Conventional Wisdom

NOTE: The mp3 audio of this sermon can be downloaded in the Sermon Audio tab at or by clicking here.

 

THE BELIEVER’S WARFARE – PART TWO

Series: Ephesians

Limestone Baptist Church, Bedford, IN

Rev. Michael Wilhite

February 8, 2009 at 10:30am

Ephesians 6:14

 

OPENING THOUGHTS

 

·         OPEN IN PRAYER

·         Take your Bibles and open with me to Ephesians 6. We are going to be focusing in on verse 14 today, but again I want to read verses 10-20 to you for context.

·         READ EPHESIANS 6:10-20

·         Clearly a simple reading of this text will show us that we are engaged in a conflict far greater than any of us realize. The whole world we live in is a battleground between the forces of good and evil; between God and the devil; between holiness and sin; between life and death.

·         And consequently we as Christians are caught up in the middle of this battle. We have no choice but to fight. We are soldiers of the cross. We are soldiers of Christ in truth arrayed. We have enlisted in the heavenly army when we were saved.

·         2 Timothy 2:3-4 tells us this:

3 Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

4 No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in the concerns of everyday life so that he can please the one who enlisted him.

·         Listen here’s what Paul is saying to us. When the Army drafts someone to be a soldier, they don’t come up to that person and say, “here’s your uniform. Do you think it would be alright if you put it on once in a while? We really don’t want to trouble you! And here’s the schedule we go by. Will that work for you or do you need to come late? And how do you think your family will react to this? Take some time off regularly to please them if you need to.”

·         Are you kidding me? When you enlist as a soldier, they practically own you! You don’t decide your schedule, what you will wear, what you will do, who you will call. You don’t do anything other than be engaged in active duty to your country.

·         But it’s the same way with us as Christians. They are far too many people out there who only are half-heartedly giving their allegiance to Christ as a good soldier of His. Far too many Christians get entangled in the cares of this world, instead of being far more concerned about the cares God’s kingdom!

·         As we identified last week, the question is not whether you are a soldier or not. The question is what kind of a soldier are you? Are you faithful and fully engaged in the battle? Or are you standing around, getting defeated every conflict you enter into?

 ·         In 1521, disguised as a knight, Martin Luther began working on his translation of the New Testament from Greek into German. The devil was furious and full of hellish rage. Luther wrote that he heard dreadful noises in his chamber at night that would awaken him from sleep. Howling as of a dog could be heard at his door, and on one occasion as he sat translating the New Testament, he wrote that an apparition of the Evil One, in the form of a lion, seemed to be walking round and round him, and preparing to spring upon him.

·         Seizing the weapon that came first to his hand, which happened to be his inkwell, Luther hurled it at the devil with such force, that he put the fiend to flight, and broke the plaster on the wall. The stain from the splattered ink remained on the wall for hundreds of years, as a visible reminder of fierceness of the battle.

·         Now you and I may never get to that level of fierceness in the battle. Most of us will never have to see what Luther saw. But we are all called to have the same dedication that Luther had. Luther was a soldier and he knew where his priorities lay. He didn’t get entangled in the foolish concerns of the world. He let God’s kingdom priorities be his guiding priority in his life.

·         We looked pretty in-depth last week at some foundational principles in this passage. And I think that serves well as a good introduction for what Paul is going to continue to say to us in coming weeks as we go through this text. But I want to just remind you of what I consider to be the central theme in this text. You can sum it up in one simple word – stand!

·         In fact Paul mentions this concept three separate times in this one passage. In verse 11 he says:

11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

·         And in verse 13 he says:

13 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.

·         And finally we come to verse 14, which we are looking at today, and we notice the first words are this: STAND FIRM.

·         This whole passage is all about standing firm, resisting the schemes and wiles of the devil. It’s not about going out to fight the enemy and looking to pick a fight. It’s all about what to do when the enemy comes looking for you and you can be well assured that he will!

·         Now just a little more by way of introduction, I want to take you deeper into verse 13 and this concept of standing or resisting. Verse 13 tells us to resist or as the old King James says, to withstand in the evil day. Either way it means the same thing. We are called to stand against the devil and his schemes. To resist implies action on our part.

·         This isn’t something we can be sort of hum dumb about. We are either fully committed to this or we really aren’t committed at all to this. There really is no in between. And we are called to do in many places in Scripture.

·         For example, James 4:7 tells us:

7 Therefore, submit to God. But resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.

·         We are called to anthistemai the devil – to resist him. And that is the same exact verb used in Ephesians 6:13, translated as withstand. Submit to God. Withstand against, resist, defend yourself against the devil and he will flee from you, James tells us.

·         Similarly 1 Peter 5:9 tells us:

9 Resist him, firm in the faith…

·         And there again is anthistemai, resist, withstand, fight against. Now Webster’s dictionary defines resist for us like this:

o    Literally, to stand against; to withstand; hence, to act in opposition, or to oppose. A dam or mound resists a current of water passively, by standing unmoved and interrupting its progress.

·         And might I submit to you, beloved, that we are called to be the mound of dirt that keeps the waters of evil back. How do we do that? By standing unmoved and interrupting evils progress in our lives.

·         Now if we are going to having any ability to resist and to withstand the evil coming against us, how will we be able to go about it? Go back to verse 11 for the answer.

11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

·         That’s the answer. Get your armor on! Now this armor isn’t something you can physically take up. 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 describe what this armor is like to us a little better.

3 For although we are walking in the flesh, we do not wage war in a fleshly way,

4 since the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments

5 and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

6 And we are ready to punish any disobedience, once your obedience is complete.

·         Our weapons are not human-made. They are God-made. They are spiritual tools that God has provided for us to conquer the enemy in our lives. Now having said that, I think many people have some misconceptions of what the armor of God really is. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people say over the years to me that all we need to do to get the armor on is to just pray through each piece one at a time on a daily basis. It’s as if this becomes some sort of a magical incantation that we can use.

 ·         Now I believe this view is so popular because it stems from a wrong view of what the armor is. Some view the armor of God as things that God GIVES to us to fight the battle. They would argue, then, that these are things that we pray for God to grant to us so that they can be put on in our lives.

·         But this morning I really want to correct you thinking on these items. If this has been what your understanding of the armor of God is, then you have been misinformed. Actually these pieces of armor are not something that we pray to God to put on in our lives. These are not things that God just magically grants to us at our asking.

·         No, these pieces are all things that are immensely practical in our lives and they are all things, NOW CATCH THIS BECAUSE THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT. They aren’t things God gives to us, they are THINGS THAT WE MUST DO. And I hope that you will begin to see the difference over the coming weeks as we go through this text.

 ·         This morning, by God’s grace, we’ll hopefully get through the first two pieces of armor. And from there we will take two pieces each week until we are through with the passage. These are simply too deep to just give you a surface understanding of.

·         Would you look with me this morning again at verse 14 and let’s notice the first piece of armor. And though I usually read from the Holman Christian Standard Version because it is such a great translation and easy to understand at the same time, I am in need of reading from the New American Standard Version because accuracy is really important to our understanding this text this morning.

14 Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

 

THE BELT OF TRUTHFULNESS

·         Now first let us look at having girded your loins with truth. If you read other translations here, you will most likely seeing something to the effect of put on the belt of truth. And that is very accurate, but literally the Greek does say gird your loins with truth and I really wanted you to see that this morning.

·         Now the concept of having our loins girded with something isn’t exactly modern language, but it’s really essential to understand this concept if we have any hope of understanding what this passage says here.

·         Loins simply refers to your waist area. So to gird it up means that you are putting something around you waist to tie all the loose ends together. It actually was an ancient Hebrew concept which signified readiness or preparedness.

 ·         For example, when God was questioning Job about why Job was doubting God, God told Job in 38:3 to “gird up his loins like a man.” And what God meant there was that Job needed to tie up the loose ends of his thinking and get ready to answer God. God said the same thing again in 40:7.

·         When God called Jeremiah to be a prophet in Jeremiah 1:17, God told him to gird up his loins and take a message to Judah. Again indicating to us that Jeremiah needed to get ready to go where God wanted him.

·         But in 1 Peter 1:13 we find this interesting statement and I want to read it to you so you can get this concept fresh in your mind.

13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

·         That’s what the New American Standard tells us, but if you read it from the King James you’ll find this:

13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind…

·         What Peter is saying this this: get ready! Tie up all the loose ends of your mind. Be sober in spirit, or in other words, keep alert. Always be on the lookout for your souls. And fix your hope entirely on Christ, because Christ is the center of everything. And if Christ is not your center of life, then you are unbalanced and unprepared for battle.

