Shield of Faith
Notes
Transcript
I had a general idea on how God was having me present this next piece of God’s Armor. I wasn’t exactly sure how my random thoughts were all going to come together but I was open to hear from the Holy Spirit.
Can I meddle for just a moment?
Would everyone say amen?
Ok, so you said Amen so you are giving me permission to meddle just a little bit.
Here it is. I believe that the average person in the pews today wouldn’t have the problems that they do if they would just listen to the Holy Spirit.
But pastor, I can handle this situation. No you can’t.
But pastor, this decision has no impact on eternal things. Yes it does.
Ok, this one is my favorites.
But pastor, I am this way because of how I was raised. So what, you don’t have to be that way.
I don’t know if I wear a sign at work that says “Bring it on” when it comes to angry men who come for drug and alcohol treatment, but it seems I get them all. There has been two that I was a tiny bit afraid of.
One of the angry guys I had was complaining about his broken cell-phone. I shouldn’t have opened that can of worms, but I did so I asked him how he broke it. He said he broke when he through it across his bedroom because he couldn’t find his flashlight. I thought, hmm, I’m game. I asked him why he needed his flashlight. He said so he could see his alarm clock.
You’ll remember I’m that person who wants to know why. Yep, I went there and asked him. Why didn’t you just turn on your light.
He said he had broken it a week or so before because he was angry about something else.
Ok, I’m sorry, I couldn’t leave it alone so I asked him why not just replace the light bulb. Don’t have any. Why not stop at the dollar store on your way home and get some. Don’t like people. Why not give a family member 5 bucks to buy you some. No, that’s stupid, why would I want to inconvenience them.
Wow, I wasn’t getting anywhere with him. He finally blurted out that he has always been that way and he’s just like his father and grandfather.
Guess, what you do not have to be that way. Folks, our past does not get to define who we are today. If you are born again, then you are a child of God. You have been adopted into God’s family. You have been blessed with every spiritual blessing that is in heaven.
You need to be listening to the Holy Spirit. If you are not hearing from the Holy Spirit guess who’s fault it is? No, it is not mine. There is an old saying that you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. If you are not hearing from the Holy Spirit then just perhaps you are not listening or you are allowing sin to interrupt your relationship or you are just not taking the time to cry out to God to move in your life.
Ok, I’ll stop meddling and get back to the regularly scheduled sermon.
Can I get an Amen?
As I was thinking about how I was going to put this message together I realized all of the action that is involved in this passage of scripture.
Take a look at this graphic - there are 34 action words in this short passage.
be strengthened
Put on
make a stand against
fight against
pick up
stand your ground
stand.
stand
put on
ready to spread
carry
extinguish
Take
Offer prayers and petitions
Stay alert
praying
pray
Pray
This passage of scripture must be pretty important if Paul is using all of these action words.
My work has me helping individuals put together goals for themselves. We start off by me trying to understand what the person wants to accomplish while in treatment. From there we flesh it out to identify specific things that they want to work on.
The last thing that we do is identify the most important goals, those couple of changes that they need to make in their lives and are willing to work on.
This is really hard work because generally people do not think about what they want to change in their lives. I believe that we like to think that we have it all together.
If I were to sit down and talk with you about your life, would you be able to identify some changes that you would like to make about yourself?
What is that most important thing that you would want to change or work on?
I have learned that there are important things in life and then there are must haves.
Paul starts our focus this morning by writing
16 Above all, carry the shield of faith so that you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one.
Above all - the dictionary defines it this way:
used for referring to something that is more important than any of the other things you could mention (1)
Above all Paul says. This is the most important thing. When I was in the Air Force it was common in a course that I was taking that we would hear the instructor say “Listen up.” What they were saying is that what I’m about to say is very important.
We stand with the belt of truth.
We have the breastplate of righteousness or holiness on
We got our new shoes on ready to share the Gospel.
Paul now says above all, the most important thing, the priority is to
Ephesians 6:16 (CEB)
16 Above all, carry the shield of faith
There is another action word there. Carry, carry the shield of faith.
If you picture maybe Captain America, he has his shield in his left hand to protect himself. If you picture a Roman soldier, they had a giant shield that was about 2.5 feet by 4 feet. They could actually hide behind it.
Remember the encounter of David as that teen age boy and the giant Goliath. The Bible tells us that Goliath had a guy who’s purpose was to carry his shield.
