Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Helmet of Salvation: Ephesians 6:17 \\ *

\\ \\ Equipment lists.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with them.

You’re starting a new school and it consists of the correct number of sweatshirts, socks, football shirts, all with name tags.

You’re going to camp and it’s all sleeping bags, knives and forks and warm clothing.

Name tags again.

You’re off to college and it’s mostly books, books which seem to cost more than you’ve ever spent on books before.

And you’d better put your name in these or you’ll never see them again.

\\ Now we’ve spent the last few weeks working our way through a spiritual equipment list, the Armour of God.

We’ve gathered together our belt, our breastplate, our footware and last week we got our shield, the shield of faith.

Nick shared with us a key reason for making sure we have our shield of faith, for without it, “arrows ignited in the flames of hell can pierce us and inflame our hearts against God”.

\\ So, this week, we’re moving on to look at the next item on our equipment list, the Helmet of Salvation.

Last week it was our hearts.

This week it’s our heads.

And part of what this is about is learning to use what’s in our heads, our minds, for Christ.

So there’s some practice for us in this sermon.

There are loads of questions in this sermon and the answers I suggest are my answers.

They’re answers that I’ve come to after looking at the Bible, reading what other Christians have written and praying.

But they’re still my answers.

Are they yours?

\\ The first question I have is this, “Whose is the name tag in this bit of equipment?

Whose is this helmet?

\\ *God’s Helmet: Isaiah 59*

\\ As we have just heard in the reading from Isaiah, the Helmet of Salvation is God’s helmet.

\\ In Isaiah’s time, God’s people had sinned in a terrible way.

They had turned their back on him and rejected him.

\\ “Your Iniquities have separated you from God;your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.

For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt.

Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things”

\\ But God did not abandon the people.

\\ “God saw that there was no-one to intervene; so his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him”.

\\ And this is just one example of the work of salvation that God works throughout creation.

\\ God created all things and God’s rightful place is as the ruler of all things.

God created us in the image of God, to love God and live in relationship with God.

But we have rebelled against God’s rule and decided that we want to be in charge.

This rebellion destroys the relationship between us and God, and the destruction of this relationship seperates us from the source of our life and leads to our death.

However, God does not desire this, but desires ther restoration of the relationship, our salvation.

So God sent Jesus so that our relationship with God could be made whole again.

\\ And this means this salvation work is the crowning glory of God.

It restores the point of creation.

Without it God would have failed.

It is the most important thing in the whole of history.

\\ God, in Jesus, came to do away with the effects of sin for all those who believe.

God’s crowning glory is the work of salvation accomplished by Jesus in his death and resurrection.

God’s crown is incorporated in God’s helmet, the helmet of salvation.

\\ So what?

\\ We can trust it.,

can depend on it .

Your salvation is part of the most important work of God.

It is underwritten by the very nature of God.

God guarentees that this helmet will not let you down.

God does not wear dodgy armour.

\\ \\ *Our Helmet: Ephesians 6*

\\ So, we’ve seen that the first person to wear the Helmet of Salvation was God.

Now in the letter to the church at Ephesus we, as Christians, are instructed to take it up.

\\ Why?

\\ *Identification and protection*

\\ *Identification*

\\ I’m not much good at history but I do watch a fair bit of F1 and I reckon the theory of helmets can’t have changed much.

Helmets can be useful protection but it’s not much good if you don’t know who’s inside (whether it’s because you’re trying to to decide who to bash on some battlefield or if you’re Murray Walker trying to decide who’s about to overtake whom).

So they usually have some kind of identifier on the outside.

A crest for battle helmets or a flag painted on for F1 drivers.

\\ The helmet of salvation is the same.

It carries a crest, an identifier.

The person wearing this helmet is a son of God, an heir of the Kingdom and has the gift of the Holy Spirit.

\\ This identification glorifies God because it proclaims the success of the work of salvation.

It is an act of worship to take up this helmet.

The thing that tops our lives off, that we are most proud of, that we want to make most visible is our Salvation.

\\ If we did not have our salvation then we would not have a relationship with God, we would not be forgiven and we would be destined to death.

\\ *Protection*

\\ Well, a helmet protects a head and, while I don’t like to read too much into which bit of spiritual armour protects what, a helmet does protect the head so let’s explore the ways in which this might be true.

\\ I believe that without the helmet of salvation lies dreamt up in the nightmares of hell will poison our minds against God.

\\ *Protection from Despair*

\\ Satan loves to lie to us about our guilt.

He continues to accuse us, even after God has declared that we are not guilty.

Satan continues in these lies in an attempt to poison our minds with despair.

\\ In the letter to the church at Thessalonica, the instruction about the helmet of salvation is phrased slightly differently

\\ “Take up as a helmet the hope of salvation”

\\ “Hope”.

It’s a funny word isn’t it.. “I hope so” often translates as “I think it might be so”, or “I think that it probably isn’t so but it would be nice if it was”.

\\ But Christian hope isn’t like this.

The hope of salvation is a confident expectation of salvation.

And why is it confident?

Because, as we saw earlier, it is founded on the very nature of God and is fundamental to the most important thing God does.

This means that it is excellent protection against the enemy of hope, despair.

\\ It may be that you are feeling pretty horrendous right now.

When despair closes in, like the night, it can be hard to see the light.

When I feel like that I usually end up clingjng to the fact that it doesn’t depend on me.

I know myself well enough to know that I cannot be depended on.

That’s why I’m so grateful to God that my salvation does not depend on me, it is God’s gift.

However guilty we feel, however worthless we see ourselves to be, however far we feel from God, the fact remains.

God loves us and our salvation is secure in who God is.

\\ The helmet of the hope of salvation protects our minds from the poison of despair.

\\ *Protection from Temptation*

\\ Satan is also lying to us when he tempts us to sin.

And the Helmet of Salvation can protect us from the poison of these lies as well.

\\ What form do these lies of temptation take, and how can the helmet of salvation protect us?

Well, lets look at the lies in the temptations put to Jesus in the desert.

\\ “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread”

\\ What are the lies?