Therefore stand, Eph, 6:10-13

Good morning. Last Sunday we took an introductory look at this passage in chapter 6, verses 10 through 18. And as we look this morning, what we'll be doing is taking kind of the first half, a little more detailed look as we examine it. So as we look at this passage, look at it like this, we'll be looking at the first half today, and then the second half we'll be dividing over the next two weeks in order to kind of get it in a little more detail. So as we get into there here, you will find, if you're visiting with us here, here is the page number. And if you find the slide, it doesn't have a page number. It's not on your handout. So hope you have a photographic memory. Okay.

One of the things that we'll do here is just step through it one verse at a time. So, in sequence, how about that? Now, as you may recall, just to kind of refresh your memories from last Sunday, we said that this passage, in summary, says, put on the full armor of God so that, with the result, that you'll be able to stand firm. It basically lays that message out twice in this passage we're looking at here. So it's a key aspect of what Paul is telling us. Put on the full honor of God so that you'll be able to stand firm. One of the other points that we made is we have this saying, you know, don't just stand there, do something. Well, Paul in essence is telling us the opposite. Don't just do something, stand there. Okay? That's the message.

Stand there in your position. Stand firmly is the repeated message that he keeps bringing across. Stand in the position that you already have in Jesus Christ. You have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. Stand there. As he began the book of Ephesians telling us we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing, now he's finishing up with chapter 6 saying, I've already told you, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. That's where you need to be. Live life from there. That's where the battle needs to be fought. It needs to be fought from, not by advancing and attacking, but by standing in the position and the place that you already have.

One of the other things that we pointed out is often this passage is taught and presented entirely in individual terms, but the truth is that Paul is drawing upon the training and the background and the defensive tools of the Roman soldier, and the mindset of these Roman soldiers was strongly towards the group.

So as they were told, you know, to hold the shield of faith up, they weren't thinking of they themselves individually holding the shield of faith up. but as a group holding them together. We mentioned last time, even the shape of the shields is made so that they are side by side, locked together with one another and not just individual shields, which would be oval or round and most fitting for that.

Now, this would be an example of how they would be put together up against a rock wall being showered with arrows. What do you do? The commander would give this testudo command and they would put together this formation and shield themselves from this rain of arrows that was coming down.

They would also form living ramps to get up against in a position to fight with cavalry, for example, people mounted on horses. You would also be in a position to take that and maybe even get on top of another group. And finally, to be able to climb up a wall or a ledge. they would have them get up on a ramp. So it'd be like an instant ladder to have these soldiers working together.

Finally, and the example that Paul uses here is the instance of having a rain of flaming arrows. The defense was not just to hold up one single shield, but to have this whole assortment of shields all together so that when they came down, they all just bounced off because the entire contingents of soldiers is covered. Now, one of the other things we want to underscore, the Roman soldiers, as they thought, would think in terms of how am I protecting and defending the group, not just myself, but the group. It was the barbarian soldiers who thought of themselves as powerful individuals. They would even taunt the Roman soldiers. They would say things like, come out and fight like a man, because what they wanted them to do was to come out of this heavily defended group. For the Romans, this was kind of like their equivalent of a tank. How do I get through this? So the barbarians would try to taunt them out of the group, talking to them, you know, come out and fight like a man, implying that if they didn't, they were somehow less than a man.

And the officer says, nope, keep your testudo formation. Okay. Now, how does Paul carry on this? Finally, be strong. Be strong as a present passive imperative. Now, catch this. It means right now be strong. It is passive. You can't do it yourself. You must be strengthened from outside yourself.

It is also an imperative. Remember, we've made the point before, an imperative in Paul's writing is not intended to be a moral law such that if you fail, you're subject to condemnation. It is instead a logical imperative telling you that based on your position, it's the only thing that makes sense. It's the logical choice based on your position.

