*Transcript provided by Claude. There will be errors.
Amen.
So some of you may know that I have been into various types of combat sports for many years. I used to mess around with MMA, used to do some boxing, used to do some Thai boxing, but as I’ve gotten older and slower, I’ve had to downshift into something called Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which is akin to wrestling. In this, we wrestle, and then there’s whole submission holds that you put somebody in, and that’s how you win. Like, that’s the knockout. And so I’ve been doing this — I can’t believe I’m about to say this — for nearly 20 years.
And so at this point, like, I’m not — you know, hopefully this is not a humble brag — but I’m not bad. I’m okay at it. You know, I know what I’m doing.
But a couple of months ago, I happened to go to my gym on a Friday, and we have what’s called an open mat, which means people from all around the area can come, visit, try out some jiu-jitsu. You get to go with people you’ve never seen before. It’s kind of fun to see where you’re at.
So on this particular day, I see a guy who looks, you know, about my age — early middle age, late 30s maybe — and I go, all right, I know what this is going to be. We’re just going to spar, we’re going to warm up, it’s going to be not so hard. And so we get going and I try one thing and it doesn’t work. And then I try another thing and it doesn’t work. And then I pick up the pace and that doesn’t work. And I try to muscle it and that doesn’t work. And I spend five minutes getting absolutely destroyed by this guy. He looks like an accountant. And he smoked me. And I’m like, I thought I was good at this.
And so after the round I go to one of my buddies from the gym. I go, who is that guy? And he’s like, oh, Ryan? I’m like, yeah, sure, Ryan — who’s that guy? And he’s like, oh yeah, he’s pretty good. And I go, well, how long has he been a black belt? Because, you know, he must be. And he’s like, oh, no, he’s not a black belt. He’s a blue belt. Now that probably means nothing to 99% of you. But in jiu-jitsu there are five belts: white, blue, purple, brown, and black. So blue is like, you know, advanced beginner. And I’m like, come on.
This guy is an advanced beginner and he just wiped the floor with me. And my buddy goes, yeah — the other thing — he also wrestled for the Italian national team. So this guy is an Olympic level athlete. And I’m like, ah, that makes sense. Of course I lost.
And today what we’re going to see in our text is that what Paul is saying to the people in Ephesus, the Christians in Ephesus, is: you may think that your enemy is this thing, but it’s actually this thing. And without the Lord you have no hope of defeating this other thing.
So the big idea that I want us to walk away with today is simply this: Be strong in the Lord by standing in the armor he supplies. Be strong in the Lord by standing in the armor he supplies. Why?
First sub-point: Because the devil has us outgunned and outwitted. We’ll see this in chapter 6, verses 10–12.
Point 2: But God gives us armor with which we can stand against the devil. That’ll be verses 13–18.
And we’ll end with two exhortations from Paul to the Ephesians: Pray for all the saints to persevere and boldly preach the gospel. And our last point together will be: Help each other stand.
I’ll stop there briefly. This “finally” — this is Paul saying, alright, I’ve got one more thing to say to you. This is a particular point of emphasis. I want you to remember this. This is how I’m going to close the letter.
So finally, be strong in the Lord. It’s a call to us to be strong. We actually have to do something. We have to be strong in the Lord. We have to pursue it, but not in our own strength, because we have no strength to win this fight. We have to be strong in the strength of His might, not our own. So we have to be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might. And so we have to put on his armor — the whole armor of God. Why? So you can stand against the schemes of the devil.
See, the armor that we need cannot be supplied by ourselves. It has to be supplied by the Lord. For what reason? Well, we go on in the text: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities...”
You see, the Ephesians were facing quite a bit of physical opposition — violence, and even economic oppression. Their financial well-being is wrapped up in the Roman pagan system. You’ve got to do things like feasts and temple offerings and yada, yada, yada. This is how you get in. And at the same time, they’re facing oppression and violence from Jewish leaders, from Roman leaders. In Acts 20 or thereabouts, we see a riot that breaks out because of the gospel being proclaimed and the idol makers and idol worshipers being enraged by this reality.
And so it’d be natural to think, if you’re a Christian in Ephesus, my problem is these human forces arrayed against me — violence, oppression, economic loss, all these things. What Paul is telling us is that there’s a reality behind this reality. And so when the text says “these spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” it’s getting at the truth that behind the veil of what we see around us is an even more real spiritual reality in which evil forces work for the destruction of God’s people.
