The Armor for the Fight of Our Lives (Part 1) | Armor of God - Audio

City Light Church Sermons

Sermon Text: Ephesians 6:10-14 Sermon Date: 7/28/2024 Speaker: Brian Crawford . Check us out at: https://citylightvicksburg.org/ Or check us out here: https://www.facebook.com/citylightvicksburg . The last few weeks, we’ve been talking about how to live wisely as a Christian, as the days are evil. In a nutshell - do not be controlled by the created, but be controlled by the creator. Prefer others over yourselves. Living wisely is to also engage with spiritual warfare. Our greatest battles are not in the physical, but the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers. Your adversaries are not the people around you, but these spiritual authorities. The moment when you are unified with Christ, you instantly become an enemy of Satan. Spiritual warfare is bigger than physical harm. But it’s difficult to understand. Because we’re human, we see threats to our physical comfort and wellbeing as the biggest threat. Satan attacks all of those things as an attempt to poison our souls. Satan attacks your health to get you to start doubting Jesus “if I trust Him, and this is what I get… why should I continue?” He also attacks your relationships. “I have no idea why I keep forgiving people, even though I do not receive that consideration in return when I need it. Job is a wonderful example of this. Job lost just about everything in his life. But we’re told what satan was really after in the very beginning. Satan’s aim was to get Job to curse God. The poisoning of his soul. Satan desires us to say no to Jesus’s way. I will not follow His ways. At time, Satan will grant us prosperity in an attempt to poison our soul. We have an example of Jesus being led into the wilderness, and tempted with all things prosperous. But Satan’s end game is the SAME. Our greatest battles are spiritual - the poisoning of our soul. Paul’s appeal if for us to be strong in this world, yes, BUT to be strong in spirit, in God as well! Your survival depends on not just your health, but being committed to the Way and will of Jesus, no matter how much that Way runs up against the way the world and satan works. Your daily fight is to stay connected to Jesus. That is spiritual warfare. Paul tells us how to stand - take up the whole armor of God. The reason to do so, is to STAND. You are standing next to the King, wearing His armor, standing against Satan’s attempts on drawing you in. A resilient stand with God is what Paul has in mind here. The first piece of armor - “fastened on the belt of truth.” There’s 2 types of imagery possible here. the Roman soldier. The belt for the Roman soldier is an article that held things together. They do not speak to glamor, but to preparedness. And Truth, is the means by which we are prepared. (Because the purpose of the armor - is to stand against the Schemes of the Devil). And the best way to stand against the lies of the devil - to be prepared with Truth. When Satan’s lies tells us “you tried it God’s way, and look how horrible you feel?” You will be prepared with the truth - “The suffering of the present times is not worth the Glory to be revealed to us.” We combat the lies of Satan by living in a state of preparedness with the Truth. Paul tells us to stand next to Jesus, wearing the armor, and to stand on Truth. Without Truth, believes can be attacked and be weakened, because a piece of the armor is missing. The other image that Paul has for the belt of Truth - the belt of Faithfulness the messiah wears in Isaiah is the same word that’s translated Truth in Ephesians. Thus, the belt of truth the believer wears is a part of the same armor Christ wears and is an example of our union with God and being “one with the Lord.” #churchservice #armorofgod #spiritualwarfare #christianity #spiritualbattles #faith #divineprotection #spiritualawareness