·         We say things like this in our modern day too, by the way. We say that we’re “rolling up our sleeves.” Or a coach at a ball game might take his sport coat off and you know he’s getting serious. That’s the same idea here as “gird up your loins.” It indicates that we are ready for battle.

·         Now Paul was in contact with Roman soldiers all the time. They were everywhere he went. Paul was born in Tarsus, which is a city in Modern Day Turkey. He was a Roman citizen. They were all over Israel, where Paul was a Pharisee. When Paul went on his missionary journeys, he saw them all over the place too. There were millions and millions of them in the Empire.

·         Skip down to verse 20 and you will also notice that Paul was a prisoner in chains. When he wrote Ephesians he was on his way to Rome to stand trial for being a Christian. He was with Roman soldiers constantly at this point in his life. And no doubt he took note of what they wore. He may have been looking at one as he penned this letter to Ephesus.

·         Now Roman soldiers wore tunics. A tunic was a linen or wool cloth, depending on the season. A soldier’s tunic was usually red. It had a hole in the neck and holes for the arms and that was it. It went down to his knees usually. We might think of it as a dress for men.

·         Now if a soldier went into battle with just that thing on, there would be no battle at all. All the enemy would have to do is pull the bottom over the head and AH HA that would be the end of the soldier! So it was very important that the tunic be fitted tightly around the waist so it would stay in place.

·         That’s where girding the loins with a belt comes into play. There were lots of belts in the Roman world. Some were just linen sashes really. Soldiers usually wore leather belts. There was also a shoulder strap that attached to the belt and went up the chest and over the back to the other side of the belt. The sword was attached to this. And it also served as a place to put metals of honor on the soldier for decoration.

·         A soldier would take his tunic and gather it together and put his belt on. Then he might even tuck other parts of the tunic into the belt so that it stayed secure in battle. The belt served as the reminder for the soldier that he was going into mortal combat. This was serious stuff and he was ready for the challenge.

·         Now that is fitting imagery for the Christian because Paul wants to remind us from the very beginning that you are never going to win the battle unless you get serious by getting ready for it. And just what exactly does Paul say we gird our loins up with? Truth!

 ·         Now the word for truth here is altehia and altehia can mean truth as in content. That is by far what we associate with this word in our thinking most often. It can mean that and certainly I think it’s associated with it, but that’s not what Paul really means here.

·         What is truth? Well Jesus in His high priestly prayer prayed to God for His disciples and do you remember what He said? “Sanctify them by Your Word. Your Word is truth.” Right? Truth is in the Word of God in other words. God’s Word is ultimate, absolute truth.

·         But there is another piece of armor that deals with that. Down in verse 17 we find the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. So what I am saying is that truth in the form of content will be dealt with later in the armor. So the belt of truth can’t be content, then. It must be something else besides content.

·         Now while alethia can mean truth as content, it can also mean truth as an attitude. Truthfulness might be a better way to translate it. Truth from God’s Word that is lived out in your daily life. That’s what this is talking about. An attitude rather than something tangible.

·         In other words, it is that we are seriously committed to the battle. Because we believe the truth, because we love the truth, we go to war for the truth. We pull in all the loose ends. This is sincerity, if you will, truthfulness, integrity, true dedication. It is not so much content as it is commitment. Attitude is the real issue here. 

·         We have a heart for the battle. We’re not out there unprepared. We’ve got all the loose ends pulled together. We’ve put on the sash that holds our weapons and marks us as soldiers. We have a heart for battle. 

 ·         To borrow the words of Jesus, you don’t go to war unless you’ve counted the cost. The belt of truthfulness means we’ve done that. The true Christian loves the truth and is ready to fight for the truth. We will earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. We’ll go to battle for the truth, but we’ll go to battle truly for our own spiritual protection.

·         Remember that we’re talking here not about advancing the Kingdom of God. We’re not talking about going and preaching the Gospel and seeing souls saved in this passage. We’re talking about standing firm. We’re talking about being fully committed to win the war against the devil’s interference in our lives.

·         Listen beloved, if you’re just going to flop your way through your Christian experience, you will be a consistent loser. I will personally guarantee you that. You want to know why so many Christians lose the battles all the time? I’m dead convinced that it’s because they really don’t even care if they win!

·         Some of you I’m sure are just content with all the loose ends of your life, all the little sins. And if you’re content with your infrequent interest in prayer, your infrequent interest in worship, your indifference toward great spiritual truth, if you’re content with your small understanding of the greatness of God, if you’re content with the sins in your life, if you’re content with your small understanding of God’s Word, you are an encumbered soldier, ill prepared for the battle, so get ready to be defeated because that’s what will happen to you consistently!

·         To borrow the metaphor of Hebrews 12, if you are going to run the race, run in such a way that you win. Get rid of everything that hinders you! You don’t see someone running a track meet in combat boots and a trench coat, do you? Of course not, that’s just ridiculous! But many Christians are just as ridiculous in their personal walk when they won’t lay aside the sins that so easily ensnare them!

·         That’s what Paul is saying here in verse 14 of Ephesians 6. You need that sincere type of commitment in your life. It needs to be genuine. By the way, the word sincere is a good illustration of this. Our English word sincere actually comes from the Latin word sinecera, which literally means “without wax”. Sine is without in Latin and cera means wax.

·         In Roman times cooking pots were not like we would have around today. They were clay pots that were fired to become solid. They were expensive to make – not so much in money, because water and dirt to make clay were readily available. But it took a lot of time to make one.

·         During the firing process, some pots cracked. Now potters who didn’t care about their finished product would take wax and fill in the cracks and then paint over it. The consumer would never know – not until it was too late. The first time a person filled it with something and started to cook with it, the heat would melt the wax and the food would spill out.

·         Potters who put out quality work that had no wax were known as sinecera. They were sincere in their work. They were truthful, committed to their integrity.

·         That is a great illustration of life for us. Someone who had the belt of truthfulness on is fully committed to integrity in his life. He’s sincere, he’s without hypocrisy in his life. He’s fully committed to living his life without any cracks in it that need to be hidden. He’s dealt a death blow to his sinful ways and doesn’t cover things up.

·         And, of course, Jesus is a perfect model of this. And Paul follows His example and Paul is such a great model of going to battle in a mode of a soldier ready to resist whatever comes his way. He says to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians 1:12

12 My conscience is clear. I know that in Godly sincerity and spiritual integrity I’ve lived before you.

·         That’s so important, beloved.  He says, “I have renounced a hidden life of shame.”  Same book, fourth chapter.  I guess the real issue is this: how badly do you want to win? That’s the question. As I said earlier, I’m convinced actually that most Christians lose the spiritual battles as they go through life because they really don’t care that much about winning them. It doesn’t matter to them that much.

·         It’s like you run a marathon and you’re in shape and you’ve prepared and all of that. You’ve got all the right stuff and you’re really going at it. Then about half way you just sit down and give up and say, “No big deal. Who needs this stress? I don’t care if I cross the finish line or not!”

·         For some people, life is just like that. I just didn’t feel like running. Listen beloved, if you’re indifferent about the spiritual battle, believe me, you’re going to lose it and you’re going to waste the opportunity for an eternal reward for usefulness, for joy and blessedness. 

·         You are a soldier in the army of God. Get your belt on. Strap it on, gird it up, pull it together. Go to battle because that’s who you are. You are a soldier and you are engaged in a war. Committed to obedience, committed to fight the enemy in the power of Christ. Commitment at any cost. That’s the real issue here.

 

THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHT LIVING

·         With that said, let me give you the second piece of armor in this passage this morning. Verse 14:

14 and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

·         Dedication is important. In fact it’s essential. But you can be fully committed to the battle and still lose. Commitment is only one part of the equation. That commitment has to be backed up by right living.

·         What do you think would have happened if a Roman soldier got his belt on and he was fully committed and prepared to go to battle, but there wasn’t anything else on him to protect him? He’d lose, right? With nothing covering his internal organs, he’d be vulnerable to anything coming at him.

·         Now the Roman breastplate was sometimes made of very heavy linen to which were attached overlapping pieces, sometimes of iron, and sometimes of shell, or horn. But more often it was apparently made of metal, sometimes woven chain metal which would be very, very heavy.  Sometimes woven chain metal was linked together with rings of metal and sometimes it was a thin pounded plate of metal. 

·         No Roman soldier would have thought of going into battle without his vital organs protected. You can take a shot in the thigh, you can take a shot in the arm, you can take a shot in the shoulder, but you get one here and that’s serious. The breastplate protects your vital organs.

·         Now what exactly is our breastplate? Righteousness, Paul tells us. Now what kind of righteousness is Paul talking about here? Well we really only have three options. He could be talking about self-righteousness. Or he could be talking about Christ’s righteousness given to us at salvation. Or he could be talking about our living out that righteousness of Christ in our lives. Those are really our only options.

