you love the Lord, some people don't understand, maybe in your home, it's easy to look at the people around us and think that the real problem is the atheist or the agnostic or the hypocrite that comes to church. But that's not really the enemy.

It's easy to think that perhaps it's a group of people. It's Hollywood, it's Congress, it's the Supreme Court, it's the university that mocks Christianity. But that's really not the enemy. It's easy to think that it goes deeper than that, a worldview that is opposed to the scripture, but that's not the enemy either. Verse 12 describes the enemy.

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. So Paul gives us this multifaceted description, really of the same group. The archangel, Satan, fallen from heaven because he desired to be like the most high, and having seduced one third of the angels to embrace his futile scheme, is cast down from heaven and awaiting judgment. And he has, we know, in Genesis, deceived our foreparents. And in deceiving Adam and Eve, humanity has come under the bitter tyranny of a foreign power of a counterfeit king.

And the worst thing about that is that all of us prefer that really. We prefer to live for a liar than to live for the God that tells us the truth until the gospel conquers us. And he and those who follow him are described in these words. They are the rulers or principalities, clearly in scripture. These spiritual forces aligned against Christ and his church exercise a limited and Temporary authority in this world Jesus described Satan as the prince of the world They are described as the powers the fallen angels are as powerful to do harm now as they were to do good before.

They are the world forces of this darkness that is through their deceit and their spiritual influence. They have by this world system and its way of thinking established a counterfeit empire. They are the spiritual forces of wickedness in high places, or in heavenly places, not in heaven itself. I think probably the best way to understand this description is that those that are against Christ's church and the enemy that the Christian faces, we don't face them on a level ground. We fight enemies that are superior to us in many ways.

Their realm is supernatural, ours is natural. They are unlimited in so many ways compared to us. We are earthy, earthly, limited. Two things obviously come to our mind when we read this list. One is you can waste a lot of time fighting the wrong battle or fighting the wrong enemy.

But the other is this, that only a fool would go against that kind of enemy without the right armor. And so we are glad to see that Paul then brings us to these commands. Before we get there, let me give you another preliminary question. Whose war is it and who does the fighting? That might seem like a no brainer, but it does help us to really keep a perspective when the struggle rages, especially within our own hearts.

Think of the soldier in the trenches in World War II and the bullets are flying overhead and the artillery's going and people are dying. And this young man, maybe just a year before, would have, could have been friends with the young men across that no man's land in the trenches of the enemy who are trying to kill him. But he understands that although it's happening to him, it's really not about him, it's about nations. When the Christian is suffering hardship after hardship and temptation after temptation and there are heartbreaking things all around us, and the ruin of sin seems for the moment to be endless, and we cry out to God and say, why is this happening to me? Well, it's not really about you.

It's not really about our marriages or our families. The war is God's war. There is an everlastingly glorious King who in Genesis chapter three, in response to our, to Adam's sinful choices entered in and in a great act of mercy did not leave us to ourselves, but declared war against the enemy and every expression of sin. He sent his son to crush the serpent's head just like he promised he would. And he is coming back to finish the fight.

And in between then and now, he is saving a people, bringing us out of that tyrannical kingdom of darkness where we thought we were free, but we weren't bringing us into a kingdom of the Son, his beloved Son, where it's distinguished primarily by the undeserved love of God that surrounds us. He is saving a people, adopting them into his family. And the interesting thing about this royal family is that adoption into that family requires from every child military service. Now, I have two daughters, and they both happen to be fans of the royal family. All right, so I get lots of updates about the duchess and everybody else that I don't really care to hear about.

But They look up on their phone and they say, look what she wore at this event. And wow, and look who's having a baby. But one thing about the royal family, I actually am quite a fan of the queen, all right. I will have to admit it, all right. Make the world Great Britain again, you know.