There’s something that we cannot see. And so we might think that our enemy is human. But our greatest enemy is actually the devil and the demons that serve him. The Bible is not shy about talking about these spiritual realities, these unseen realms that are all around us. It’s natural in our day and age to think that that stuff is kind of children’s tales. Famously, it’s been said that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist. But the Bible declares that this is all too real.
And so we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against these spiritual forces. And this word “wrestle” is exactly what you think it means. The Greeks and the Romans, they had wrestling — very much akin to the sport of wrestling that we have today. It is a hard, physical, grueling fight. This is what’s arrayed against the Christians in Ephesus. This is what’s against us.
And so it’s worth thinking about: what is it that the devil does? How does he work against us? By extension, how do demonic forces work against us?
Well, first — and we see this here and in other places — the devil schemes. This passage starts with: put on the whole armor of God so you may stand against the schemes of the devil. Immediately, Paul’s first concern is the scheming, the plotting, the planning. It’s the mental side. This is what Paul emphasizes.
In Genesis 3:1, we see that “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?’” So from the jump, the devil schemes. He’s trying to undermine our confidence in the Word of God, create confusion and say, did God really say that? He’ll do, say, lie — whatever words he has to utter to shake your confidence in the Word of God, he will do.
Likewise, we see his scheming in the garden. And at the end of all things, 2 Thessalonians 2:9–10 tells us that the coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing. The devil schemes and deceives at the beginning, and he schemes and deceives at the end, because this is his character. He is a liar. He wants to do anything to get you to shake your confidence in what God has done.
And so Paul says these things that we might be on guard, that we would cling to the truth. Because the devil is incredibly bright. He’s smart. He’s done this for a long time. He’s studied humanity. He knows our weaknesses and he’ll use it to subtly pull us away from the gospel. So the devil schemes.
The devil also tempts. In 1 Corinthians 7:5, Paul speaking to married couples: “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you might devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
In Matthew 4, we see the devil try the same sort of thing with Jesus. He tempts him in various ways — with political power, with riches, with food, all of these things. He’s a tempter. So the devil will try to work with our own sinful flesh to ensnare us, to pull us, to give us very tempting bait that hides a vicious hook.
The devil tempts. And the devil uses worldly power. Ephesians 2:1–2 — we’re not quite sure what “the power of the prince of the air” actually means, but what’s clear is that in this world, the devil has power; he has authority to do things. Yes, under God’s control, under his authority. But for God’s unfathomable purposes that we will someday understand more fully, the devil has ability to affect and impact this world.
Think of Job. Job’s health is attacked. His wealth is taken. His family is killed. And he’s left broken without any of the things that he used to delight in. This is because the devil is given a measure of authority and power. And in the same way, in Matthew 4, he takes Christ to the top of the temple and tells him to look out at all the people, all the kingdoms, all the political power, and says, “This has been given to me. Fall down and worship me and you can have it all.” That’s the power that he has. Of course, Christ says, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, you shall worship the Lord God and him only shall you serve.” You see, Christ demonstrates for us how to handle satanic attack — with the word of God, which we’ll talk about more later.
This is what the devil does. He uses worldly power. He tempts. He schemes. What does this mean for us?
First, the conflict is unavoidable. Ephesians speaks of the mystery of the gospel. This mystery is that Jew and Gentile are made into a new people through the gospel. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from, what your ethnic background is, who your parents are, how much money you have. Because of Christ, a new nation is formed — a nation of priests, one dedicated to Christ and the glory of God. And the devil hates it. He hates us. He hates you. He prowls and he seeks to devour. This text tells us that these spiritual forces are evil. They hated Christ. They hate us.
So how do we apply such a thing? How do you think well? How do you cling to Christ when you know that there is some evil animus out there after you?
Well, first, you’ve got to know that you have an enemy. You’ve got to know that you’re in a spiritual war. There’s a temptation just in the regularness of human life — we wake up, we do basically the same thing, and then we go to bed. We do this again and again and again, and there’s a temptation towards spiritual numbness in this. Things can feel very normal, but we’ve got to be allergic to this spiritual numbness, because we are in a spiritual war with an enemy who seeks to destroy us.