Can you picture the shield that Goliath needed? He was 9 feet tall. That was a massive shield to protect him. The armour that he wore and that massive shield was nothing when he was facing the power of God in the hands of puny David.
That word that Paul used there kind of struck me. I thought maybe I was thinking about it all wrong. When we think of the word carry, we think of picking something up and carrying from one place to another.
I got thinking and wondering if that was what Paul was really talking about. Are we to carry this shield of faith from one place to another? I looked up the word and there something like 29 different definitions for that word.
I read down through the list of the definitions and one stuck out. The definition that stuck out is this
to have or bear especially as a mark, attribute, or property (2)
I really believe that maybe that is the idea that Paul is trying to convey. To carry means to have or bear the mark or attribute of something or someone else.
In this case we are bearing the mark of Christ.
Remember when we learned about he belt of truth we talked about putting on Christ, or getting dressed with Christ as our covering?
How do we do that? We do that by faith. Paul covered that fact earlier in this great letter.
Ephesians 2:8 (CEB)
8 You are saved by God’s grace because of your faith. This salvation is God’s gift. It’s not something you possessed.
This shield of faith is our salvation. We don’t get to get saved one day and then go on each day and live the way we want to. This Armor of God is something that we put on each day.
Jesus said
23 Jesus said to everyone, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me.
It is a daily taking up the cross, we daily take up our salvation and sanctification and follow Jesus.
Remember that we are in a battle. There is that invisible enemy out there that would want to destroy us. We are to be fully equipped so that we can defeat him.
John Jewett wrote a book about God’s armor. The language is a little archaic, but he had this to say:
We are prone to live in the happenings of life rather than in its essentials, in environment rather than in character, in possessions rather than in dispositions, in the body rather than in the soul.
The consequence is that we seek our shields in the realms in which we live. We live only in the things of the body, and therefore against bodily ills, we pursue our shields.
We want a shield against sorrow, to keep it away, a shield to protect us against the sadness of life.
We want a shield against adversity, to keep it away, a shield against the darkness that would bring hard times..
We want a shield against loss, to keep it away, a shield against sickness and death, a shield to protect us against the grief which destroy the completeness of our families.
We want a shield against pain, to keep it away, a shield against the harsh circumstances, against the stings and arrows of outrageous events. (3)
I agree with him. I know that I tend to not want to face any difficulties, I want things to go good. I do not want to face any troubling circumstances.
Maybe Paul is saying something entirely different. Going back to Jewett’s book for a moment.
In a word, we want a shield to make us comfortable, and because the shield of faith does not do it, we are often stunned and confused, and our reasonings are often twisted and broken, and the world appears to be a maze without a vision and without a plan. It is just here that our false emphasis leads us astray.
We live in the circumstances and seek a shield to make us comfortable, but the apostle Paul lived in character and sought a shield to make him holy.
He was not concerned with the circumstances, but he was concerned with the aspiration that the circumstances should never bring disaster to his soul.
He did not seek a shield to keep from hostile circumstances, but he sought a shield to keep harmful circumstances from harming him.
He sought a shield to defend him from the destructiveness of every kind of circumstance, whether fair or unfair, whether with sunshine or heavy with gloom.
Paul wanted a shield against all circumstances so that no circumstance might demoralize him and impoverish the wealth of his soul. (3)
Paul wrote
16 Above all, carry the shield of faith so that you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one.
If there are flaming arrows flying around you are not in an easy place, however, God has provided absolutely everything that you need.
The writer of the Hebrews wrote about bearing hardship.
7 Bear hardship for the sake of discipline. God is treating you like sons and daughters! What child isn’t disciplined by his or her father?
Discipline is not punishment. Hear this, discipline is not punishment.
Discipline helps us grow and learn. If you decided you were going to start going to the gym and work out you would be disciplining your self. If you set limits on your children’s activities then you are disciplining them.
Discipline is no punishment. If you are going through a hard time it is discipline not punishment. God is using it even if it is because of a bad choice on your part or the enemy is attacking. God is going to use that to discipline you, to train you to be stronger.
Peter wrote about this also.
1 Peter 4:16–19 (CEB)
16 But don’t be ashamed if you suffer as one who belongs to Christ. Rather, honor God as you bear Christ’s name. Give honor to God,
17 because it’s time for judgment to begin with God’s own household. But if judgment starts with us, what will happen to those who refuse to believe God’s good news?