But the queen, one of the strange things about the royal family is that it's generally expected of every child in the royal family that they will, prince or whatever, that they will serve in the armed forces. But what about Queen Elizabeth? She's a girl. Queen Elizabeth served in World War II. She joined the army's truck division and drove a truck for the army.

In the family of Christ, Adoption into that family, the embrace of that king, results in an enlistment into Christ's army. Who does the fighting? Well, all the verbs in this passage are directed toward the believer. It is the believer that stands, it's the believer that resists, it's the believer that wrestles. Now we do so, as we're going to see, by the strength of God, but these are commands for us.

There are two great errors that cause us to be passive in this battle. One we could say, we could describe as a wrong application of the sovereignty of God. We think like this, Well, once I considered God as a kind of a very little God who needed me and so, you know, under that system that often gets nicknamed Arminianism. Well, under that system, I, God really was fortunate to have me join the army and I've been working hard ever since to make his kingdom happen. And then we learn that that's really not the biblical portrait.

And the enemy seeing us moving toward the truth gives us a little nudge and we swing too far and we go beyond what the scripture says and we kind of think this way. God is infinitely big and powerful and wise and God has all that he needs to carry on this war. What could I contribute? And God is sovereign and all of his choices and plans and determinations will come to pass and those things are true But then the false logic is this that because God is so great and because his will is Irresistibly powerful then I don't have to fight against the sin that rests in my heart still. And I don't have to fight against the sin in my home or my church or my workplace.

And so we read this passage and we find it interesting but we don't actually wake up tomorrow morning and put on the armor. So a type of hyper-Calvinism can creep in. There is an equally dangerous error And it's on the complete other side of the theological spectrum. It came during the movement that we call the Keswick movement. Now the Keswick movement mid 1900s, and you might not be familiar with that name, but you will be familiar with the number of people who embraced its teaching.

And it had a lot going for it that was really good. One quality of the Keswick movement was the emphasis on holiness for Christians. But one of the dangers of the Keswick movement was a misapplication of the whole issue of dying to self and how God works in us when he unites us to Christ. All that Paul talks about in Romans 6. The Keswick movement, to really oversimplify it, says this.

That it's up to you, having become a believer, to put yourself on the cross and to kill yourself. It's, you're going to this wonderful white funeral. And there's a great transaction that happens. You just hand your life over to Jesus as a Christian. So you've been a Christian for a number of years and things have been kind of going along at a limping rate, but you decide to get very serious about Christ, and so you come to him and you say to him, okay, I'm just gonna die to myself, and I'm gonna just trust you to accomplish what I can't do.

So passages like John chapter 15, where abiding in Christ is emphasized, or the book of Galatians, where it is by faith that you're Justified and it's also by the exercise of faith that you're sanctified and these became key points in the movement But the error that came out of that was a passive approach that all God wants us to do is just to hand it over to him and then to trust him to do the great work. And so passages like Ephesians six don't really fit. And that militant aspect of Christianity, which flows out of a new heart and out of a life of faith is missing. Well, with those preliminary issues in mind, I want us to look at the three commands. The first is found immediately following the word finally in verse 10.

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Notice that Paul starts here and not with the armor. Why? Because the best of us as Christians are like little David when we come when he was brought to Saul and he was going to go fight the giant and Saul said well you can have my armor and the armor doesn't fit David. When we talk about putting on the armor in a minute, we begin to realize that to do that day after day, hour after hour, to maintain a level of diligence there, we are gonna need strength from the Lord.

Now in the original language, we have a paradox in the verb. And oftentimes our English doesn't quite catch this. And this is one of those times where the Greek really does help us in particular. Now I don't like grammar and I'm really bad at grammar. In fact, one of your preachers this week, Anthony Mathenia, his wife helped me correct the grammar in my PhD thesis.

And I said to, so I gave her a couple of chapters at a time and she was correcting him. And I was up to the deadline, all right? And so I was handing her one chapter and getting one back and I said, so is it bad? And she said, I thought I was gonna go into a coma. You put so many commas in there.