We must also realize that not everything around us is neutral. The devil will use things to ensnare us. It could be the words of other human beings around us. It could be things we see on screens. It could be something a politician says. It can even be our own sinful flesh. But not everything around us is morally neutral. The devil will use words to grab us, to pull us, to snatch any confidence we have in the word of God. So again, we have to be on guard. Every single message that we receive from this world, we need to wash with the word. Is this thing true? Let me check it against the scriptures — not my own feelings, not the words of a really convincing person that I know, but through the scriptures.
Second point of application: I would say very simply, don’t mess around with this stuff. I think five to ten years ago I would have said, oh, you know, this is a silly application. But the numbers are kind of stunning. Over the past 10 years, there’s been a 5% increase of Americans who believe in psychics. There’s been a 25% increase — up to half of Americans — who believe in spiritual energy in objects and nature. There’s been a 10% growth in the belief in reincarnation. There’s a 5% growth, up to 30% of Americans, who think that astrology is real.
Don’t mess with this stuff. Don’t go to a palm reader. It’s not fun. It’s not a joke. Don’t mess around with a Ouija board — not because it doesn’t work, but because it can. It’s out there. It’s real.
One more point of application that I think is relatively unique to our own age is the use of artificial intelligence as an oracle. Now I’m not saying there’s demons in the ones and zeros, but what I am saying is AI is trained on the corpus of the internet, and there are messages out there that are evil and designed to deceive you. I’ve just heard story after story of people using artificial intelligence to guide them spiritually, romantically, and whatever else. Don’t entrust your soul to a computer program. You don’t know what’s behind it.
One useful practice that I and a couple of other folks in this room have done as we think about spiritual warfare is to write what I would call a Screwtape letter. If you don’t know, C.S. Lewis wrote a famous book called The Screwtape Letters. It’s essentially advice from an older demon to a younger demon saying, hey, this is how you ensnare a human. And so it’s a useful exercise for you to consider: how would the devil ensnare you? Think clearly about your own weaknesses, and then share that with those who know you and love you, who will encourage you and correct you when you need it. Because if you think long enough, I bet you can name one or two or three things that you’re weak in that the devil could take advantage of. It’s a practice I found incredibly useful.
But I’d also say, more crucially, we should not be afraid. We should not be afraid because of the truth of Ephesians 1:19–23, which says: “And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the great working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead...”
It’s not an accident that Paul is reusing these same words. He’s talking about spiritual forces, principalities, all these things. And earlier he says Christ is over all of it. We sang a song earlier that says Christ defeats the devil with the word. It’s actually less than that — it’s a breath. Christ returns and he goes, and that’s it for the devil.
If you are in Christ, there is nothing to be afraid of. The devil’s power cannot touch you, cannot separate you from the love of Christ. Nothing can do that. The devil may be able to put your body in pain. He may be able to incite others to kill you. He may be able to do all those things, but he cannot separate you from Christ. You are untouchable. Your inheritance is with Christ in heaven, kept in the heavenly places forever by virtue of Christ’s blood. Nothing can rob that blood of its power.
So we’ve got to know that we need not fear because of Jesus. And we prepare for the devil’s onslaught by taking up what God gives us for our defense. This is our second point.
The devil has us outgunned and outwitted, but God gives us armor with which we can stand against the devil. This is verses 13 to the first half of 18.
“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.”
I’ll pause at verse 13 here. Therefore — so in light of this enemy that we just talked about that’s too powerful for you — take up the armor of God so that you may be able to withstand. You’re going to see this word “stand” again and again: stand, stand, stand. Paul’s concerned about wobbly Christians, because they are easy prey for the devil, as John Stott says. So he says, take on the armor of God so you can withstand in the evil day.
What is this evil day? Well, Paul talks about this earlier in the letter: “make the best use of the time because the days are evil.” Simply put, the evil day is now. There will be a day when satanic attacks stop — that’s the end of all things when Christ returns and sets everything right.
In Revelation, when it describes Jerusalem, there is an armed angel at every gate, but more than that, the gates are open — which in ancient Roman times would be a military mistake, because your open gates make you vulnerable. Why are the gates in heaven open? Because there’s nothing left to fear. There’s no evil army coming. They’ve been cast into hell. There’s nothing to worry about.