18 If the righteous are barely rescued, what will happen to the godless and sinful?
19 So then, those who suffer because they follow God’s will should commit their lives to a trustworthy creator by doing what is right.
Honor God as you bear Christ’s name. Most of us do not have Jesus name tattooed on our bodies. Most do not have a piece of jewelry on that has Jesus’ name. But, as a Christian we bear Jesus’ name, we carry Jesus’ name.
Don’t be ashamed if you are going through a period of suffering. God is with you in the bad times as well as the good times.
That Shield of faith protects us. Faith helps us to go on when it would be easier to just stop and give up.
Look there at verse 19. Peter wrote
1 Peter 4:19 (CEB)
19 So then, those who suffer because they follow God’s will should commit their lives to a trustworthy creator by doing what is right.
Don’t give up, but resolve to put your faith in the creator and doing what is right. Doing implies action, ongoing action.
William Gurnall, a 17th century priest in the Church of England had this to say about the fiery arrows of Satan:
Satan knows, that an arrow, out of God's quiver, wounds the believer deep: and therefore, when he accuses, he comes sometimes in God's name. He forges a letter; he, as it were, counterfeits God's hand; and then gives the writing to a poor, unhappy child of God, threatening him with banishment from his father's house, and loss of his inheritance. The Christian, conscious of his unworthiness, weakness, and many miscarriages, takes it all for gospel; sets himself down for an alien and an outcast; and builds to himself a prison of real distress, on false, imaginary ground. (4)
That is one way that Satan attacks with those fiery arrows. He is a liar and a deceiver.
Temptation is another fiery arrow that Satan tries to lure you away from God.
Paul when writing his first letter to the Corinthians had this to say:
1 Corinthians 10:12–13 (CEB)
12 So those who think they are standing need to watch out or else they may fall.
13 No temptation has seized you that isn’t common for people. But God is faithful. He won’t allow you to be tempted beyond your abilities. Instead, with the temptation, God will also supply a way out so that you will be able to endure it.
He first says watch out. You need to keep your eye on the prize. You have got to carry that shield of faith because temptation is going to come. It is not a matter of if it will come, but when it will come.
But you know what? God has got this handled.
1 Corinthians 10:13 (CEB)
But God is faithful. He won’t allow you to be tempted beyond your abilities. Instead, with the temptation, God will also supply a way out so that you will be able to endure it.
God’s got this. Put your faith in Him, because even though temptation may come God supplies you a way out. The Passion translation put it this way.
13 We all experience times of testing, which is normal for every human being. But God will be faithful to you. He will screen and filter the severity, nature, and timing of every test or trial you face so that you can bear it. And each test is an opportunity to trust him more, for along with every trial God has provided for you a way of escape that will bring you out of it victoriously.
Can you put your faith in God in those times of temptation? Can you say that God’s got this?
A song came out a few years ago. If you listen to contemporary Christian music perhaps you’ve heard it. It has these words:
Way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper
Light in the darkness, my God
That is who You are
Even when I don't see it, You're working
Even when I don't feel it, You're working
You never stop, You never stop working (5)
Folks, God is the way maker, his a miracle work, he is a promise keeper. Even when we don’t see it, he’s working, even when we don’t feel it he’s working. God never stops.
God has provided and blessed with every spiritual blessing.
So how do you stand against the fiery arrows of the evil one?
Carry the shield of faith, put on Christ. You bear the image of Jesus in your life. You are a child of God, don’t every forget that.
God has provided you with every spiritual blessing. There is nothing you do not have are your disposal.
(1) ABOVE ALL (phrase) American English definition and synonyms | Macmillan Dictionary. (n.d.). MacMillan Dictionary. Retrieved July 17, 2021, from https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/above-all
(2) carry. (n.d.). The Merriam-Webster.Com Dictionary. Retrieved July 17, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/carry
(3) Jowett, J. H. (1916). The Whole Armour of God. Fleming H Revell Company.
(4) Mason, J. (1809). Select Sentences: Or, Excellent Passages, from Eminent Authors. to Which Are Added, Mason’s Select Remains.
(5) Wikipedia contributors. (2021, June 1). Way Maker. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_Maker