·         Let’s consider the first one – self-righteousness. The Bible is abundantly clear that self-righteousness is really no righteousness at all. In fact, the Bible says that any good work that we do to try to get saved is like filthy rags before a holy God.

·         So that is out. This really just isn’t an option. What about the second one – Christ’s righteousness? Well we know that we are saved because Christ lived the perfect life that we couldn’t live. And when we come to Him for salvation, the righteousness of Christ covers us. God sees Christ and not us when He looks at us.

·         Theologians call this Imputed Righteousness. It’s a righteousness that doesn’t come from us, it’s given to us or imputed to our account. And this may shock many of you, but this is also not what Paul is talking about here. The righteousness of Christ only ALLOWS us to get to the third category here, something we can call practical righteousness.

·         Listen, why would Paul tell us to put Christ’s righteousness on when we were given it at salvation? We’ve already got it on. There’s no need to take it up. No Paul is talking here about what we do AFTER we are saved. What kind of life do we lead as Christians?

·         The old Puritan theologians used to call this Imparted Righteousness. You were given the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation. Christ’s Imputed Righteousness made it possible for you to live out your life in such a way that you are in tune with His will.

·         Philippians 2:12 tells us this:

12 So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

 ·         So now God has given you an imparted righteousness and with that imparted righteousness at salvation He has also given you the Spirit of God, He has given you new life in regeneration, and now you are both capable and responsible to work out the righteousness that has been given to you. Regeneration, new birth, salvation, conversion makes possible, makes real the impartation of a practical righteousness in the matter of day to day living. That’s what he’s talking about. 

·         He’s saying that if you expect to go into the battle, you have to be ready, you have to be committed, you have to be dedicated and devoted and understanding that you’re a soldier, get the loose ends pulled together, but don’t go there unless you are living in obedience to God. That’s the bottom line. Beloved, holy living is the breastplate of righteousness.

 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

·         Put on your armor. It starts with complete, unwavering commitment and dedication. But it demands righteous, holy living. I want to close this morning by looking at Romans 13:11-14, because this is just one more way to say all that I have said this morning.

11 Besides this, knowing the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

12 The night is nearly over, and the daylight is near, so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

13 Let us walk with decency, as in the daylight: not in carousing and drunkenness; not in sexual impurity and promiscuity; not in quarreling and jealousy.

·         Listen, the hour in near when Christ will return. The night is just about over and the righteous rule of Christ is coming. So put on the armor of light. Lay aside the deeds of darkness. That’s just another way of saying get the breastplate of righteousness on!

·         And when I say get the breastplate on or put on the armor of light, here’s what it really means, verse 14:

14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no plans to satisfy the fleshly desires.

·         Make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. You may have the commitment, you may have the eagerness, you may even say, “Yeah, I want to serve the Lord,” but the breastplate has to be on. And it’s amazing how hard it is to keep it hooked. It falls off so easily. We go through life picking up the breastplate and trying to get it on before the next attack. Put it on, put it on. It is the armor of light against the darkness.  Essentially what it means is, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, in that He is the example of perfect righteousness.

·         Next week we’ll look at what it means to have your feet prepared and your shield in your hand. But that’s for next time.

·         LET’S PRAY.

NOTE: The mp3 audio of this sermon can be downloaded on the Sermon Audio page, or by clicking here.

   

THE BELIEVER’S WARFARE – PART ONE

Series: Ephesians

Limestone Baptist Church, Bedford, IN

Rev. Michael Wilhite

February 1, 2009 at 10:30am

Ephesians 6:10-13

 

OPENING THOUGHTS

·         OPEN IN PRAYER

·         Take your Bibles and open with me to Ephesians.

READ EPHESIANS 6:10-20

·         We have come to the last great section in this magnificent work of Paul to the church at Ephesus. Now I have told you before that we can basically divide the book of Ephesians into two parts. The first three chapters dealt with our position in Christ and the remaining three dealt with our practice in living these principles out.

·         I also told you that we could think of these two ideas as that of a high performance sports car. The first three chapters deal with what’s under the hood. It tells us about the engine and just what it is that makes us run. And then you come to chapter two and verse five and you find that you have been made to come alive in Christ. This is the ignition. Christ has turned on the engine and your spiritual life has been started.

·         Now you can have all the right stuff under the hood, but if you never take that car out for a drive it’s useless to you. And that’s where chapter four and verse one comes in. There we see that we are called to walk worthy of being a Christian. And the remainder of what we have seen up until now gives us some solid foundational principles for living our lives for the glory of God.

·         But just knowing these principles alone isn’t good enough. Paul has yet one more thought for us as he closes this letter. Notice that in verse ten he starts off by using the word “finally”. What he is saying is this: in light of everything we have seen, now here is one final thought you need to know. Something so important that you just need to know this before I close out this book.

·         So what exactly is so important that Paul just has to include it after everything he has already shown us? Simply this: you can have the right position and you can have all the facts about how to live your life right before the Lord and you can even be living right. But know this, it won’t be easy. IT WON’T BE EASY.

·         In fact the harder you try to live your life for the glory of God, the harder it will get and that is a guarantee, beloved! But God never promised us that it would be easy, did He? Now if you came to Christ because you thought it would be easy, you came for the wrong reasons. 

·         There are lots of warm, fuzzy, feel-good type of preachers out there who beg for people to come to the altar because Christ will supposedly make their lives happier and more fulfilled. They’ll tell them what they want to hear in a consumer-oriented country like the USA and in so doing some will respond not because they want eternal life, but because Christ can do something for them in this life.

·         We have whole churches that are filled with this type of people now. Willow Creek Church pioneered this idea many years ago and so many churches have tried to follow in their footsteps. And they might well get people in the doors, but that doesn’t make them a legitimate church. Let’s just stop calling places like that actual churches and call them for what they really are. They are nothing more than glorified country clubs for so-called, self-professed saints.

·         The reality is that the church that Christ founded is made up of those whom He has called to life. And if you came to Christ because you thought it would be easy because some slick preacher in an Armani suit told you it would be and you could get all you ever dreamed about, you have been deceived. And you are here for the wrong reasons. And maybe you aren’t even legitimately saved at all and you need to get on your knees and beg Christ for mercy.

·         Listen beloved, the Christian life is not a life of ease. God is not at your beck and call to meet your every want and whim. God will take care of your needs, but that is an entirely different idea. And as we saw last week, this is so critical to understand: He is not your slave, you are His slave! He doesn’t do your bidding. You do His!

·         Now it is with this thought that we come into this last portion of Ephesians. The Christian life will not be easy, in fact Paul tells us in verse 12 that it is a struggle! Paul uses the Greek word pale here at it can be translated as a struggle, a wrestling match or a battle depending on which translation you use.

·         The point is this: the Christian life is not only hard; it is an all out war! And it is a war that EVERY Christian is caught up in, whether you like it or not; whether you know it or not; and whether you fight in it or not. You as a Christian are standing in the middle of a battle wherever you go.

·         Now if we are really going to understand this battle and fight well in it, there are a few key questions we need to ask about this battle, aren’t there? For example, who is our enemy? Why are we fighting this enemy anyway? What tools do we have to help us fight this war? Just how strong is this enemy and how strong is our army?

·         We find the answer to these questions and many more in these last ten verses of Ephesians. Now we are going to take our time going very slowly through this portion of Scripture. And today we are only going to start to look at verses 10-13 and we’ll keep referring to them throughout our study in this section.

 THE BELIVER’S CHARGE

·         Let me give you three thoughts about our battle this morning that you need to know. Number one (and you will see a place for this on your outline): the believer’s charge – the believer’s charge. Look with me at verse 10:

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.

·         The hymn-writer put it this way when he asked this question: “Am I a solider of the cross?” But that’s the wrong question to ask! Of course you are a solider of the cross! The question is not whether you are or aren’t. The question is what kind of a solider are you! Are you a good one or a bad one?

·         Let’s say you were a guard on top of the tower. You’re on the lookout for the enemy. And all of the sudden you see the enemy’s army on the horizon. What do you do? Do you just run out there with your gun and start shooting at them?

·         Well not if you are a good solider. A good solider doesn’t fight the entire war by himself. A good solider just reports to the commander what he has seen and awaits for his orders from the commander, right?

·         That’s essentially what Paul is saying here. Don’t take matters into your own hands. Just report to the Commander. Don’t depend on your own strength. Instead be strong in God’s strength and in His might.

·         And just like we have seen so many times in this book, this is not a one time command. Just like the command to “be filled with the Spirit”, this command is also written in Greek in such a way that it really could be better translated as “be continually being strengthened” by the Lord.