But in the meantime, Christians are called to stand firm, to withstand the evil day. And we have a part to play. Having done all, we’ve got to do something. It’s not just passive reception.
So we move on to verse 14:
“Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying 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.”
So we’ve got a series of military armor images here. We’re going to walk through them one by one.
And the first is at least a little moderately surprising to me. It’s the belt of truth. It’s the first piece of armor. In Roman armor, a belt wasn’t just a belt — it’s more akin to a girdle, if you will. It is both a piece of armor and a piece of equipment that holds your sword. It leaves your legs free by holding the clothing off you so you can move. And it protects the most vulnerable part of you. This is the belt of truth.
And truth is crucial for the Christian to cling to, because as we saw, the devil deals in lies. He’s going to throw lies at us constantly. The first one we saw in Genesis 3: “Did God really say?” He’ll try to deceive you about the Word of God. He’ll throw other lies at you, like: does God even love you? Does he care about you? If God was loving, why does he let this happen to you? How many times have you heard that?
The devil will tell you other lies — that you’re worthless, denying the reality that every human being is infinitely valuable because they’re made in the image of God. If that doesn’t work, the devil will throw at you: hey, if you can just get this thing — this person, this money, this job, this vacation, whatever it is — if you get that, you’ll finally be happy. Violating the truth that we see in Romans: we can’t trade creation for the Creator, because that’ll just disappoint us and destroy us. All of these lies are simply bait on a hook.
So the Christian has to fasten on the belt of truth, to constantly remind ourselves of what is true, what is reality, and ignore the lies of the devil.
One of the things that’s interesting about what Paul’s doing here is he’s drawing on several passages from Isaiah — Isaiah talking about the Messiah. In Isaiah 11:5, it says that “righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness the belt of his loins.” Why are these parallels here? We’re going to see this again and again, but I’m just going to spoil it for you: it’s because Christ has worn and done these things perfectly. So it’s not our armor we’re putting on, but his — through our union with him.
So we have fastened on the belt of truth, and now we have to put on the breastplate. The Messiah does this as well. Isaiah 59:17 says, “He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.” See, Christ is perfectly righteous. So the Christian’s call to put on the breastplate of righteousness is a call to put on his righteousness.
2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that “He made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Meaning: what Christ is offering you is, give me your sin and I’ll give you my righteousness. That’s it. He’ll pay for your sin and he’ll give you his righteousness. The fancy word is justification. It simply means: how do we relate rightly? How do we stand before a perfect God when we have no righteousness of our own? Simply put, we just take Christ’s. He offers it freely. He’s willing to die on the cross to offer it. All we have to do is trust it.
And so we put on the breastplate of righteousness. We’ve been made righteous. And so we’re now free to pursue righteousness.
In 6:15, we see the shoes for our feet — the readiness given by the gospel of peace. John Stott calls these the “gospel boots,” which is a phrase I will never forget. And you might not think of it this way, but the gospel boots are actually the first offensive weapon listed. If you’ve heard this passage preached, people say, “Oh, the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God — that’s the offensive weapon.” But the boots are too.
Why do I make that claim? Well, boots, yes, they help us to stand firm, but they also empower us to go. And the gospel is how we free captives from the prison of the devil. This is how we undermine his forces — by bringing the gospel to those who don’t know Christ. If you’re thinking of Romans 10:15, which says “How beautiful are the feet of him who brings good news” — you’re thinking rightly. The gospel advances. The gospel will go to the four corners of the earth. And the gospel boots will carry us there.
In 6:16, we see that in all circumstances we’re to take up the shield of faith. Now, a few years ago, there was a well-known internet joke. Wives would ask their husbands: “Hey, how many times have you thought about the Roman Empire in the past week?” Marian did this to me. I was like, “I don’t know, six or seven?” And she was like, “What are you — why are you thinking about the Roman Empire?” So there’s a chance this will really resonate for some people and not for others.
But when we talk about the shield of faith, we’re not talking about a little shield. For Roman soldiers, this is a shield that’s roughly four feet tall, strapped to your arm, covering your entire frame. It’s double-paneled — there’s leather and metal on the outside of the frame — and it’s doused in water, which will become important later.
