Is Jesus God Incarnate?

 Is Jesus God Incarnate? And Why Does it Matter?

Part one of two parts

You can listen to this message on YouTube: 

https://youtu.be/VLLTDEN-ZZA  

 

Over the years I have preached several sermons centered around the resurrection of Jesus. I’ve preached about the subject because without the resurrection of Jesus, there is no such thing as true Christianity. Without the resurrection of Jesus, there is no hope for our salvation. Without the resurrection of Jesus, every person on this planet is doomed to an eternity away from God’s presence.

 

Today and at least for another week, I feel it necessary to focus our full attention on the Holy Trinity as revealed to us in the whole of Scripture as One God in three Persons.

 

Let me say this at the very outset: We are not talking about three gods. We are talking of only One God whom Christians know as the Father, the Son of the Father (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit, who are of one nature, one essence, co-equal and co-eternal with each other. Each a distinct person, yet each identified as God.

 

So, today’s message is part one of two parts which center around the Biblical truth of the Trinity – and specifically of the full and irreducible Deity of Jesus the Christ.

 

Why am I preaching these focused messages? Because as your pastor and Bible teacher, it is my welcomed responsibility to protect us all from theological error. As St Peter tells us in his first epistle, our adversary, the devil, roams about the earth seeking souls to devour. And one way Satan devours souls is by seducing them into diminishing the full glory, weight, and majesty of the DEITY of the Lord Jesus.

That’s why St. Paul wrote to the Christians at Colossae: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form . . . (Colossians 2:8-9)

In that text, and in the verses that follow, the apostle Paul proclaims that the FULLNESS, the completeness of Almighty God resided in Jesus. And how is that possible? Because Jesus IS God incarnate.

Christians often use the term ‘Incarnate’ when referring to the Lord Jesus. But what do we mean when we say Jesus is God incarnate? And why is that an important confession we must make if we hope to be saved from hell?

Let’s back up just a step and, without getting so deep into the realm of theology that this message becomes an academic lecture, let me remind us of how God describes Himself in the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian Bible:

From the very first verses of Genesis, the Holy Spirit tells us God is the Creator of all that is seen and unseen. He existed before time itself existed. In the beginning, before there was a beginning, before Matter itself existed, before spirits and angels existed, God simply ‘IS’. 

Many of you will remember God described Himself to Moses as: “I AM that I AM.” And then God told him, “This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14). We will come back to this important point in a few minutes.

Also key to our understanding of God as revealed to us in the Bible is this: God is One, but not a numeric one. For simplicity sake, we can say God is a unified one. Remember what He said of Adam and Eve: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)

Adam and Eve were two separate individuals, but the Hebrew language in this text identified their union as creating a ‘unified one’ flesh – not a numeric one. Moses used same Hebrew word related to God Himself in multiple texts, for example, Deuteronomy 6:4 - “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!”

Perhaps a helpful way of viewing the triune God is not that He is 1+1+1=3. Rather, He is 1x1x1=1. God is a unified One which is then further defined in the New Testament as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

One God, Three Persons who existed before anything else existed – spirit or corporeal, visible or invisible – the Triune God existed in a co-eternal, co-equal, and co-existent relationship with each other.

So then, what does it mean to say Jesus the Son – the second Person of the Trinity – is God incarnate?

Simply stated, and as God the Holy Spirit tells us in multiple Scriptures, the Son took on Himself flesh and blood. Here is how God the Holy Spirit inspired St. John to write in the first verses of chapter one of his gospel:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being . . . And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-3, 14)

Of Jesus, God the Holy Spirit moved St. Paul to write to the Christians in Philippi. J.B. Phillips renders the text from the Greek this way:  ^“Let Christ himself be your example as to what your attitude should be. For he, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his prerogatives as God’s equal, but stripped himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man. And, having become man, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal.” (Philippians 2:6ff)

God the Son was incarnate in the flesh and blood body of Jesus. And as incarnate, He was as human as you and I are human – HOWEVER, He was also at the same time fully and completely God because God can never NOT be God.

