Be strong in the Lord

Eph 6:10-18

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

How do we take our stand against the devil's schemes (or "wiles of the devil" - KJV)?

13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

All of this is worth spending some time with and meditating upon. Not religiously, of course, but as part of our full-on relationship with the one who supplies us with the power in all this! Some people call this "spiritual warfare," I think mostly because of the imagery of armor and battle gear that Paul uses. But when it's all boiled down, it's simply a matter of a few basic truths that will help us overcome the evil one - who, as Peter says, is an adversary "who walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). Peter goes on to say "resist him, steadfast in the faith..." And the "armor" Paul talks about in verses 14-17 of the above passage includes:

• Truth
• Righteousness
• The Gospel of Peace
• Faith
• Salvation
• The Word of God

Earlier this year, I broke some of this down in three separate posts, if you're interested in checking any of it out.

The Full Armor of God
God's armor 1-3
God's armor 4-6

And don't forget that in our relationship with God we have the wonderful privilege to "pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests" and we can "be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints." :)

The gospel of change?

My grace roots teeth were cut in large part through the help of my former pastor, "Pastor Mark," in the last half of the 1990's. Pastor Mark had formerly been a Word of Faith pastor at a church called Life Christian Center here in Waterloo, Iowa, but went through his own grace revolution and began to preach what I believe is "the" gospel. It's known in the Bible as "the gospel of grace," "the gospel of Jesus Christ" and "the gospel of peace," among other terms. But no matter the term, it's one gospel. Romans 1:16-17 reveals that the gospel is a revelation of God's righteousness (not our own righteousness), and of course it's given to us as a gift (Romans 5:17), not by us performing in any way to earn it.

Mark preached for about an hour every week, digging deep into the glorious gospel, expounding upon the scriptures like I've never seen anyone do, before or since. My knowledge and understanding of who God is and who I am in Him really grew during the period of my life that I was able to hear him preach. In short, it all started sometime in 1995 when my friend Mike (who was the P.D. at the radio station I worked at back then, and with whom I record Growing in Grace) began sharing sermon tapes with me. I was blown away, and I began to experience freedom in the Lord like never before. Then in 1996, about 5 or 6 months after my wife and I were married, we left our church and began attending Life Christian Center, until the end of 1999 when we stopped meeting as a church (for various reasons), and the Lord sent us out to share the wonderful gospel of freedom in other places.

Well, I was listening to one of the old sermon tapes this morning, and I just had to share it! It's from 1995 and it's entitled "The Gospel to the Poor," based upon Jesus' reading of Isaiah's prophecy of Him, in Luke 4. Before getting into that, Mark spends a great deal of time talking about what the gospel isn't. Apparently in the Word of Faith church, various phrases had been coined, such as "the gospel of healing" and "the gospel of prosperity." Now, it's not that God doesn't heal, and it's not that a person can't be prosperous financially, but Mark makes the point that those things aren't the gospel.

But what really struck me back then, in 1995, and what has stuck with me all these years and is highlighted in this sermon, is how the church today has created its own "gospel of change." To many people, the gospel essentially means "I've changed the way I live." Our testimonies are nothing more than, "I used to do bad things, now I do good things." "I used to smoke dope; now I'm clean as a whistle." Again, it's not that changed behavior is bad! Those testimonies come from the wonderful work of God in the lives of people, and are well worth sharing. But... that's not the gospel! Those things may be a fruit - or a result - of the transformation that happens in a person's life because of the gospel, but as Mark often said, "the gospel isn't a gospel of change; it's a gospel of exchange." The gospel at its core means an exchange of our sin for Christ's righteousness (see for example 2 Corinthians 5:21), and of our life for Christ's life (see Galatians 2:20). That's good news!