So this shield is here, and — this is important — if you know what a shield wall is, which maybe 30% of you do, these are soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder with their shields in front, to blunt the oncoming enemy with blocks, swords, and spears. And the soldiers behind you would raise the shield on top. This is the testudo formation — literally making a turtle shell of shields. So you have shields overhead to protect from arrows, and shields in front to protect from swords and spears and the like.
The interesting thing about this image is there’s a temptation to think about the armor of God and say, “I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to put on these things.” That’s true in a sense — this is something we do. But we stand shoulder to shoulder, shield to shield, faithfully encouraging and protecting each other. What does this mean? It means my faith, or your faith, can help protect me. When I fail, when I drop my shield, my brother can step in and help me. This is a corporate activity. There’s a sense in which all of this armor is something we do as the body of Christ.
If you want to take the military metaphor a little bit further, that means Emmanuel Baptist Church, for all intents and purposes, is a unit. We serve, we love, we encourage together. This is the shield of faith.
Now you might ask, what is faith? Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.” Simply put, it means believing God forever. Faith holds on to the promises of God in times of doubt and depression. Faith trusts God for deliverance in the moment of temptation. Faith believes the word of God.
This imagery of a shield is seen endlessly throughout the Old Testament. In Genesis 15:1, God tells Abram, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward will be very great.” See, our faith, our shield of faith, is in the one who will be our shield.
And the reason it’s important that these shields are doused in water is because flaming arrows were the weapon of the day. A flaming arrow, as the text tells us the enemy shoots at us, has multiple ways of killing you. It can kill you because it pierces you. It can kill you because it lights your clothes on fire. It can kill you because it lights your shield on fire. And the shield of faith, doused in water, prevents the fiery darts from doing what they’re intended to do.
Note too that a flaming dart, a flaming arrow, is indiscriminate. The devil will fire endless arrows, not caring who he hits. He’s just trying to get any one of you. It’s indiscriminate. And in return, we have the shield of faith to protect ourselves.
In 6:17, we see the helmet of salvation. Yet again, this is a reference to Isaiah 59:17 — the literal words “helmet of salvation” appear there. And I don’t think it’s too much to say that a helmet protects our heads, but also our minds. We’ve seen that the devil works at the mental level from the start, through scheming and deceit. And salvation gives steel for our minds, protection for our minds. Why? Because no matter how bad things get here, no matter what we face, the Christian knows that eternity is secure. Our inheritance is with Christ in the heavenly places, and he keeps it on our behalf.
So no matter what we face, the knowledge of our salvation gives us encouragement. This knowledge of salvation soothes, comforts, and gives confidence. It reminds us that regardless of what happens here, in the heavens we are one with Christ.
Sword of the Spirit — also in 6:17. Jesus demonstrated to us in Matthew 4 how to fight against the devil: by using God’s word. Christ rebukes the devil with the word. It’s the other offensive weapon. It’s how we do battle.
Now the word that Paul uses for “sword” here is actually a Roman short sword. Unlike the fiery darts or flaming arrows, a short sword is for close combat. It’s up close and personal. It resonates with that idea of wrestling. It’s grimy, it’s dirty, it’s brutal. But the thing we depend on in those moments is the sword of the Spirit, the word of God.
Now these references that we see in Isaiah about how the Messiah does these things, wears these things, should remind us that we put on this armor in Christ. We have union with Christ. The whole book of Ephesians is telling us to walk like Christ because we are in Christ. So the reason we have access to the armor of God is because by the Holy Spirit we’ve been unified with him.
“We were lost, but God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, makes us alive together with Christ. By grace we have been saved.”
See, putting on this armor means putting on Christ. And so if you don’t know him, you’re vulnerable. The tides and winds of this life can topple you and leave you without hope. But Jesus invites you to put his armor on, to be unified with him. You need only turn from your sin and trust him.
And this armor is how Christians live the Christian life. This is how we stand firm. This is how we’re not toppled over.
A natural question for me though — this imagery is awesome. There are countless Christians who’ve memorized this passage of scripture, because it’s just so vivid. I don’t need to come up with an illustration because it is an illustration. But how do you do this? How do you put on the helmet of salvation? How do you take up the shield of faith? How do you fasten on the belt of truth and run in the gospel boots?
Well, I think it’s an act of faith. It begins in the mind. In those moments we’re prone to doubt or distrust the Lord, it’s saying, “I choose to believe him anyway.” When temptation pulls on us and really wants to pull us into sin, it means, “I’m going to trust the Lord that I can resist this with the armor that he’s given me.”