Just how Jesus became human, yet at the same time remained the Second Person of the Trinity is surely one of the great mysteries of Christianity. And it is extreme hubris that any human should expect to understand all of that in its fullest sense. The finite human mind can never understand the infinite God. Nevertheless, the belief in the Trinity is itself a test of orthodoxy. Our eternal salvation is inextricably linked to what we believe about Jesus’ deity.

St. John wrote his first epistle to those being buffeted by an early heresy called Gnosticism. Gnosticism, among it varied errors, denied the fully deity and humanity of Jesus: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. (1 John 4:2-3)

And so, through the millennia, to this very moment, those who believe Jesus was a created being – even the highest of created beings, even the best of created beings, even the first of created beings – those who believe Jesus was created by the Father do not believe in the Jesus of the Bible and are in grave danger of being lost for eternity.

Those who believe Jesus was a spirit created along with other spirits, such as Lucifer – making Jesus and Lucifer essentially spirit brothers – those who believe such things do not believe in the Jesus of the Bible and are in grave danger of being lost for eternity.

Those who believe that Jesus was the progeny of the Father, who had physical form, and a human mother – in this case, Mary – do not believe in the Jesus of the Bible and are in grave danger of being lost for eternity. As both Sts. Matthew and Luke tell us, it was God the Holy Spirit who came upon Mary and she conceived Jesus in her womb.

Let me reiterate the point because of its vital importance to our salvation: It has been the faith of the historical Christian church for 2000 years that belief in the Trinity is a test of orthodox Christian faith. All other ideas about Jesus qualify as heresy.

There have always been those who have objected to the idea that Jesus is God incarnate as a man. So, what are some objections to the deity and co-eternality of Jesus with the Father and the Holy Spirit? Let me bring up the most common three – and be quick to add that every historical objection to Christ’s deity is easily answered from the Scriptures.

Objection number one: Jesus said, “The Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28) In fact, Jesus often told His disciples and others that He is doing the Father’s will. Some have read into those statements that Jesus is subservient to the Father. But to think that demonstrates a poor understanding of the nature of the incarnation, during which Jesus took on human flesh and was temporarily “made lower than the angels” (John 1:1-3, 14, Philippians 2:6-10; Hebrews 2:9).

In other words, Jesus temporarily relinquished His divine attributes and subjected Himself to the Father’s will while on earth. And furthermore, subservience in role does not equate to subservience in essence.

For example, Scripture tells us the wife is to be submissive to her husband (Ephesians 5). That is her God-designed role in the family. But her submission does not at all diminish her essence – that being an equal member of the human race and of the husband-wife union. And so, the ‘greater than I’ statement of Jesus relates His ROLE on earth, and not to His fundamental nature which is co-equal with the Father (and the Holy Spirit).

Objection number two: Scripture tells us Jesus was the ‘first born of all creation.” For example, here is part of St. Paul’s letter to the Christians at Colossae: “And He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15ff)

But once again, this objection melts away when we look at the original Greek text, and the 1st century middle eastern culture.

Paul did not say Jesus was the first-created. The word he used for firstborn is "prototokos" (pro TOT o kas)– which signifies SUPERIORITY and POSSESSION, not order of birth.  In the culture of the Ancient Near East, the firstborn was not necessarily the oldest child. firstborn referred not to birth order but to rank. The firstborn possessed the inheritance and leadership. And so says Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest about this passage in Colossians:

“The Greek word implied two things, priority to all creation and sovereignty over all creation. In the first meaning we see the absolute pre-existence of the Logos. Since our Lord existed before all created things, He must be uncreated. Since He is uncreated, He is eternal. Since He is eternal, He is God. . . . In the second meaning we see that He is the natural ruler, the acknowledged head of God’s household…He is Lord of creation.”

This follows precisely what St Paul wrote in the next verses of Colossians 1: “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15ff)

Here again is John 1:1-3 -- “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being.”