He says, be strong in the Lord. It's the believer's position that is one of strength. That's why he says, in the Lord. It's not, okay, buck up, soldiers. It is, be strong in the Lord. It is in the Lord where your strength lies. Not in yourselves. He isn't looking for strong Christians. He's looking for Christians who are strong in the Lord. See the difference? Strengthen the Lord. That's where the strength lies.

Now, the other thing is this word here is, endunuma'o, and this is the same word that we saw in Philippians 4.13, when we studied that a couple of years back. This is where Paul says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. This is the word that he's using. It is Christ who is doing the strengthening, not we ourselves. It's not us trying to work up our strength. You ever try to do that? Work up your courage? This isn't it. He's not saying work up your courage or pray real hard.

He is instead saying it is in the Lord's strength that you'll stand. One of the other things that this brings forth Paul said this in Philippians, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. As he turns around to the Ephesians, he's not telling them something that was just hypothetical. He wasn't saying, well, I hope it works. He was saying, I indeed have lived this out, and I'm not telling you anything different than what I have already lived.

Be strong in the Lord, in His strength. Be strengthened by Him. You must be strengthened by Him. That's what the imperative points to. In the Lord is the equivalent, as we pointed out last week, of in Christ. It's the believer's place of being continually strengthened. Remember, it is present tense. The believer's place of being strengthened is continually in the Lord.

Now, it isn't something that we do on our own strength. It isn't something that we have right to boast before the Lord. By His doing, you're in Christ Jesus in the first place. He's saying, be strong in the Lord because that's where you are positionally. In your position in Christ, you're already there. Be strong there. This is in the Lord, that is in Christ, that's the place where we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. That's where the strength lies, where we've been blessed, in Him, in the Lord, in Christ. In the strength of His might, we might say in modern vernacular, in His mighty strength.

This strength isn't nominal. It isn't just minimum required. It isn't something that it'd be nice to have. It is in the Lord and the strength is described as mighty. It is powerful. The strength of the enemy is not described as the same. It is the Lord's strength uniquely. Be strong in the Lord is an inherent strength in him. The Lord is not strong because he all of a sudden tries to be strong, or he says, I'll try to get strong for you, but because he is inherently a mighty Lord, a strong Lord. That is his character. It's who he is.

Now, here he says, put on, as a believer in Christ, You were made to be in Christ. We pointed that out from 1 Corinthians there. You were saved. You were given your position in Christ irreversibly, untouchably, incorruptibly in the heavens. That's the place where you are in your position. Here he has it. These things are true of every single believer. Put on the full armor of God.

Does he say that as a suggestion? If you've got it? If it's available to you? As you're able to find it? Have you ever been asked for something you don't have? Ever been through that? Kind of embarrassing at certain moments. Maybe even worse than embarrassing. Especially as a policeman asks for it.

So, the thing is there, he says, put on the full armor of God, he writes to every single believer, and by the way, these are some Some of whom He has said, you who are stealing, stop stealing. So we're talking about believers who have had moral issues and yet He tells them, put on the full armor of God. He doesn't make some exceptions. This is only for you who are really strong, the rest of you can lie down. No, this is for every believer. All of you can put on the full armor of God if you're in Christ by faith. Why? because it is by faith in Christ initially, that you are in Him, that's where the strength is, and that's where the full armor is.

Notice this here, it's got some words that stand out, deeds of darkness. We've already heard in chapter 511, don't participate in the deeds of darkness, okay? And this out of the book of Romans, a very neat parallel passage, twice he says, put on here. Put on the armor of light and what's the next thing he says put on? Put on Jesus Christ. I submit to you that Jesus Christ is the full armor of God. The full armor of God.

It's the same word he uses in Ephesians 6.11. It's put on.

Spiritual warfare is not designed by God to mean the believers to pursue and seek aggressive and direct action against the enemy. We're not supposed to go, I've got to go out and find where Satan is today. I've got to go and map it and make sure I know where the places are. We're going to go and attack Satan and really go after him today. No, that's not what spiritual warfare is. And that's not what he describes here. Spiritual warfare is not being so focused upon Satan that we've taken our eyes off the Lord.