·         In fact, in Philippians 4:13 which is a famous verse you will all know well, we find this same concept. It says this:

13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

·         And there it literally says in Greek, “through Him who infuses strength into me.” And that’s the same idea we find here in verse ten of Ephesians six. To be strong in the Lord means that you are living in such a state that you are wholly dependent on Him for everything. And in so doing, He is causing His strength to show through you.

·         Last week when we discussed this idea that the Christian life would be hard, I made you aware again that Christ is not interested in what you can do for Him. He is interested in what He can do through you. And we saw that Galatians 2:20 said this:

20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

·         How is it going to happen that Christ will live His life through you? It will happen as you heed the command to be filled with the Spirit. When you yield control of your life to Christ, you will find that He will work through you in mighty ways. 

·         Is it too obvious to note that all of this depends entirely on how you are living your life? Listen beloved, when you are living your life in such a way that you are under the control of the Spirit of God, you will find your strength in the Lord. You will find that Christ will be infusing His very strength into you because it will be Christ that is living out His life in and through you!

·         Listen our enemy is too powerful for you to go this alone. And I would wager to say that many of you here today have been trying to go this Christian life alone in your own power for quite a long time. Yeah, you hear sermons on your need to give control to God and yeah you might even get a bit convicted about it.

·         But do you ever change? You can know all the facts in the world about how to be a good husband or a good wife. You can know all the right data the Bible has to give us about how to be a good parent. And you can even know solid principles for how to be a good employee at work. But will any of that do you one bit of good if you refuse to let Christ live His life THROUGH you?

·         Listen this is so important for you to get down at the outset. You cannot win this war if you will not report to the Commander and stop fighting it by yourselves. Some people make the Christian life out to be that of a joke. When you don’t take your Christian walk seriously you will have serious problems in your walk.

·         That’s why Paul gives this charge at the outset of this part of Ephesians. Before you know anything else about how hard it’s going to get, know this above all else: you need to make sure that your power and direction is coming from the right source.

THE BELIEVER’S COMBATANT 

·         And this is really important because as we move on to verse eleven, we go away from the believer’s charge and see the believer’s combatant – the believer’s combatant. Look at verse 11 with me:

11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

·         Here Paul introduces us to the enemy – you know him by many names, but the devil or satan are by far the most common terms for him. Now any good solider is going to know something about the schemes of the enemy. You simply can’t fight this war and know nothing about him.

·         Paul really doesn’t elaborate for us too much here, but what we do know is that our enemy has schemes or tactics that he uses against us. Paul doesn’t identify them for us here, but what that for sure means is this: he is organized. And he knows what he is doing.

·         We know this because verse 12 goes on to say:

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.

·         Our enemy has organized his troops that you most commonly know as demons into different rank and file order, just like in the military. Now we don’t know what the rankings really mean, but Paul does identify some of them for us.

·         He calls them rulers, authorities, cosmic power and spiritual forces of evil. A good analogy might be generals, lieutenants, sergeants and privates if you want an Army analogy. We don’t know what their functions are or exactly what powers one class has over another class. And I really don’t think Paul wanted us to know, if he even knew himself. But we do know this and I think this is really what Paul wants to make sure we understand lour and clear: our enemy is organized. He has schemes and tactics that he does very well. And we need to be ready for them.

·         Now it would be really nice if Paul had given us a little more information here to go on, wouldn’t it? I mean, just what exactly is this enemy like? But Paul was assuming that his readers already knew something about the enemy and in fact the Bible goes on in many other places to describe our enemy to us. And so we want to bring the whole Bible to bear on this and see what we can gleam from other parts of Scripture.

·         Now in the Bible the devil is known by many names. Most of them only occur one or two times.

o    In Genesis 2:1 he is called a Serpent;

o    He’s called the Tempter in Matthew 4:5 and 1 Thessalonians 3:5

o    Beelzebub – Matthew 12:24, which comes from the pagan false god of the Ekronites and it means “lord of the flies”

o    Enemy – Matthew 13:39

o    Evil One – 1 John 3:12

o    Belial – 2 Corinthians 6:15, a Babylonian name which means “an apostate”

o    Adversary – 1 Peter 5:8

o    Deceiver – Revelation 12:9

o    Dragon – Revelation 12:3

o    Father of lies – John 8:44

o    Murderer – John 8:44

o    Sinner – 1 John 3:8

·         And on and on it could go. None of these names are flattering, are they? They all denote something of the wickedness of our enemy. Simply put, the devil will do just about anything that he has to do to bring you down. In fact 1 Peter 5:8 which calls the devil our adversary also goes on to say that he is like a roaring lion who seeks to eat you alive!

·         From near the very beginning of time the devil was corrupt. Ezekiel 28 gives us a very graphic description of our enemy. According to Scripture we know that the devil was once an angel. Most assume that he was the highest of the created angelic order, but that is just an assumption.

·         In fact we know that he was not an archangel like Michael, but rather an anointed cherub verse 14 tells us. And as such he was perfect in all of his ways. His beauty surpassed that of any other angel.

16 Through the abundance of your trade, you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I expelled you in disgrace from the mountain of God, and banished you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones.

·         Now just think with me for a minute about the implications of all of this. The devil was probably one of the highest of the created angelic order, if not the highest. If anyone knew the plan of God well, it was the devil.

·         Yet wickedness filled his heart and he sinned. And so God threw him out of Heaven. Do you really think that you could go up against this guy alone and in your own power and expect that you could win? satan doesn’t go about his daily business with a red suit, a tail and a pitchfork!

·         In fact 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 tells us that satan and his demons have the ability to masquerade themselves as angels of light. They are tricky. They know all the right moves. They’re smooth talkers. They know how to get you to do what they want to do and just what buttons to push to get the job done. And they’ll seize on any open door in a moment of weakness in your life.

·         Folks this war is real. We aren’t engaged in a war against flesh and blood. This is not a war that we can use an atomic bomb and get the job done once and for all to end the war. This is a spiritual war and it must be taken seriously.

·         Now all of these pictures of our enemy can really be quite something to take in, but we really need to know them if we are going to deal honestly with our predicament. And it would also be very wise for us to know something of our enemy’s schemes too.

·         Although Paul doesn’t give us any particulars here in Ephesians, the rest of Scripture does give us a few thoughts. Now I don’t have time to give you everything the Bible teaches us about the wiles of our enemy, but I do want to just briefly mention a few general categories of things the enemy does.

·         The first thing I would mention is that satan has set a goal for himself to utterly destroy your faith if at all possible. Now satan cannot steal your salvation. But he certainly wants to shipwreck your faith as much as he possibly can.

·         In order to do that, obviously the first way he attacks is to tempt us to sin. And I really think that this is probably the primary way that we think about him and his schemes. But there are certainly other ways. He also tries to bring some into persecution to destroy their faith. For others it’s more subtle. He tries to draw us into self-reliance and to get our eyes off of Christ. You see when that happens, he’s got an open door and a foothold.

 

·         I would also mention that a second goal is to bring division into the church. If he can’t destroy someone’s faith, maybe he can stir up trouble. And so he’ll attack with unresolved anger, unforgiveness and bitterness in your life. He’ll tempt you with envy, pride and selfish ambitions. He’ll lead you into covetousness, arguments, slander, gossip and inflammatory speech. He’ll try to sow seeds of mistrust in your mind about the leaders in your church.

·         He knows what he is doing. He’ll try to dilute our efforts in the Christian life. He’ll do everything he can to make sure that he changes the church’s agenda to get off track with God’s agenda. And he’ll make every effort to sow his tares among the wheat so that phony’s are sown in among the real.

·         Beloved, this is a serious issue. You cannot be totally ignorant of the wiles of the devil. He is out to get you anyway that he can and you need to be aware of them.

·         But among the negative that we’ve noted today about our enemy, let us never get too focused on the devil because that in and of itself is also a scheme of the enemy. Our focus is not to be on him. It is to be on Christ. Yes it is valuable to know some key information about the enemy, but it is never helpful to cower in fear because of those facts or even to focus our lives on them.

THE BELIEVER’S COMMITMENT 

·         The real focus of our lives needs to be on Christ. And that is exactly what Paul goes on to tell us in verse 13.

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.

·         Listen, some folks seem to think that they have to focus their lives on what the enemy is or might be doing to them. And certainly we need to know something about it, but understand this: we don’t need to go looking for evil. Evil will come looking for us.

·         There are several examples in Scripture where the apostles cast out different demons. And some well-meaning Christians take that as a mandate for us too. But that’s just not the case. The apostles all did things that you and I will never do.

·         For example, they wrote the New Testament. That’s something I’ll never get to do. They healed people by having their shadows pass over someone! I can’t say that I have that ability, can you? The apostles experiences and did some miraculous things as you go through Acts. I’ll never do 99%+ of those things, most likely including expelling a demon.