And again in Hebrews 1:1-3 “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature and upholds all things by the word of His power.”

A third objection people offer is that Jesus never said He was God. To which we answer – “Yes, He did.”

To the 21st century Western and non-Jewish orthodox reader, at first blush it seems that Jesus never said He was God. But to the first century orthodox Jews, Jesus did refer to Himself as God Almighty on many occasions.

For example: as I mentioned earlier in this message, when Jehovah God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, He referred to Himself as “I AM.” And Jesus, when speaking of Himself, used the same term, I AM, several times, for example, John 8:24; 58; 13:19 and 18:5-6. (Some English translations add the word ‘He’ in italics to indicate the pronoun is NOT in the Greek but was added by the translators).

And so, for example, in John 8:58 when Jesus told the religious leaders: “Before Abraham was born, I Am!”  they fully understood what He meant, and they picked up stones to kill Him for blasphemy.

In John 10:30, Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” The word Jesus used for ‘one’ means ‘to be of one essence, the same nature.” The orthodox Jews who heard Him make that statement knew very well He was claiming to be God. That’s why they picked up stones to stone Him. When Jesus asked them why they wanted to execute Him, they responded, “For blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God” (John 10:33). 

In Revelation 21:6-7, Jehovah God reveals himself to us as “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” Yet, in Revelation 22:13, it is now Jesus who reveals Himself with the same language. And because there can only be ONE ‘alpha and omega, the beginning and the end,’ Jesus is Jehovah God incarnate –God who took on flesh and blood.

We took some time to look at only the merest beginning of the evidence that Jesus IS Almighty God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity. But we must not leave the subject matter like this, because there is so much more to be said that substantiates the Biblical truth of Jesus’ full and unqualified deity.

Next week we will look once more at the Biblical evidence that demonstrates who Jesus is, and why it is important for our salvation and our continuing maturity in Christ that we understand this truth of God incarnate in Jesus the Christ.

When Someone You Love Forsakes You

 When Someone You Love Forsakes You

 “My soul weeps because of grief; Strengthen me according to Your word.” (Psalm 119:27) 

 

Life’s disappointments, its griefs, its unanswerable questions sometimes cut deep into the human heart, don’t they? There’s not an adult on this planet who has not learned from personal experience just how deeply any number of life’s circumstances can tear at our souls. But perhaps the deepest cut, the most grievous of them all comes when a loved one turns his or her back on you. Who rejects you. Who forsakes you. And it doesn’t matter what you do or say, nothing changes the person’s mind.

 

And oh! At times such as these, when the soul weeps because of grief, the testimonies of millions of Christians throughout the ages demonstrate again and again – there IS balm, there IS comfort, the IS strength that can be given us by the Holy Spirit through God’s word.

 

The world wants us to think there is no comfort for us from God. Or hope. Or strength. And that is precisely why I want us to look closely this afternoon at God’s word – which assures us of that balm and hope and strength and encouragement even when someone we love forsakes us.

 

And just a word of caution here at the outset of my message: It’s easy for us who have been abandoned by someone we love – it’s often easy to blame ourselves for the abandonment. Satan is good at twisting our thoughts into assuming the blame for the sins of another. Don’t let him saddle you with that lie.

 

The title of today’s message is: When Someone You Love Forsakes You, and the first thing I want to remind us about is this: God knows from personal experience all about rejection – an ‘over the top’ response to something God has done, or not done, that gives a person the excuse to turn and walk away.

 

That’s important to remember that God knows about rejection because remembering will do for us at least two things: 1) It can comfort us to know God grieves with us. And 2) We can learn from God’s example how we can deal with rejection.

 

First, it can be a comfort to know God knows from His own personal experience the pain of rejection: Ezekiel 6:9 (God speaking to Israel) Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be carried captive, how I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me, and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols . . . .

 

And then there is this sad episode in 1 Samuel, after Israel clamored for a king to rule over them instead of their God-appointed judge. We pick up the story in 1 Samuel 8:7 “The Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them. ⁸ Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this day—in that they have forsaken Me and served other gods. . .