And I, So I won't tell you what I said back, all right? It was a quippy line. I'm terrible at grammar, but this is grammar that's worth listening to, all right? The verb here, be strong, in the Greek, it is a present passive imperative. So let's take that.

Imperative, what's an imperative? It's when there's a command. So this is not an explanation of something that's real. God isn't saying, look, you need to understand this is the way life is. He's saying to you, this is how you must live in my kingdom.

It's a command and it comes with all the weight of the king. But it is also a present imperative. That is, it is a command that has to be obeyed in an ongoing manner. You're going to have to keep doing what he says in verse 10. Finally, continually be strong in the Lord.

But the real trick here, the real paradox is, it's a passive verb. Now we know the difference between active and passive verbs, right? Active is a verb that describes an action you do to something else. There's also, of course, a middle. A middle verb is a action that you do that you receive the benefit from.

And then a passive verb is a verb that describes what someone else does to you. This is not an active verb. Paul doesn't say in the Greek, get strong in Christ. He actually says this daily or in an ongoing way, you must get someone else to strengthen you. And that's a paradox.

Paul, you give me a command that I can't really accomplish on my own, can I? I am weak, I need to be strong, but you're not telling me how to make myself strong, you're telling me I have to go find someone who will make me strong, who will act upon me. What if they won't do it? And in a life and death situation like Ephesians 6, it could be pretty frightening if we don't remind ourselves who it is we go to. We'd go daily to Christ, our kinsman redeemer, our man in heaven, the God-man there victorious after the work of redemption, our mediator, the treasurer of heaven who gives and gives to us and we go to him and we say, you commanded me to come to you and to get you to strengthen me.

It's a wonderful paradox. The reason I say it, it's so wonderful because really it's the way Christianity begins. We come to God and we say, save me. There's this constant desperation of the Christian, and yet there's an activity. I am required to go, and I am required to be dependent on him.

So there's the command, the Greek behind it. Now, what is the actual command? Well, Paul walks us toward this armory, and he says to us, put on the full armor of God. Now, think of it, the armor of God. It's not an earthly armor.

It's not a clever scheme for how to fix our problems This is an armor that was designed by the Father for the believer in eternity past When we take time to look at what the armor really is We realize that all the wisdom and the power of God that's seen in the gospel is behind the design of this perfect armor. It's an armor that was forged by the Son of God while accomplishing our rescue in his redemptive labors. Read the Gospels. You're not just seeing Jesus head to the cross you're seeing through those events him forging an armor that you're going to be able to wear and It's an armor that is daily brought to us and we're aided by the Holy Spirit to put on each piece in the correct way. And Paul says put on the whole armor or the full armor of God.

No one of us can afford to have any part of this left off. I mean it's easy when you read this to be impressed with certain pieces. We say, well, a shield is important. A sword is important. A breastplate certainly is important.

Helmets important. What about belt? Well, I don't know if I, if I get moving today without putting a belt on. What about shoes? One of my favorite Bible commentators, a Scottish man named John Eady writes this.

Do not enter into battle with such adversaries, naked and defenseless, but take to you this armor. Do not cover one portion and leave another exposed But put on the whole armor do not resort to any arsenal of your own for its armor is weak and useless but put on the full armor of God. Now listen, most of us have lived long enough to know men or women who seemed, genuine believers, who seemed to have everything in life in its right place, but there was an area that wasn't guarded. William Gurnold the Puritan said that our enemy can shoot an arrow at a hole in your armor that's only as big as a penny. And it's true, isn't it?

No one who sees the description of this enemy and realizes the eternal things that are at stake would be willing to leave off any one of these pieces. Put on the full armor of God? How do you put it on? Well, by faith. In the 18th century, a minister named William Mason wrote a little book that has been given different titles through the years.

Some have entitled it the one thing needful. Others have entitled it the Christian pocket, what is it called? I'll get it later. I can't hear you yelling back at me, so. The Christian's pocket companion.