And when I do stumble, it begins in the way that we talk to ourselves. It begins in how we trust or don’t trust the promises of God. And it continues in a prayerful reliance on Christ who supplies. He’s the one who supplies our grace. He’s the one who supplies the armor. We’ve got to rely on him. And it means linking arms with your brothers and sisters in your local church who you’re on a journey with. The shield metaphor is powerful — we stand shoulder to shoulder to help each other stand firm.
We have to receive God’s armor through our union with Christ, and then we’ve got to strive to put it on. This concept is hard. It’s this idea of grace-driven effort. There’s nothing we can do to save ourselves, so we receive Christ’s salvation and then we take hold of his righteousness as best we can.
John Stott said it this way: “Some Christians are so self-confident that they think they can manage by themselves without the Lord’s strength and armor. Others are so self-distrustful that they imagine they have nothing to contribute in their victory in spiritual warfare. Both are mistaken. Paul expresses the proper combination of divine enabling and human cooperation.”
So the devil has us outgunned and outwitted, but God gives us armor with which we can stand against the devil.
But also, we’re to pray. In verses 18 through 20, we see that we are supposed to pray for all the saints to persevere and boldly preach the gospel.
At the beginning of the letter, Paul is giving thanks for the salvation of the Ephesian Christians; after he’s blessed the name of the Lord, he prays for them to see all the more clearly the gospel of Jesus Christ. And now he returns to that same prayerful dependence and asks them for the same in return.
This is a little remarkable. Paul is an apostle. He sees Christ, hears Christ on the road to Damascus. He’s written a huge percentage of the New Testament. But what does he ask the Ephesians for? Their prayers. There is no super-Christian who does not need the prayers of fellow believers.
And then he tells the Ephesians to pray at all times. Now what does this mean? Does this mean we’re supposed to pray 24-7, ceaselessly, without end? Well, not quite. But we ought to be like David, petitioning the Lord any time we’re on the precipice of a difficult decision. We ought to be praying in dedicated times with the Lord — just him and us, for some extended period of time. And we ought to be praying spontaneously throughout the day. We should be praying long enough that we can make serious, dedicated time for the Lord, and quickly enough that it can be at hand throughout the day. That can be as simple as, in the midst of a conversation, saying something in your mind along the lines of, “Lord, help me to be wise. Help me to be encouraging. Help me to be loving.” We’ve got to endlessly pray.
I didn’t tell my wife I was going to do this, but she’s an incredible encouragement to me in this. At a moment’s notice, Marian will say, “Well, do you want to pray? Let’s pray. Let me pray with you.” And, you know, you feel awkward at first, but you’re like, I know I ought to pray. And it’s encouraging. We have to be quick to pray.
And pray for all of the saints. We’ve got to pray for the saints across the globe. We have to be encouraged — there are many who face hardship that we can’t possibly imagine. We need to pray for one another. This is where the membership directory is awfully helpful. We want to pray for each other by name. If it’s true that we are a unit, one of the things we can do to equip this unit is pray for one another as often as possible.
Prayer is how we put on the armor of God. Prayer is a dependence on the Lord. It is both an activity — pursuing the Lord for what he has to offer — and it’s a receiving. It’s a realization that there’s nothing we can do, and yet it’s still something that we’re doing to chase the Lord, to pursue the Lord.
Some small pieces of advice on prayer. One: the Puritans used to say, “Pray until you pray,” which I take to mean pray as long as it takes before you’re no longer just saying words, but actually speaking from the heart, where you’re actually being vulnerable with your true friend, Christ.
Second thing: there’s an acronym that’s frequently been used called ACTS. The first is adoration — we should praise God. The second, confession — we bring our sins to him and ask for mercy that we know we have through Christ. T is thanksgiving — we thank him for what he’s given us. And S is supplication — we ask for his help in the things that we see. ACTS.
But Paul calls us to pray. Now it’s interesting to observe: what does Paul pray for? At this point, Paul’s in prison. Many commentators think he’s likely actually physically chained to a Roman soldier. He’s under the equivalent of house arrest. He does not have freedom. He cannot leave. But he doesn’t pray for a change in his circumstances. He doesn’t pray that he’d get free. What he prays for is boldness in preaching the gospel.