 

Our Father in heaven understands rejection – as does God in the Flesh, Emmanuel – ‘God-With-Us,’ whom we know as Jesus the Messiah. There is a reason the prophet Isaiah called Him: “ . . . despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face.  He was despised, and we did not esteem [value] Him. (Isaiah 53)

 

Yes, we can be comforted to know God really does understand our grief, and secondly, we can better follow His example as we cope with the grief caused by being forsaken by someone we love.

 

Know this also: It is okay to cry.  Jesus cried over His beloved sheep in Jerusalem who’d rejected Him: Luke 19:41ff  ⁴¹ When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, ⁴² saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, ⁴⁴ and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

 

The Lord knew what would happen to those who’d forsaken Him – He knew that within a few decades the Roman army would ravage their way across Jerusalem.

 

Yes, it is okay to weep, not only for your own loss, but because you know their rejection of you will likely come back around and devour them sometime later in their life.

 

St. Paul talks about that spiritual law in his letter to the church at Galatia: Galatians 5:14ff  14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

 

“Sin,” it’s been wisely stated, “will take you where you do not want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost more than you want to pay.”

 

Yes, it is good to weep, BUT never forget this: You don’t weep alone. Jesus catches every tear in His bottle. As the psalmist David wrote of God in Psalm 56:8  You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle.  You have recorded each one in your book. 

 

When David refers to tear bottles, he draws our attention to an common practice in both ancient and modern Middle Eastern and Egyptian societies. Mourners catch their tears in small vials and place them at gravesides or some other place of great meaning to illustrate their love for the one who is gone. When David said of God, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book”, David reminds himself, and he reminds us in 2021 America, that God does know of our pain. He always feels and empathizes with our sorrows.

 

2. Yes, it is good to cry when a loved one forsakes us. But what else can we do? We can continue to love them. With God’s help, continue to love them, even if we must love them from afar.

 

God knows about loving from afar. Here is what He tells Israel through the prophet Jeremiah 31:3 “The Lord appeared to him [to Israel] from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. (Jeremiah 31:3  NRSV).

 

Did you catch that? The forsaken lover – God, in this text – broken by Israel’s abandonment, continued to love them, even from a distance. That’s part of the message of the Prodigal Son.

 

We’ve talked about the Prodigal many times – and I return to it for a moment to make an important point. The Lord Jesus doesn’t give us much detail about the Father’s anguish over his son’s demand. But I think we can extrapolate from our own life’s experiences and from the rest of this story how the father grieved over his son’s decision. The father, knowing he could do nothing to change the boy’s mind,  gave him his share of the inheritance – and let him go.

 

But did the father ever stop loving him? Of course not. The father always loved his son – although now he had to love him from a distance. I imagine the father worked his farm every day with one eye on the horizon, hoping for his son’s return.

 

Loving from afar is also exemplified in the relationship the Lord Jesus had with – of all people – Judas. You’ll find the story in John 13:

 

Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. ² During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him, ³ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, ⁴ *got up from supper, and *laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.

 

You know the rest of the story. The Lord proceeded to wash each of the disciple’s feet.  Including Judas’ feet – even though the Lord knew what the man was about to do. And Matthew tells us what happened when Judas led the soldiers to the Garden of Gethsemane. Matthew 26:49-51 ⁴⁹ Immediately Judas went to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and kissed Him. ⁵⁰ And Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you have come for.” Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him.

 

Jesus washed Judas’ feet, and called him, “Friend” – even though His friend had betrayed Him for a couple of dollars. I want you to get this: John tells us that Jesus loved Judas even to the end.

 

So, when we are forsaken it’s good to weep, and to love, even from a distance. And what else can we do when we are forsaken?  What others example does God give us as we follow in His steps?