In this book, he describes how to put on Christ, and it's a perfect application for what we're saying. This is what he says we must do. The believer is commanded to put on Christ, and putting on Christ by faith is when we are called to make a constant use of Christ, to enjoy all that is given to us when Christ is given to us. And this implies renewed acts and fresh applications of the believing soul to Christ, exercising faith in him, hope towards him, delight in him, calling upon him, hearing his gospel. So when we come to this armor, which we haven't even looked at yet, every piece of the armor, really you could just say what Mason said.

I am to take this piece of armor and to use it in the way God wants me to use it. I am to enjoy all that it stands for. And it includes renewed acts and fresh applications of this armor. I am to trust God in this, to hope in him, delight in him, call upon him. Whatever this armor is, that's what we have to do with it.

So what is the armor here? Well, this is where I think most of us have hit a kind of a stumbling block. Many people approach the passage and say, well, the armor represents the fruit of Christ's work in your heart. So there's a belt and that belt is a belt of your truth. So it's the belt of truth, it's your truthfulness.

There's a breastplate of righteousness, well that's your breastplate. There are shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace, and that's you being ready or prepared to share the gospel. Now I think that that is not what Paul is describing here. Those are essential things. When we consider the changes that occur in the Christian's life, Those are essential.

You can't be a Christian and not have those changes. No man or woman or child who has ever known what it is for the holy judge to look upon Christ and declare you right with his law. No one who has ever been born again, born from above remains the same. So the changes that I just mentioned, the virtues of the Christian life, truthfulness, righteousness, sharing the gospel, et cetera, these are essential in the Christian life, but they do not take the place of armor. They are incomplete.

My faith is not perfect faith. My righteousness is not a perfect, my lifestyle is not a perfectly righteous lifestyle. My sharing of the gospel is not a perfect sharing of the gospel. My truthfulness or sincerity, as one Bible commentator said, the belt is, is not a perfect sincerity. And so if that's my armor, then I am always in danger because it's incomplete.

So what is the armor? Let me get you to turn to Romans 13 verse 12. In Romans 13 and verse 12, Paul uses a similar language, a parallel passage. Romans 13, verse 12, 13, and 14, I want you to notice that what Paul's gonna say here, he's basically gonna say the same thing twice, but he's gonna use different words. And this is a parallel kind of argument He's going to repeat himself but in a way that makes an emphasis Look at verse 12.

The night is almost gone and the day is near Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Okay, clear statement. We live in wicked days, but they're coming to an end. The dawn has started and it's rushing toward us. So what?

So lay aside that old lifestyle and put on the armor of light. Then he says it again in verse 13. Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on, and now look at the words he uses But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts what we find in Romans chapter 13 is just a quick quick description of the armor which in Ephesians 6 we're given so much more detail regarding the armor is Christ it is the full provision that we have in the new covenant all that Christ is which answers every temptation Which answers every fear every doubt every broken hearted sorrow? We take all that Christ has earned for us and continually supplies to us in the new covenant, and by faith we put it on our life. In Ephesians 6, Paul uses these six metaphors, shoes, belt, breastplate, helmet, shield, sword, because he wants us to understand how exactly does the fullness of Christ provide protection for the believer?

Now we don't have time to look at each of the pieces, and I wish we really did, but I want us to just take one as an example, kind of as an example of how we would approach it. I want us to take one that we generally probably skip over and think maybe isn't as important. I want us to look at the shoes. Here's how Paul says it, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, we stand, we resist, we wrestle. How do we approach each piece?

Well, we step back and say this, how does this metaphor represent the fullness of Christ's provision for me? What exactly is it talking about? What aspect of what Christ is and has done for me. What aspect is that referring to? And then secondly, how does this particular metaphor help me to understand how that aspect of Christ forms a protection for my life?