I imagine being tied to a Roman soldier who could beat you and probably kill you at a moment’s notice does something to check your boldness. Preaching the gospel is a dangerous thing for Paul, and so he asks that he would continue to be bold, knowing that that’s how he ought to speak.
For us, we face far less hard circumstances in sharing the gospel, and yet we need that same boldness. Social pressure is not nothing. It is uncomfortable to talk to people in our lives about Jesus if we’re unsure of the reception they’re going to give us. So let us be bold as Paul is bold. Let us pray that we all would be bold in sharing the gospel. Paul refers to the mystery of the gospel, which we have already seen is the reality that both Jew and Gentile — all peoples of the earth — will be blessed through Christ, through the gospel.
And so this is what he proclaims loudly and boldly: that salvation is available to all.
So we see that the devil has us outgunned and outwitted, but God gives us armor with which we can stand. And then we’re exhorted to pray for all the saints, that we persevere and boldly preach the gospel.
But we also have to know that part of praying well is knowing one another well. So our last point: we have to help each other stand by encouraging people. Verses 21–24.
Tychicus — who’s this guy? Tychicus has been with Paul on missionary journeys. He went through Greece right after the riots in Ephesus in Acts 20, so it’s possible that Tychicus either lived in Ephesus or is from Ephesus. And later Paul sends him to Crete to join Titus to re-establish the church there. So in short, Paul and Tychicus know each other. They’ve ministered together. They’ve labored together and stood shoulder to shoulder. They’ve been through the hard things and the blessed things together.
And so the people that know us best are often able to bless us best. See, Tychicus knows everything that’s happening with Paul.
I’m not saying everyone in this room needs to know everything about you. But if you’re a member of Emanuel Baptist Church, someone in this room should know everything about you. That’s the level of friendship that Paul has with Tychicus.
Since I moved to the DC area nearly 20 years ago — which is a crazy thing to say — something that I’ve heard at every single church is “I don’t feel connected.” Every single one. Different denominations, different pastors, different majority culture groups — the same. I don’t know why, to be honest. It could be something about this area. It could be something about American culture in general.
I don’t know, but what I can tell you is that what Paul is exhorting us towards here is relationship that is deep, gospel-centered, and meaningful. So work on those friendships. It’s going to require time. It’s going to require getting over a little bit of awkwardness. You’ve got to say things like, “This is what I need to confess this week,” and just be out with it. You’ve got to lean into uncomfortable conversations.
Because the joy on the other side of that is to watch your brother and sister grow in grace in the Lord, and then get to encourage them in that. You will not be sorry on the last day for any moment you spend with a brother and sister pushing them towards Jesus. You will be grateful. You will be glad, because their joy is your joy, because your joy is found together in Christ.
And so Paul turns at the end of his letter to do this very thing. He wants to encourage the believers that are hearing him, reading him. He says, “Peace be to the brothers and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.”
He’s blessing them with the peace that surpasses all understanding that can be found in Christ. He’s telling them that God loves them. This is the love incorruptible.
So the whole book: walk like Christ because you are in Christ. The spiritual and the practical are tied together. We see the spiritual truth of Christ’s supremacy and our inheritance in Christ. We see a saving work in chapters 1 and 2. And here in 6, we see that this same gospel, this same inheritance, equips us with the armor of God that we might stand fast against the forces of evil. That we can make it through this life — maybe physically destroyed, but spiritually untouched — because of Jesus.
Christ’s already won. We stand in faithful expectation forever. And we walk in Christ’s armor.
Would you pray with me?
Heavenly Father, we do give you thanks for Jesus, who made a way where there was no way. Who gives us the perfect armor to defend ourselves from the attacks of the enemy through his blood and sacrifice on the cross. We know that if we are in Christ, we have an inheritance that’s kept forever in the heavenly places, untouchable, that we cannot be separated from.
And so when we’re hit hard in this life, that we would stand firm. That we would stand with our brothers and sisters, encouraging each other towards Christ. That we would put on the armor of God, that we would know what you’ve done on our behalf. We pray that this reality will become truer and realer to us day by day, and we pray that we would walk in the shoes — as shoes for our feet, the gospel of peace — to all the neighborhoods, all the people, all the places around us, so we can just rob one more captive away from the enemy.
We pray all this in Christ’s name. Amen.