I think many of you will enjoy Mark's sarcasm, humor, zeal and insight as he talks about all this and more. (He also talks about how many in the church have become separatists, worrying that we'll be contaminated by "sinners." He talks about how it's very easy for him to understand why people don't like church, or the church system. And if you've ever heard me share the story about my pastor who visited another church in which the pastor of that church pointed out the bartender in his congregation, that's in this sermon. It's an awesome story!). You can download the teaching here. If you can't listen to it now, why not download it for a later time.



It's 47 minutes long, and unfortunately it ends abruptly because the final part of the hour-long sermon was cut off, but you get a heavy dose of gospel freedom in those 47 minutes! (For some reason it was recorded onto the first side of a 90-minute tape, and the other side of the tape has something completely different on it). It's a 16MB download. Let me know if you have any troubles downloading/listening to it.

If interested, I've previously linked to a short snippet of another message from Mark here.

God's armor 1-3

2 Chron 20:14-17 14 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, in the midst of the assembly. 15 And he said, "Listen, all you of Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat! Thus says the LORD to you:'Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's. 16 Tomorrow go down against them. They will surely come up by the Ascent of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the brook before the Wilderness of Jeruel. 17 You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the LORD, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!' Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the LORD is with you."

I realize that I'm ripping this passage right out of a larger story and out of larger context, and my purpose isn't to misuse scripture but I simply wanted to point out that this passage, to me, is essentially a good illustration of the "spiritual warfare" that we fight as Christians. The battle is not ours. It's God's! In my post from a couple of days ago called "The Full Armor of God," I mentioned the six elements of battle gear that Paul writes about in Ephesians 6: Truth, Righteousness, The Gospel of Peace, Faith, Salvation, The Word of God. In that post I left off with the idea that all of this is a matter of God's gifts to us and His working in and through us, and I want to continue with those thoughts here. I should mention that I believe the whole of our life in Christ is a matter of God's gifts to us and His working in and through us, and so these six things should seem no more spooky or spiritual than anything else in our lives!

I'm purposely being brief here, and I'll start with the first three. Perhaps someday I'll look at each element more closely and in depth. 

• Truth - Jesus Christ is the truth. And along with that, His word is truth. So many of the battles we face are a matter of truth vs. lies. The point is, it's the truth of God. We can't conjure up our own 'truth,' but rather we rest in the truth of God. There is a direct correlation between truth and victory/freedom. Jesus said, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." If you, or someone else, is in bondage, the battle is fought and won with truth. 

• Righteousness - One of my 'favorite verses' is Romans 1:17. In the previous verse, Paul says that the gospel is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. In verse 17, he goes on to say that something is revealed in the gospel: God's righteousness. This is not man's righteousness. It's nothing that man can conjure up on his own. Our righteousness is a gift from God. "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor 5:21). Even walking according to this righteous nature that we now have is a matter of trusting in God's working in and through us rather than trying to muster it up in the strength of our flesh or willpower. 

• The Gospel of Peace - As the above paragraph mentions, the gospel of peace (the good news) is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. The angels declared the gospel of peace at Jesus' birth as they praised God and said, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!" (Luke 2:13-14). The gospel is a mighty weapon! How do we use this weapon? We simply declare the gospel. We simply declare the good news. Note, in the use of these weapons, we're not responsible for the outcome. The battle is the Lord's. We simply bear the weapons, by faith, and the Lord fights the battles. 

To apply some of this practically, some real life situations may include dealing with another person who is habitually angry or downhearted, and perhaps the lies of the enemy have caused this. Perhaps you're dealing with a troublemaker. Perhaps you're even dealing with a very good person who doesn't think he or she needs Christ. Perhaps any of these scenarios could have to do with yourself. If the lies of the enemy have gotten a hold of someone, and brought them into bondage, even if they don't know they're in bondage, the truth holds the power to set them free! Again, we're not responsible for the outcome, but we can speak the truth to others (or to ourselves) as a "weapon" to help dispel the lies, and we can let the Lord engage in the "battle." 

Can you think of any other ways (the ways are endless I think) in which these three things (truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace) can be put on and applied practically in our daily lives? I'll talk a little about faith, salvation and the Word of God when I get back to this.