So let's take this real quickly, the sandals or the boots. When Paul wrote this, everyone would have understood the Roman sandal or the boot. A very thick leather sole with nails embedded in it. So there was protection for their feet, and it was like a cleat, there was grip, and so the soldier is ready to go anywhere at the command of his captain. We think, well, that's not as important as a breastplate, is it?

Well, think of it, imagine a soldier who has trained for years, he has all the courage and skill that you could want, he has the best armor, except he forgot his boots, so he's just thrown on any old pair of shoes. And as he's traveling along with the army, marching into the enemy's territory, the enemy has set traps. They've dug these little holes and they've covered them over. And inside the holes, which they did back in Paul's day, like they do today, inside the hole is a trap. And so the soldier steps through the hole and his foot is pierced and he's wounded and he has to hobble over to the side and Someone has to bandage him up and the army just goes on and that soldier is left behind How many times have we seen believers?

Whose conscience has been so wounded or whose heart has been broken or whose doubt? Whose mind has been filled with doubts that the enemy is whispered and They it's like they've stepped through a trap and they have not had the armor on their feet and they're wounded and you watch them. Just thinking about what Jeff said in the previous talk. You see parents whose children, when they're three year olds you know, they're very hopeful. And when they're four and five year olds, they, you know, you talk to the parents and they've got it all together, they've got it all figured out and then when their child is 18 or 19 or 20 and that child may not love the Lord and then they're disillusioned and brokenhearted and the enemy accuses God to them and they don't have the armor on the feet and they are sidetracked.

They still come to church, they still come to the prayer meeting, they still come to the small group Bible studies, but you see it in their life. That stretching, that pace that they once had is gone. I pastor a church that is very kind to me. And I would say that our pattern is that about once every six years we go through a pretty rough patch. So some pastors I've said that to say, man, you get six years?

And I don't know, they feel bad when they come. But the last couple years have been very difficult for the little church that I pastor. And you see people turn away from the gospel or people that you love or you see Christians disagree and it doesn't ever seem to be made right. And as a pastor, I have to put these shoes on because I feel so tempted to just sit on the sidelines with a wounded foot and to say, what's the use? What are the shoes made of?

Ah, well, boots come in all kinds of things, don't they? Rubber boots for rain, Gore-Tex boots, vinyl boots, fake leather boots, leather boots. I kind of like boots. I'm not talking cowboy boots, all right? But I do like boots.

Now I've seen some exotic leathers on boots. Everyone's seen ostrich on a cowboy boot. But I'm talking kind of like a dress boot. I looked online to get a dress boot last Christmas and I saw a company that I liked and it showed all the new leathers available. Okay, calfskin, horse hide, reindeer, moose.

Pretty strange. What does God make the shoe for the Christian out of? Charles Spurgeon said it this way, when Christ fashioned these boots for his soldiers he took the most precious material of the gospel, the peace, and he used it to give them protection for their feet? Look again at what Paul says, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. What is it made of?

It is not made of our willingness to share the gospel, though we ought to have feet that are ready to fly for that, it is made up of the gospel that brings peace. In other words, Christ's reconciling work for the believer is portrayed in these boots. I have peace. I have peace with my God because of Christ. And I have the peace of God in this world because of Christ.

And it's so complete that Christ can turn to his disciples 2, 000 years ago, and today hear and say to us, my peace I give to you. How did he forge those shoes? 2 Corinthians chapter five, God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself and not counting their trespasses against them. Do you see that? Reconciliation, the restoration, the making of peace between those who once were opposed.

God and humanity are at war, and the Father has sent the Son to remove the offense. How are you reconciled to God? How could you say, I have peace with God? It's not because God looks at you and says, I just feel such strong feelings for you that I've decided not to be angry about what happened. God is a just God.

He is a judge that never bends the rules. And so the only way reconciliation can occur is if The thing that offends God is removed. So Christ has become the sin bearer. Romans three, he's our propitiation. He's the demonstration for all the universe to see that God is just, And yet he justifies those who believe in him So Christian the sandals are made out of Christ's justifying labors Everything about the gospel the good news of what God does for us is to be taken one piece at a time and put over your feet and the result is peace.