·         Now that doesn’t mean that God will never use me to do that, He may well someday. But the chances aren’t that likely. Scripture no where ever tells us to go after the devil and try to chase him down. It only tells us to be ready when he comes for us. And that’s what we see here in verse 13.

·         Now let’s look at this verse. It introduces us to what is known as the armor of God. This is a concept we will be looking at in great depth over the coming few sermons as we close out this book. I think there is great confusion over what this means. Some think that the armor is something that you have to put on daily and I suppose that is true in a sense.

·         But in reality what we are going to see is that each piece of armor is representative of the Godly characteristics that need to be present in our daily walk. So just know this: get your life right before God and you will have the armor of God on. And we’ll see more about that in the coming few sermons.

·         But for now, focus with me on this concept of withstanding so that we can stand firm. The Greek verb for withstand here is anthistenai and it literally means to resist. Resist the devil. Tell him to take a hike. Be totally committed to righteous living that you resist anything that he throws at you. That’s the thought here.

·         James put it this way in James 4:7

7 Therefore, submit to God. But resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.

·         Isn’t this just like God to throw a paradox into the ring? You have to submit to God. You have to find your strength in His strength. You have to let Him live His life through you. Yet you still have to resist. The commitment still has to be yours.

·         There are a lot of people out there who love to say “just let go and let God.” You know that’s really become the prevailing attitude of our Christian culture. The problem is that it’s not Biblical at all. Now I am all for totally surrendering your life to Christ, but total surrender doesn’t mean you sit on your duff and do nothing!

·         Yes you submit to God. But yet you still have to resist the devil. And God promise that he will flee from you when you do. You draw strength from your submission to Christ, but the commitment is still yours.

·         Listen beloved, I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people get convicted by God and resolve in their minds that they will give it over to God and do better. Then the tears stop flowing somewhere between the altar and the door. Real life kicks back in and nothing changes. Then frustration sets in because you gave it over to Christ, right? So what’s the deal? Why are you still doing this same thing?

·         Well you’re still doing the same thing because you didn’t do anything to change. You can give control to God all you want, but God expects the commitment to be there too. You can’t just tell God it’s all up to Him now and call that real submission. That’s not what the Christian life is about by any means.

·         Just look over Ephesians 6:10-20 with me and see if there is anything about submitting in here. The only thing you’ll find is that you have to be strong in the Lord. Everything else is about stuff that you have to do. It’s all about spiritual discipline in your life. You have to have true commitment in your Christian walk. You have to be committed to living out your faith in a righteous way.

·         And if you won’t have that true commitment then you will never see real change, beloved. Yes submit your life to the control of God. Yes be filled with the Spirit of God and let Him be in charge of the show. But at the same time check your commitment level and make sure that you are willing to stand firm and resist the enemy in the evil day.

·         And by the way, the evil day is today, isn’t it? Every day is evil so long as the enemy is still around. So February 1, 2009 is the evil day. And so was yesterday and so is tomorrow. Any day when the enemy is around is the evil day. And you have to be ready in the evil day, so that means you have to be ready all the time!

·         And after you have resisted in the evil day, having done all you’ll be able to stand. And the concept being expressed here is that of the victor’s circle in the Olympics or games such as that. You’ll get the gold. You’ll be the victor. You’ll be able to stand in the winner’s circle.

·         Listen beloved, there are a lot of people who have done it all. But there aren’t that many people who are standing anymore. I’ve had friends in the ministry who have done about everything imaginable, yet they’ve left the ministry because the going go too tough for them. Having done all, they’re not standing anymore!

·         John MacArthur tells the story of going to Ireland for a preaching conference for pastors one time and a gentleman came up to him and asked him if his dad was Dr. Jack MacArthur. And of course it was, so John said yes. This pastor proceeded to tell John that he had been saved as a result of an evangelistic crusade that Jack and two other guys had done in the 60s.

·         He had a special affection for these guys and wanted to know how they were doing. And here’s what John had to tell him. Jack MacArthur was still pasturing in his 90s and being faithful to God. But the other two weren’t the same. One died of alcohol abuse and the other became an atheist and left the faith.

·         As I read that this week, I thought how too often this is common place for us in America. I don’t relish in telling you that story. Having done all, those men aren’t standing anymore.

·         Beloved, it is so important that you get your commitment level right with God. You need to resist the devil. You don’t need to go looking for him, he’s looking for you. Get your battle armor on and fight the good fight. And when the dust settles make sure that having done all you are still standing firm. Listen beloved, I don’t want to be one of those believer’s who come to the end of their lives and they are limping into home plate. You know who I’m talking about - those who’ll end their lives by saying something like “Oh thank God I made it! I thought that would never end!” Are you kidding me? I don’t want to be a wimp! I want to be running with greater speed when I get to the end than when I first began! Having done all, I want to be standing, firmly committed to walking with Christ.

  CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

·         As we close today, I just want to ask you a couple of questions. I really want you to do some soul searching this morning and ask yourself this: does that accurately describe you, beloved? Are you standing in the winner’s circle? Or have you taken the “let go and let God” attitude and seem to fail all the time? You know, we’ve seen our charge, our combatant and our commitment today. So just how good of a solider are you? Do you know your enemy well enough to know his schemes and yet at the same time you keep your focus on the Commander? Have you heeded your charge to find your strength not in what you can muster up? Have you checked your commitment level to see if you are really doing what God has asked you to do?

·         I want to end with the words of John Bunyan, “Hobgoblin nor foul fiend can daunt his spirit, he knows he at the end shall life inherit. Then fancies fly away, he’ll fear not what men say, he’ll labor night and day to be a soldier.” Dear John Bunyan was thrown in the Bedford Jail and it was there that he determined that he’d fight and never grow weary, he wouldn’t feel the blows of discouragement and doubt, and in that time in the jail as he looked to the day he’d be with Jesus Christ, in the worst of circumstances he produced the greatest thing he ever did in his life, Pilgrim’s Progress.

·         Don’t give up. Don’t let satan victimize you with discouragement and doubt, because you’re going to win in the end. And if you are going to win in the end, you might as well start winning now. Get your commitment level right. Get controlled by the Spirit. Let God do His part in you and you do your part of obedience and find the victory that is rightfully yours in Christ.

·         LET’S PRAY.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have just finished a 4-part sermon series on God’s Pattern for Marriage. This was part of my sermon series of verse-by-verse through Ephesians. You can access the sermon series here: http://www.michaelwilhite.net/sermon-audio

The sermons in this series are:

• The Spirit-Controlled Marriage, Ephesians 5:22-33
• God’s Pattern for Wives, Ephesians 5:22-24
• God’s Pattern for Husbands - Part 1, Ephesians 5:25
• God’s Pattern for Husbands - Part 2, Ephesians 5:25-33

I had a truly enjoyable time studying for this series and I must say that I believe that I am a better husband now as a result of this in-depth study. I hope that the Word of God will convict you in the same way that it has me. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Stuart Scott, Dr. John MacArthur, Dr. John Piper and Rev. C.J. Mahaney for the excellent material I have read and used parts of in this series. Out of this study I can now highly recommend two books that should be read by every husband who desires to be the Spriit-controlled man of God that he should be.

1. Sex, Romance & the Glory of God by C.J. Mahaney. This should be on every man’s bookshelf. This book is so practical that if you still walk away with no clue after you have read this book, then you must not have a brain! Seriously, this is an excellent read, chalked full of practical advice and application. Truly life-changing for me.
2. The Exemplary Husband by Stuart Scott. This also should be on every man’s bookshelf. This book is an in-depth theological and Biblical analysis of what God’s Word says about marriage and the role of the husband. Truly the best reference I have found on the subject. Also practical, but not as much as Mahaney’s book.

Those are just a couple of recommendations. I’m curious to see what my readers of this blog may have been reading or have read related to this subject. What recommendations would you make?

Normally I have not been posting my sermon texts on my blog. I now have them online for audio download, but I have felt this one needs to be out there for reading and comment purposes. This topic has been a major burden on my heart lately and I wanted to share it with you. Feel free to comment as you see fit. I’m curious to see what others have to say about this issue.

You can also listen to the mp3 audio of this message here:
http://www.michaelwilhite.net/media/08242008am.mp3

Enjoy!!

SLAVES TO CHRIST

Series: Biblical Stewardship

Limestone Baptist Church, Bedford, IN

Rev. Michael Wilhite

August 24, 2008 at 10:30am

Selected Scriptures w/ emphasis on Colossians 3:24

OPENING THOUGHTS

· OPEN IN PRAYER.