 

3.We can pray. Don’t ever stop praying for the person who has hurt you. I think praying for that person will be easier if we remember the spiritual battle we are BOTH locked in. Satan has always – even from the Garden of Eden – the devil has always sought to destroy the family. And in the destruction of the family, he knows it’s then easier to pick off one by one members of those families.

 

Remember, Satan has blinded their spiritual eyes, he has dulled their spiritual ears and hardened their spiritual hearts for the ultimate destruction of their souls.  Pray! Only weapons of spiritual warfare are effective in this kind of battle for their soul – and for yours.

 

But what can we do about a person who had forsaken us and has already died?  Pray. Pray that God had mercy on them before they died. And hold on to your confidence that God did, in His mercy, give them one last chance to repent – even as they lay on their hospice bed or in an intensive care unit in some hospital.

 

I was reminded again as I prepared this message, of the Good Thief on the cross next to Jesus. It’s very unlikely that any of that man’s relatives – including his mother or father – were at that cross watching him die. They would have feared to be associated with him, or the Romans might take THEM into custody and crucified them as well.

 

And so, while it is likely none of his family heard his conversation with the Lord Jesus and the other criminal crucified with them, you and I know of the conversation: (Luke 23:39ff)

 

One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” ⁴⁰ But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ⁴¹ And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴² And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” ⁴³ And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

 

God’s mercy extends to every man and woman to their last breath. So pray that God had mercy on your loved one who died without reconciling with you. Pray that God offered him or her that one last chance to seek forgiveness from the Lord of love. Here is what the Scripture tells us of His mercy:

 

2 Peter 3:9  “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

 

And Ezekiel 18:32   Speaking to a faithless Israel, God said this: ³² For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord God. Therefore, repent and live.”

 

4. And finally, what else can we do when someone we love forsakes us?

Prepare your heart ahead of time for reconciliation. Now let’s be realistic – reconciliation might never happen. We all know of families who have never reconciled. God has gifted all humanity with free will. He will never force us to do what we choose not to do. It’s the precious gift He has given us – knowing all the while that even He would suffer heartache when those He created, when those He loves, exercised that gift to turn away from Him.

 

But, if it should happen, and the one you have loved from afar, the one for whom you have prayed perhaps for decades, wants to reconcile – receive them with open arms. Don’t ever hold their earlier decision against them.

1 Corinthians 13: ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, ⁵ does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, ⁶ does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ⁸ Love never fails.”

 Think back again to the Prodigal Son story. When the younger son returned home, the father ran toward him, embraced him, and threw a party to celebrate. “For this son of mine,” the father rejoiced before his servants, “this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; He was lost and has been found.

 

Life’s disappointments, its sorrows, its unanswerable questions cut deeply into the human heart. And as I said at the beginning of this message, perhaps especially grievous is the wound caused when someone you love forsakes you.

 

God knows from personal experience your grief. He grieves with you. But perhaps more to the point of this message, God has also given us a godly way to cope with our hurting heart.

 

Believe God hurts with you. And cry. And love. And pray. And be ready to reconcile. In doing these things, we will be following the godly path, the godly examples He has given us in His word.

 

It was the psalmist who said – and may the Holy Spirit sweeten those words to our wounded souls: “Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning.”  (Psalm 30:5)

Who is the Source of Victory?

 

SERMON SEPT 5

 

This is part three of a three-part message whose theme has been spiritual warfare. Part one looked at the question, ‘Who should we obey?’ Part two asked, ‘Who is in control.’ Today, ‘Who is the source of victory?’

 

 

Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2)

 

If you don’t recognize the supernatural evil parading across the globe, you’re not paying attention and you need to ask God to stir you awake. This is important! And this war is NOT against people – whether politicians, or terrorists, or the rich and powerful who control the various news media and social networks on the internet and who have in many cases successfully censored freedom of speech in this country and around the free world. These people are all – wittingly or unwittingly – servants of Satan, or as Scripture calls them ‘children of Satan’ (by the way, you can find those references in John 8:44 and 1 John 3:8-10).