Now be careful. It can be tricky. You might want to say, well, Paul tells me I'm just supposed to put peace on my feet, but that won't work. We can't skip the gospel. Go back to what Paul says in Ephesians.

Look at the description of what the father did in the work of your rescue. Look at the description of what the son does, of what the spirit does. And each morning you just take one aspect of that and you ask God, God help me, give me the strength I need to enjoy this reality, to delight in what you've accomplished, to depend upon it, to wear it like shoes, to clothe my sore feet in the good news that Christ has become my peace. Where can you wear these shoes? Well, if you look around your closets in your house, you probably have a lot of shoes in your house.

Growing up, you kind of have two pair of shoes, maybe three, right? Kids, do you have church shoes? You have, maybe you have school shoes. Then you have play shoes. And you're not allowed to get them mixed up, are you?

Where do you wear these shoes? The gospel shoes for the soldier fit every age, Not like my house where I see that my kids have shoes in their closet that they can no longer wear because their feet have outgrown them. They fit every task. They're not just limited to work or church. They fit every place.

Where do you wear them? Let me give you a couple of examples. We take the great realities of Christ's gospel work and how that brings peace to our soul and you put that on your feet when you walk into your children's bedroom and have a talk with them. Now, Jeff has talked about this so much, really, I felt like this must have been planned, but I'm not talking about little kids, you know, who get in a fight and they're snatching toys back and forth. I'm talking about when you go to sit down with your teenager And no longer are the problems little kid problems, you know now the the choices that are being made could destroy them and You go to walk in their room, and you know that apart from an unusual work of the Lord this talk may not go well And as you go to you put your hand on the doorknob and you go to have this hard talk Immediately the enemy shoots the arrows at your conscience.

What do you think they're going to say when you talk to them? I mean, they're old enough to look back at you and say oh you're perfect Or who are you to say that to me? And the conscience is immediately attacked and the memory is attacked and our hearts are under attack. If I say these things, how will my child respond to me? And I take the finished work of Christ like a pair of shoes that protect my feet and give me grip so I'm not knocked off the course of obedience and I look to Christ for my peace And with the finished work of Christ, I sit down by my child and say I have to say some things to you Do you ever wear the Christian boots to church do you think that'd be kind of strange you think well?

No, you need Christian boots in the world and you need Christian boots, you know at the university, you know, you need Christian boots out there, but you don't need Christian boots in here, but you do. Have you ever walked into a corporate Prayer meeting and just felt that you're not the kind of person that God would want to hear pray Every Sunday morning. We have a corporate prayer meeting it comes first and then the preaching service afterwards and every Sunday morning I have to get up and get dressed for church tie suit Christian boots I have to say to God in the middle of that prayer meeting, God, I'm a pastor in this church, but who am I? Who is John Snyder to talk to you? And why would you hear my voice?

And why isn't it offensive to you? And God, do you even notice I'm here? And we take the boots of Christ's finished work and the gospel truths, and every voice that comes to me and says John Snyder you have no right to an audience with the king and I look down at my feet and I say I do and With the gospel on my feet I walk in Let me give you a third what about repentance You ever use the Christian boots for repenting? I'm talking to a Christian. You've drifted for a long time, you've stumbled, and your sins are the kind of sins that have hurt people around you.

And It's gone on so long that even though your heart aches and you want to return you believe the lie That you're too far from Christ and the way back is too difficult What do you do? Because There's a little truth in those lies, isn't there? It is difficult. You go to the mercy seat and you ask Christ for the shoes again and you take the gospel and you spread it out in front of your eyes and you look at all the specifics of your rescue and you take them and you put them on your feet and with those truths you run back to God and say to him here I am and you lay it all before him with no uh you know with no excuse and no self-justification You come into the light where He is in the light and you agree with Him about your sin. Who would dare do that?