· For the past two weeks we have been looking at the topic of stewardship. We’ve been specifically looking at what the Bible says about how we are to handle our finances and how we are to give. I had planned on going further into this subject, but this week I have felt like I don’t want to beat a dead horse. So today I want to conclude our series by going deeper into what it means to be a steward. It is my prayer that this will tie some loose ends up in your mind.

· We know that 1 Corinthians 4:2 says this:

2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.

· We’ve been talking about money and giving these past two weeks. But Biblical stewardship is about far more than just money. It is all about how you live your life. We’ discussed finances because it is such a need in our society today, but there is much more that could be discussed.

· For example, we could talk about your use of time. Are you redeeming the time like you should be? We could talk about your spiritual gifts and whether or not you are active in using them. We could talk about how and when you evangelize people. Are you being found trustworthy to share your faith as Christ commands?

· Being a steward is far more than just how we handle our money. Being a good steward means that we recognize that our lives do not belong to us anymore. As a Christian, we are living for something and someone far greater than us.

· No rather than talking about money again, I want to wrap up this mini-series this morning by focusing on the most important foundational principle that must underlie our stewardship. If you don’t get this down, you will have problems in every area of your Christian life – finances and everything else included.

· Now if I were to ask you what the most basic and most important of all creeds we have as a Christian, what would you answer me? If I told you to sum it up in just three words, what would it be? What three words would accurately and most importantly describe who we are as Christians and why we exist as Limestone Baptist Church? What three simple words would you choose out of everything in the Bible to sum up the entire message of the Bible?

· Well if you haven’t figured out yet just what the most important three words in Christianity are, then let me tell you. It is really simple, yet very profound. And you’ve no doubt said them before: JESUS IS LORD! In those three words, we have the summation of God’s plan for His church.

· Take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Colossians 3:24

24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.

· This to me is one of the richest verses in all of the New Testament. In it, we have a good definition of how we relate to Jesus. We have defined for us in this one verse Jesus’ part of our relationship to Him and our part of our relationship to Him. And that brings me to the two points that I want to make for you this morning.

JESUS IS LORD

· First point: Jesus is Lord. We’ve all heard this and we all know this, but what does it really mean to us? Let’s explore that in a fairly good degree of depth before we move on to our second and main point this morning.

· Most people who think about relating to Christ think of Him as their Savior. And I think they do so for good reason. We know that Christ is the Savior of the world. There is no salvation outside of Him. And the modern evangelical church has gone to great lengths to ensure that we know that as our Savior, we have a personal relationship with Him.

· Now you’ve probably noticed that I don’t talk about that much. It’s not that I’m against the concept by any means, but I think the wording is too vague. I mean, what does it really mean that someone can have a personal relationship with Christ anyway?

· After all, the devil himself has a very personal relationship with Christ and it is not a good one! In fact, every single person on this earth already has a personal relationship with Christ. We will all stand before His judgment seat to account for what we have done. We all relate to Him personally – some of us for the good and some for the bad.

· Certainly Jesus is our Savior, but He is so much more than just that. In fact, the only way that Jesus becomes your personal Savior is whenever you bow down to Him and acknowledge Him as Lord of your life. Apart from your submitting to His Lordship, you cannot be saved.

· Do you realize that Jesus is called Savior only 24 times in the New Testament? That’s all. It’s enough mind you, but that’s it. Now compare that with the number of times Lord is used. In the original Greek, there are two words for Lord: kurios and despotes. Combined, these two words are used 758 times in the New Testament alone.

· Do you see the point that God places far more emphasis on Christ as Lord than He does Christ as Savior? So if that is really the case, we should then examine just what it means that Christ is Lord. Just what is a Lord anyway?

Well let’s just take the Greek word kurios. Despotes is only used 10 times and is a synonym. So then what does kurios mean? Thayer defines it like so:

1) he to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has power of deciding; master, lord
1a) the possessor and disposer of a thing

1a1) the owner; one who has control of the person, the master

1b) is a title of honour expressive of respect and reverence, with which slaves greet their master

1c) this title is given to: God, the Messiah

· To sum that up in a nutshell, kurios was originally a slavery term and it meant to have absolute power and control over slaves. Now the New Testament goes to great length to show us that Jesus is Lord. You see it here in Colossians 3. In Philippians 2:11, we see that one day everyone will bow down and worship Christ and say that “Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

· Now that is to say, one day everyone who has ever lived will bow down and will be forced to acknowledge Christ’s absolute sovereignty over the entire universe and all that is in it.

· To put it another way, Christ asks His disciples in Luke 6:46

46 And why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I say?

· Right there you have the clearest picture of Christ as Lord in the New Testament. How can we call Christ our Lord if we are not willing to follow His commands to us?

· Now let me just state the obvious here. You can’t be a Lord unless you have slaves. Otherwise you are no Lord at all. Or to state it another way, Christ cannot be Lord of no one. Christ cannot be Lord if He does not have followers that are singly devoted to Him.

WE ARE HIS SLAVES

· And that brings me to my second point that I want to make this morning. Not only is Jesus Lord, but we are His slaves. If you are still in Colossians 3, look with me once again at verse 24.

24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.

· Now if you are wondering where in this verse it talks about our being a slave of Christ, I would not be surprised. The modern church has done everything it possibly can to eradicate this precious truth. Slavery is not a shining moment in US history by any means. It has left a mark on our culture and it’s not something we really want to think about.

· Nonetheless, the Bible uses it as an analogy for the Christian life. What your Bible reads in English here is not what God actually says in His precious Word. In Greek, there are at least six distinct words for ‘servant’ and the wording used here is not one of them.

· The word used here is doulos and it means slave. Here is how Thayer defines doulos for us:

1a) a slave

1b) metaphorically, one who gives himself up to another’s will and those whose service is used by Christ in extending and advancing his cause among men

1c) devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests

· Notice that there is nothing about servant in there. There is a very key difference. You see, a servant could come and goes as he pleased. When you go to work, you are a servant to your boss. It is totally voluntary. No one is making you stay there. If you don’t like your boss, you can get another job.

· A slave had no choice. If a slave didn’t like his owner, it was just tough luck for him. Let me give you four characteristics of a slave and I think that will help you see the difference.

1. Exclusive Ownership. Slaves were viewed as property. They were owned by their Master. They couldn’t rebel and leave. If they did, they faced death. As such, they had no rights. They could not sue. They had no legal rights whatsoever. They were totally at the mercy of their owner.

2. Complete & Constant Availability & Obedience. They were always ready to do what their Master asked of them. That was their life. They were ready and willing because they had to be.

3. Subject to an Alien Will. That is to say, they did not decide what to do on their own. What the Master said to them was the final word. If they chose not to do it, they faced death. They had no will of their own and they could do nothing except that which their Master would allow.

4. Complete Dependence for Everything. They had no job of their own. They were provided for and taken care of exclusively by their Master. All food and clothing was provided for by that Master. They depended on him for everything they ever needed to survive.

· Now compare that to a mere servant. You can serve and go home at the end of the day and not be a slave at all. But a slave was always a slave. A slave did service for his master, but it was forced service.

· Now let’s take that principle back and apply it our text from Colossians. Though almost all English Bibles say ‘serve’ here, let me read to you what God’s Word actually says in the original.

24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ to whom you are enslaved.

· Many people don’t like to think about that because it evokes negative thoughts. We don’t want to be thought of as a slave of the Lord. After all, we’d much prefer to be called children of God and leave it at that, right? But let us not confuse our analogies. One is as important as is the other.

· It is true that we are adopted sons and daughters of Christ if we have come to follow Him. We are His children. We have been made friends with God, right? But nonetheless, we are still slaves. In John 15, Jesus has this to say in verse 14.

14 You are My friends, if you do what I command you.

· So you want to think of yourself as Jesus’ friend? Well you are, if you willing to submit to His Lordship and be His slave. For He goes on to say in verse 15:

15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

· The implication here is that we are no longer merely slaves. It doesn’t mean that we aren’t slaves, for remember that we are His friends if we obey Him. But now we are more than slaves, we are friends at the same time as being a slave to Him.

· In the ancient world, there were different types of slaves a master would have. Some slaves were the lowest of the low and never knew their master other than what he said to do. Some, however, became close friends with their masters and were appointed heads of the estate while the master was away.

· In a sense, that is what we are to Christ. We are still slaves to Him, but we are so much more. We are friends. He has chosen to let us in on His divine plan of reconciliation.

· We are slaves of Christ. This theme literally permeates all of the New Testament. For example, I bet you have heard Jesus say before that no one can serve two masters, right? The problem is, however, that’s not what Jesus actually said.

· Matthew 6:24 actually reads:

24 No one can be enslaved to two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot be enslaved to both God and money.

· The wording that you can’t serve two master is just silly. Actually, yes you can. If you have more than one job, you do serve more than one master. This only makes sense when you understand the word here is slave. A slave can’t have two sovereigns in charge of him. He cannot submit to two absolute rules at the same time.