No, this war is against forces of supernatural origin and power. That is one reason I want to focus our attention on today’s text in Romans 12, for unless we are daily carrying our cross, unless we are daily presenting ourselves to God as a holy and living sacrifice – how can we win our battles for Christ? Unless we, by the Holy Spirit, renew our minds through the wisdom provided us in Scripture, we can never be transformed into the mighty soldiers of Christ that He DESIGNED us to be. 

Of course, as every Christian should expect, the Holy Spirit has not left us without strategies, defenses, and weapons in this supernatural warfare. Romans 12:1-2 is only one of hundreds of examples. Another comes from St. Paul’s letter to the Christians at Ephesus where we will spend the bulk of our time today.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:10-12)

In the past 18 or 20 months I twice preached a series on the spiritual armor. I revisit the theme once more today, synthesizing the six-message sermons into one. I revisit it because the times in which we live demand – DEMAND – that we take seriously God’s warning to all of us to clothe ourselves in the supernatural armor of God. And the Christian who remains lazy and holds on to a laissez faire indifference about his or her faith will NOT do well in this war.

What I want us to first notice is God tells us to be strong in the Lord. This is not a new concept in the whole of Scripture. That instruction shows up on nearly every page of Scripture – our strength for battle comes ONLY from God. Our natural abilities and strengths and intellect profit us nothing.

 

Those are all natural. Earthly. And in this supernatural battle with our supernatural enemy, we cannot afford to wage war in any way natural and earthly. It must be waged with the supernatural and heavenly weapons and protection. As we find in the prophet Zechariah, God tells us, “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.” (Zechariah 4:6). And then again in 2 Corinthians 10:3-4, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”

During the days when the Moabites and the Ammonites arrayed themselves for battle against Israel, the Holy Spirit said to Jehoshaphat the Judean king, “Listen, all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s.” (2 Chronicles 20)

The point of it all? “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” (Psalm 127)

We must not minimize even for a nanosecond the utter uselessness of our human resources without the supernatural power of God behind them.

You think it was a simple rock that killed Goliath? No, it was not. Rather it was the supernatural God who gave that rock its precise trajectory. It was the strength of the supernatural God behind David’s swing that put enough force into that rock to crack the giant’s skull.

Rightly did Martin Luther put the truth into that well-known hymn: Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing: Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same, And He must win the battle.

So, back to Ephesians 6 where St. Paul urges us to: Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth. (Verse 14)

Truth. What is God’s truth – that life-giving, life-sustaining truth? You remember what Pilate said to Jesus in their brief dialogue: “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate *said to Him, “What is truth?” (John 18:37-38). And then, immediately, before giving Jesus a chance to tell him about truth, Pilate turned and walked away.

 

Do not YOU do that! Do you want to know truth? Jesus defined it for us in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

 

If we want to know God’s truth, the only truth that can save us in this supernatural battle, then we MUST take the time to wait patiently for the Lord to teach us truth – and He will do so when we sit at His feet, like Martha’s sister Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. (Luke 10). There is no shortcut to this goal of supernatural stamina. If we have time for movies and television shows and games, but no more than a short time to sit at Jesus’ feet – woe to us!

 

If you are still not taking time to meditate on the Bible—not just read it – but to reflect on what God says to you through its pages, then you are cheating yourself, and placing yourself in what might be grave danger. This is not hyperbole on my part. This is simply me pleading with you to get busy, if you are not already doing so, to make Bible reading AND reflection a daily habit.

 

It is God’s truth alone that will set us free – free from Satan-induced fears and doubts and confusions and temptations.  

Now let’s now look at the breastplate of righteousness. Paul speaks of it in Ephesians 6:14.

Biblical righteousness is much more than a life of moral purity, integrity and virtue. Biblical righteousness is that righteousness which God imputes to us – that which he credits to us – by and through our obedient faith in Christ’s substitutionary and sacrificial death He suffered to pay the penalty of God’s wrath for OUR sins.