Well, only the person with the gospel on their feet. But before we come to the final aspect, I wanna say, there is a place that these shoes don't fit. They're not appropriate for this. Do not let the enemy convince you to take these precious boots that Christ has provided and to go back and walk in the old ways. You know what I mean?

To use the freedom you have in Christ, and 1 John 1-9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins, I repeated that to God throughout my teenage years as a hypocrite so many times, saying to God that he could not hold me accountable for my behavior. We can take the gospel and use it as an excuse to be less careful than a person that thinks they're being saved by their works. Don't do it. Now the final command here, be strengthened in the Lord, put on the full armor of God, and then he says in verse 18, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. Now we don't have time to look at this except to say that perfect armor provided by a Perfect redeeming triune God is not enough for the battlefield You must put this armor on and wield these weapons in the constant atmosphere of communion with him To constantly have the heart going out to him.

Listen to those words. With all prayer and petition, pray at all times. That is, on every occasion, go to him. With every type of prayer, private prayer, family prayer, corporate church prayer, that instantaneous prayer that we shoot up to God as we're walking down the sidewalk or driving down the street, or those special seasons of prayer where we set a time aside to seek the Lord. Every type of prayer in every kind of occasion.

And keep alert, stay awake, don't just pray for yourself, pray for others. Well just a couple of concluding questions. Is this a gloomy picture of the Christian life? I mean, it's a realistic picture. And I don't think any of us would say I wanted to be on the battlefield.

But it is not a gloomy picture. This is not all there is to Christianity, is there? There are those times where God spreads a feast in front of us and right in front of our enemies, Psalm 23. And it's the Lord just takes us aside and He embraces us and He carries us through some of the worst parts. But even when we think of the earthly life, that's not all there is to Christianity.

There is a battle now, and God has declared an enduring war until the end, but at the end, when Christ is exalted above all creation, and He has judged and rewarded, and He has separated sheep from goats and a new creation is made, then the victory party begins and there is an everlasting enjoyment. So it's not gloomy. Is it hopeless? I'm 50 years old, the Lord saved me at age 20, so for 30 years I've known his distinguishing kindness and I look in the mirror this week, not last week, this week, and I see so much there that mocks Christ's claims and I'm tempted to think that it's hopeless, but it's not I Have access to God my strength I have a Perfect armor designed by the Father forged by the Son applied by the Spirit I have the open channel of prayer to my captain on the battlefield and I refuse to be hopeless think about it No Christian who has ever put on this armor, and every Christian does, has ever fallen. No matter who you think of in the New Testament, or you think of the saints in the Old Testament, but just start with the New, we think of the New Testament saints, Peter, Paul, John, they wore the armor before us.

Robert Murray McShane, John Knox, Calvin, Luther, they wore the armor. Amy Carmichael, Hudson Taylor, they wore the armor. And when we as believers breathe our last breath, The armor will be passed down to the next generation and no one has ever been defeated in that armor Is it a joyless life? Okay, so it's it's not hopeless, but I mean battlefield is that joy How many times the Psalms describe God in the midst of a very hard situation in the believers life? God is my strength and what and song There is something so infinitely precious about the Savior that to be next to him in the middle of a fight is preferable to be given everything the world falsely promised me.

To follow the captain so closely, to enjoy his friendship, even while the enemy continually attacks makes the battlefield a place of song. Let's pray. Our glorious King, we thank you that you have been dead honest with us about the Christian life. All those truths of Ephesians, all those duties must be believed and accomplished while under attack on a battlefield. And we thank you that you have promised to give us the strength that Christ has forged a perfect armor and That you have never refused our cry as believers when we meet you at the mercy seat the constant open channel between us and the captain of our salvation God we pray that you would help us to be doers of the word and not hearers only so many souls at stake and your everlasting name God Come quickly Finish the fight we ask it in Christ's name Amen