· In that sense, God says something about us. We cannot be a slave to God and to something else. When Jesus said to follow Him, that means we have to pick up our cross and go after Him, leaving all the world behind. We can’t go totally after God and still hold on to sinful passions.

· This teaching so permeates the New Testament. In Romans 1:1, Paul introduces himself as a slave of Christ. Then in Galatians 1:10 and Philippians 1:1, he calls himself a slave of Christ. He does the same in Titus 1:1. And Paul is not the only one who does this.

· James says the same about himself in James 1:1, as does Jude in Jude 1. Peter does the same in 2 Peter 1:1. The point I want you to see is that all of the apostles considered themselves as slaves to Christ.

· Now think about that for a moment. Here in America, some don’t want to be called a slave of Christ because of a stigma of slavery from four or five generations ago. What do you think about the apostles? They had it going on in front of their very eyes! It is estimated that there were some 10 million slaves in the Roman world alone. And we balk at a stigma from a couple hundred years ago?

· Now if we are honest, it is pretty easy to understand why some people don’t want anything to do with this slave talk. People really don’t want to give up everything to come to Christ and if you eliminate the idea of being a slave, that sure makes the Gospel a lot easier to believe.

· But think for a minute how hard it was for the apostles to preach the Gospel. They were living in a world filled with slavery and were calling people to become slaves to Christ. They were telling the Jews that they killed their Messiah, which is to them a stumbling block. They were telling the Gentiles they needed to submit to a God who was calling them to be His slave. That was foolishness to them.

· Does that sound like something easy to believe? And yet the church flourished those first years. People came to Christ by the thousands on some days. That’s what happens when the church preaches the real Gospel unashamedly instead of watering it down!

· But is that what you hear in evangelical Christianity today? You don’t hear many preachers telling people that if they want to be saved that they must be willing to give up everything they have, deny every selfish and sinful desire they have, take up their cross and be willing to die for their faith and become a slave to Christ.

· When we invite people to come to Christ, do we say things like: I would like to invite you to become a slave of Jesus Christ.  I would like to invite you to give up your independence, give up your freedom, submit yourself to an alien will, abandon all your rights, be owned by, controlled by the Lord.

· People really don’t want to hear that. But all throughout the Gospels, that’s what Jesus told them they had to do. To Nicodemus, Jesus told him he had to give up his Pharisaical religion and be born from above. That’s not something he could do on his own! It is totally the work of the Holy Spirit.

· To the woman at the well, Jesus exposed her wicked lifestyle and when she was thoroughly broken in spirit, she came to Christ. To the rich young ruler, Jesus said that because of his arrogance in thinking he was blameless before the Law of God he would have to sell all of his possessions and give the money away to the poor and then follow Him.

· Now we could go on and on in how Jesus told people the hard truth they needed to hear, but you get the idea. Just read through the Gospels and you’ll see that Christ’s message was not an easy one to swallow. If anyone wanted to come follow Him, they had to count the cost.

· Despite how people may not want to think of themselves as slaves to Christ, that’s what any true Christian is. This is not an optional thing to consider. This is not something that is up for debate.

· Consider some more verses with me. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says:

19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,

20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

· Sound familiar to what we have been saying? That is slave language. You are not your own. You don’t have the right to control your life. You are only a steward of the time and resources that God has given to you. You were bought at a price – bought with the precious blood of Christ.

· Or how about the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6? When we pray “not my will, but Your will be done”, that is slave talk. We are saying that a will other than my own is the deciding factor in my life. That’s a Lord/slave relationship.

· Or how about “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength”? Does that sound like complete and constant availability to you? That’s slave language.

· I really am convinced that the best analogy for the Christian life is that of a slave. After all, we have the most beneficent, loving and kind Master that anyone could have. He calls us His friend. He even adopts us as His sons. Why would we not want to willingly submit our lives to Him as His slaves to do His bidding?

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

· So what do we do with all of this knowledge? Just exactly what does this imply for how we live our lives? Allow me just a few more moments to give you some practical application for your life.

· I think there is a great temptation among some people to think that this is all well and good, but it’s just not for them. This is for the super-Christians. You know, those who are real spiritual and who have the time it takes to do this, but not for them.

· If that is what you are thinking this morning, I want to correct that thinking for you. Turn with me one last time to Luke 17. I want you to hear what Jesus has to say about this very issue. Luke 17:10 says:

10 So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’

· Did you catch that? Being a slave to Christ is not something for the super-spiritual. It’s not something to boast about as a source of great pride that separates you from the weaker believers. No, that’s not it at all. In fact, when you submit to Christ as your Lord and you obey Him as an obedient slave, you are only doing that which you ought to be doing.

· In other words, you are only doing the bare minimum that Christ asks of you. There is nothing super-spiritual about this at all. It is something that is expected of any and every true believer. There is no such thing as a true Christian that wants Him to be Savior, but refuses Him as Lord.

· Jesus Himself said that anyone who would come after Him for salvation must deny themselves. It is the end of the road for your old way of living when you come to Christ. There will be a true heart change in anyone who is a true believer and if you don’t have a true heart change, you aren’t saved!

· So what should our attitude as a slave of Christ be then, you ask? Peter gives us some great insight into that. 1 Peter 2:16 tells us this:

16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as slaves of God.

· Don’t flaunt around your liberty and say that you are going to live your life how you want to live it. Don’t use your freedom in Christ from sin as a license for sin! Instead, use that freedom to be a slave of God.

· In other words, instead of begrudgingly submitting to the will of Christ, you should be more than happy to do that which pleases God. And indeed any true Christian should have more than enough reason to submit to Christ their everything if for no other reason than the redemption He has provided them!

· The Bible is abundantly clear. The Gospel is clear. Come to Christ. Come follow after Him. The very idea of following after Christ means that you are submitting your life to Him as Lord.

· And by the way, you are going to be a slave to someone. If you refuse to be a slave of Christ, then you will be a slave of the devil. You only have two options. And being that Christ allows us to be His slave and gives us an inheritance that lavishes riches on us forever and ever for our unmitigated joy, who wouldn’t want to be a slave of Christ?

· Jesus’ words in John 3:21 are so powerful and so true.

21 He who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.

· What do your deeds say of you, beloved? Do they say that you love the light? Do they show that you run towards the truth of God’s Word? Do they show that you are a slave of Christ? Or do they show that you are a slave to the devil and are his child?

· Heed Jesus’ words this morning: come to Christ, come follow Him, deny yourself, take up your cross, give up your independence, submit to His will, abandon all your rights and become His slave.

· LET’S PRAY.

Just discovered a great new song coming out soon by Steve Camp. Check out his blog and the lyrics here and post your comments below if you like. The words are a really powerful example of the state of the modern church. The lyrics go like this:

V1
Burn your plastic Jesus
The one you keep hid in your drawer
The one you take to church on Sundays
Then conveniently ignore
He’s not big enough to worship
He’s Gandhi with a grin
He never judges sinners
‘Cause he tolerates their sin

V2
Burn your plastic Jesus
Your social worker for the poor
Political crusader, won’t question your behavior
Don’t demand to be your Lord
He’s your presidential slogan
Your bumper sticker God
Who wants to make you happy
With your BEST LIFE NOW
Oh burn your plastic Jesus
Burn your plastic Jesus

CHO
He’s got no power, got no real love
He’s got no cross that he bled and died on
He’s got no tomb that he broke through
Burn this plastic Jesus … he’s just as plastic as you

V3
Burn your plastic Jesus
You’ve got hold up in The Shack
Who shows up as female Papa, Spirit Sarayu
To get the real you back
He’ll help you find your purpose
And pray like Jabez too
Be relevant; emergent
French kiss postmodern truth
Burn your plastic Jesus
Oh burn your plastic Jesus

CHO
He’s got no power, got no real love
He’s got no cross that he bled and died on
He’s got no tomb that he broke through
Burn this plastic Jesus … he’s just as plastic as you

BRG
It ain’t no plastic Jesus who was Virgin Born
It ain’t no plastic Jesus who was beaten and scorned
It ain’t no plastic Jesus who conquered sin and death
And it ain’t no plastic Jesus who drank the cup of wrath
And it ain’t no plastic Jesus who reigns from heaven’s tower
Who’s King of kings and Lord of lords, the Sovereign with all power
It ain’t no plastic Jesus who we worship and we praise
And it ain’t no plastic Jesus who is the Life, the Truth, the Way

CHO
He’s got all power, got true real love
He bore a cross that He bled and died on
There’s an empty tomb that He broke through
He ain’t no plastic Jesus … He came to save the plastic you

Check out his blog for more info. He is going to release the mp3 soon. http://stevenjcamp.blogspot.com/2008/08/burn-your-plastic-jesus-honoring-real.html

If you have never heard Steve Camp before, I encourage you to check it his music. You can find many of his videos on youtube. Here is an example called “Consider the Cost” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77dZmfmA-nk

I just took a pretty good quiz on quizfarm.com called “What’s your theological worldview?” It is pretty accurate over all.