Here is what St. Paul says to that point: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21). And in Philippians 3:9 “[That I] may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”

In other words, don’t come to this battle in your own strength and thinking your good works merits you a claim to righteousness. No, our righteousness is granted to us only by God’s grace and kindness. It is His grace and kindness alone that renews our mind so that we can recognize His supernatural truth.

Which now brings us to the helmet of our salvation which, by the way, is intricately linked to the shield of faith in Ephesians 10:16-17.

St. Paul speaks also of the helmet in 1 Thessalonians 5:8-9 where he calls it the “helmet [which is] the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The way Paul and other New Testament writers use the word ‘hope’ is to describe a confident expectation’ that something WILL occur – because God promised it would happen.

And so, the shield of faith, coupled with the helmet of KNOWING that we KNOW we are saved by God’s grace provides us an invincible defense against the onslaught of Satanic lies when he and his minions tell us we cannot ever be sure of our salvation.

Listen! If we can't trust THAT promise, then what else in Scripture can we not trust? Here are only two of a slew of God’s sacred promises to you concerning your salvation. Pay close attention to the verb tenses in these texts: 1 John 5:13 “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. (present tense) And John 5:24 (Jesus is speaking) “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation but has passed from death to life.” (present tense)

 

Then Paul tells us to take “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (6:17) Christian, hear this! Satan knows how critical God's word is for the Christian. That is why he tries relentlessly to diminish its authority and its influence in our lives. You may have read some of these heretical opinions in magazines and books, or heard them promulgated in movies, the workplace – and even in some churches; all of which are designed to seduce us into doubting God’s word. For example:                           

 

- Jesus is not God incarnate. Jesus is not Almighty God who took human form. To say it plainly, the lies says Jesus is not co-existent and co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

 

- Then there is the lie promulgated every year at Easter -- The physical resurrection from the dead of Jesus is a myth concocted by His disciples.

 

- And who hasn’t heard this one: What was considered sin in Bible days was rooted in the ignorance of a nomadic and intolerant people. Twenty-first century humanity is far more knowledgeable and tolerant about what should be considered wrong.

 

Christian! Do not be ignorant of the devil’s strategies! Get to know the WHOLE of God’s word. To simply be knowledgeable of the Gospels, or the Epistles is totally insufficient to our task.  When the writer to the Hebrews tells us, “The word of God is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword,” he is referring SPECIFICALLY to the Old Testament. The New Testament had not yet been written and formalized.

 

Now back to Ephesians 6. St. Paul adds in verse 15 a word about our feet being prepared with the gospel – our feet that bring good news to others lost in darkness. But we cannot share the hope of salvation with others if we rely on our own natural resources and not on our supernatural God. Nor can we share the hope of salvation with others if we ourselves do not have that confident expectation that God will do for us as He promised

 

Finally, for today’s message, Paul addresses the weapon of prayer: “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, ¹⁹ and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel . . . (Ephesians 6:18-19)

 

The apostle clearly recognized the deadly and daily supernatural battles he faced. And if you are paying attention, you know this battle has claimed more than its share of spiritual victims. How many high-profile Christians and pastors do you know who have fallen, and fallen hard? St. Paul lamented about his one-time compatriot, Demas, who traveled with him on missionary journeys, and who, in the end, walked away from Christ (2 Timothy 4).

 

He, like so many others through church history to this very hour ALL became casualties in this deadly spiritual battle. And some of you know the stories of people close to you – perhaps even those among your own family – those who once walked with Christ and have since turned away from Him.

That is why we must put on our battle armor every day, and never neglect prayer. Any of us can end up like Demas, who fell out of love with Christ, and fell back into his old life. We can become like Judas, betraying Jesus in exchange for a few dollars. We can become like the Christians to whom Jesus said, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent.” (Revelation 2:4-5)

If we fail to recognize the battle is a supernatural battle, our prayers will be anemic, and we will too readily follow the crowd to lay palm branches across the Lord’s path on one day, and then the next day deliver Him up to those who hate Truth.

And so, in closing, I will say it one more time: I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2)