You can find it here: http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=43870

Here are my results as a screen capture. The top two or so were deadly accurate for me. And being that it placed “emergent” at the bottom for me (whose doctrine I loathe with increased passion day by day), I was pleased!

In a situation where neither the Democrat or Republican candidates are fit for office, it is important to look for the right person to lead this country instead of voting for the lesser of two evils. I wholeheartedly ask you to consider voting for Chuck Baldwin for President in November 2008.

To learn more, visit www.baldwin08.com
OR
www.constitutionparty.com

This post is part one of a two part series on the Biblical model of church government.

A disturbing trend has emerged in Southern Baptist circles in recent years – that being the trend to a Presbyterian, plural-elder model of church governance. Most base their theology in this area on Titus 1:5, which says to us: “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every city as I directed you.”

To those who firmly adhere to the plural-elder system, this verse is like a mantra that they will almost always assert as the definitive verse on the issue. But is it really? I want to examine this verse closely and see what it really says today. The typical scenario proposed is this: elders is in the plural and city is in the singular. Therefore, it is a plural-elder system. Of course, the assumption that HAS to be made here is that each city only had one church. If it were more than one church, this logic wouldn’t work at all.

Would each city have only had ONE church? Remember that the early church met in houses in an underground fashion so to speak. And in numerous places, we see that the church gathered into a larger meeting place, with these house cells coming together. It seems there would have been a necessity for more than one pastor in a city due to the number of house churches meeting there. It seems most likely that each house church would have had its own pastor and that the larger group was comprised of these smaller houses meeting on a regular basis to hear someone preach.

So, does Titus 1:5 REALLY say that each house would have had more than one pastor? NO, it simply says in the most plain meaning of the text that Titus was to appoint pastors in every city where a church was meeting. It is unwise to read too much into this text, for reading a plural-elder system into this is merely eisegesis and not exegesis.

Furthermore, the letters to the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3 are addressed to the angel of the church in the singular. The most plain meaning here is the pastor, as angel in Greek is “messenger.” It seems unlikely that an angel would have delivered these messages, but rather that the pastor would read them on a Sunday morning to the congregation. Some would argue that this seems to be addressed to the teaching elder, but this seems a far cry from the normal reading of the text. It seems better to understand it as what we would call today the Senior Pastor of the church.

In my next post, I will go through the reasons why a plural-elder system is not healthy for a local church to ascribe to and give Biblical reasons why the single-elder model is the model of the New Testament church.

I’ve recently been contemplating some statements made in recent years by several acquaintances of mine. A typical scenario might go by saying, “what denomination do you belong to?” Or something like, “what faith are you?” I have heard many people tell me they are simply “just Christians”. When asked where they go, they would tell me “such and such church.” But they just want to be labeled only as Christians. Some of these have even been Southern Baptist acquaintances of mine that have said this.

I just wanted to throw in my own two cents for what it is worth and say that when someone asks me what religion I am, I don’t say Christian. I very gladly say, “I’m Southern Baptist.” I understand some people just want to be called Christian, but I’m not one of them. I’m not ashamed of the SBC, nor will I ever be unless it goes into heresy. These days, there aren’t many of us in the younger generation who care much about denominational loyalty anymore. That really saddens me. Frankly, doctrine matters. Doctrine may be a taboo word for many people, but it is utterly essential to the Christian faith to believe the truth.

So I just want to go on the record for what it’s worth and say that I am not “just a Christian!” I am a Southern Baptist and always will be. For those SBCers out there who just want to be called a Christian, if you don’t want to be labeled by the term SBC, then frankly why are you even in the SBC? I am not ashamed of the Gospel and I am also not ashamed of being Southern Baptist. Allow me to define what it means to me to be a Southern Baptist and you’ll see why I am so adamant about being called one.

A Southern Baptist to me is a Christian who just happens to have correct theology. Given that, why would I be ashamed to call myself SBC? Am I ashamed of the truth or something? I’m not saying other denominations don’t have the truth. I just think we are right and other denominations are lacking in some areas. If I didn’t earnestly believe that, I wouldn’t be in this beloved Convention. I’m not ashamed to be associated with it. So for all those who still want to be called just a Christian, that’s fine for you. But maybe now you won’t be totally dumbfounded when I look you square in the eye and gladly proclaim “I’m Southern Baptist!”

Recently the Lord has had me doing an in-depth study of the concept of repentance in the Word for my personal devotions. I’ve been studying this for a few months and this Sunday, I’m actually preaching on it for Father’s Day. I see a real need for Father’s to lead the way in modeling Biblical repentance for their families. I would like today in this post to simply lay some groundwork for what many have called “Lordship Salvation” and try to provide some Biblical framework for it.

Many try to understand repentance as simply a change in mind regarding who Christ is. But that is simply not the Biblical idea of it. Faith and repentance are the same thing for many people, but not according to the Bible. The Word tellls us that there also has to be a change in actions that results from a change in attitude. Frankly, repentance is the evidence of true, saving faith. That’s why we preach it to the sinner. Repentance, then, could be defined as submitting your whole life to Christ as Lord.

When Jesus called on His disciples to “deny yourselves, take up your cross daily and follow Me” in Luke 9:23, the Greek word for “deny yourselves” there literally means to “disown ones self.” Simply put, when you come to Christ, it is the end of the road for your old life. You are a new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) because you have been born again by the Holy Spirit of God. You cannot help but repent!

I have recently become convinced in my heart that it seems to me that most people who deny the idea of quote unquote “lordship salvation” also deny the doctrine of election. Sinners aren’t just spiritually sick. They are spiritually dead (cf Eph 2:1). A dead person cannot do anything on his own. A dead person cannot choose to be alive again. Lazarus in John 11 is a prime example of this. Unless Jesus had said “Lazarus come forth”, Lazarus would not have been able to be alive again. In fact, unless God actually put life back into Him at the same time Jesus said those words, nothing would have happened! That’s what new birth is like for us.

We all know about being born again in John 3, but most completely misunderstand this analogy. I’ve even seen tracts that show you four steps to being born again. But, that is a total violation of the analogy. You cannot be born again by your own will. That’s why God the Holy Spirit chose this analogy. You weren’t born of your own will or conceived of your own will when you became a living baby. In the same way, your own will plays no part in the choice to be born again. It is totally up to God to regenerate the sinner because the sinner is spiritually dead and can’t do anything other than sin left to his own self.

And Nicodemus knew this. I believe that’s why he asked Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” (Jn. 3:4). He wasn’t being sarcastic here, as some might think. He was simply telling Jesus something to the effect of, “how is that possible!? I can’t be born again on my own? What you are saying makes no sense Jesus!” You see, Nicodemus understood the analogy. He knew Jesus was saying there was nothing he could do to be born again. It had to be totally of God.

In fact, Jesus didn’t answer him by giving him four steps to being born again and telling him to “pray this prayer.” No, Jesus said, “Don’t marvel that I said to you ‘you must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:7-8). In effect, Jesus said to him that it is up to the Holy Spirit to do the regenerating work of salvation and causing you to be born again. It is nothing that you can do. Just like you can’t see the wind and know where it’s going, you can’t see the Holy Spirit and He regenerates whom He desires to regenerate and you don’t have control over it, Nicodemus.

Outside of God’s choosing of a sinner to be saved and His regenerating of that sinner, salvation would never occur in anyone! That’s why “lordship salvation” makes sense to me. Not only is it in keeping with Jesus’ method of evangelism, but it’s in keeping with the doctrines relating to salvation as well. Think about it this way, when you are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, the very faith that it takes to be saved is a gift of God to you (Eph. 2:8-9). But also understand that the repentance necessary to be saved is a gift to you as well (2 Tim. 3:25-26). In this light, repentance is not a work that you do. It is God who enables you to “repent and believe in the Gospel” as Jesus commanded in Mark 1:15. Are these works? Yes, but not of yours. They are the work of God (Jn. 6:29). Remember that justification is an action that happens in an instant. When you are regenerated, you have the ability to repent and believe. I believe justification happens at this same moment in time and repentance and faith are the fruits that come out of this salvific act of God that show we are of God’s elect.

In summary, repentance is absolutely critical to being saved. One cannot be saved without turning from sin and turning to Christ alone for eternal life. In my next post, I will go through some Biblical examples of the priority of repentance in Scripture, with a view toward repentance as part of sanctification.