One of the passages that we pointed to in the past are Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. Fixing our eyes upon Jesus. Can you be staring at Satan half the day and be fixing your eyes on Jesus? No. Fixing our eyes upon the Lord is what we are called to do as believers. If we're spending half of our time chasing down Satan, I would submit to you that we can't be fixing our eyes on Jesus.

It's a distraction. Spiritual warfare of that kind is not what Paul is calling for. Spiritual warfare is not attributing every unfavorable circumstance to Satan. If something bad happens, oh, Satan's doing it. If something good happens, then it's God's blessing.

Have you ever heard that? Maybe you've even said that. There's an important distinction. It's easy for us to say, if it's good stuff and we like it, then God did it. If it's bad stuff and we don't like it, then Satan did it. We need to understand that what he's looking at here is not that kind of a distinction. The Lord may bring various things into your life, trials, and as a matter of fact, Satan may have nothing to do with it at all. We have to be careful about what we attribute to the Lord and what we automatically attribute to Satan.

Now, see these golfers? Now, you might think, because they're both turned around, that they're really excited about the fact that that ball is only a few feet from the hole, right? And if you saw those golfers like that, you'd say, their focus is really on that ball because they see it as a real blessing from the Lord. What you don't see is the other part of the picture I'm about to show you, and people would automatically say, oh, that's from Satan. See that bear there? That's what's got their attention.

By the way, putters are not going to cut it. And the other thing is, running isn't either. Okay? The reality is, we easily attribute the ball close to the hole, that's God's blessing. That the bear coming out of the woods, that must be Satan. The reality is that we don't get that kind of revelation and automatically assume, oh, this is Satan and this is God, is not the right posture. Okay?

Spiritual warfare is standing in our eternal position in Christ. That's what it amounts to. That's a defensible position. That's the place we're called to stand. In the next two weeks, we'll be going over these pieces of armor that we have listed here. But suffice it to say for now, that spiritual warfare is standing in our position in Christ. And where are we?

In Christ. If you're a believer here this morning, you are in Him. That's your position. Stay there. Walk in it. It's a very defensible position, fully defensible against the enemy. Stand in it. The full armored standing has the body of Christ aspect as well. It's not just our own individual standing, there is a protection For other believers, there is an interactive protection for other believers as we stand firm.

Remember also as we went through Philippians, and boy now we're really drawing upon memories here, Philippians 1.27, only conduct yourselves, and by the way that's the citizen conduct, conduct yourselves as citizens of heaven, in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, see that? Standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, the mind of Christ, striving together for the faith of the gospel, in no way alarmed, that is, don't drop the shields and swords, okay? No way alarmed by your opponents.

There is a together aspect of this message as well. As we look at this passage here, the thing that stands out as we look at this passage and the related passages is this. The war is already won. The war is already won, so we only have the battle to fight. The battle is the only thing at risk. What does that battle look like? It looks like the believer standing in his position so that the life of Jesus Christ is lived out. That's what winning the battle looks like. That's what it looks like.

We have the full or whole armor of God here. Put on the full or whole armor of God. And notice it is specific. THE armor. It isn't, hey have some kind of armor. Get some. What kind of armor? I don't know, just some. No, it's THE full armor of God, it's specific, the definite article. It is also complete, it's the full, it's the whole armor of God. It is not, hey, I think I'll just take this little part, it is the complete set. You are not given this spiritual armor and you're suddenly going to discover, boy, you know, I really don't have quite enough on here. No, it's complete, it's full.

It offers protection. It is armor. And the message we also said came from that last week. Folks, we're in a battle. Hope you know that. We're in a battle. You are. It is of God. He alone is the one who has the power and the knowledge to give us what we need. It is of God.

We're also not in a weapons buffet. I think I'll take that one and that one and that one. No, I don't want that one. I like the shiny one over there. We're not picking out little things and saying, I'd like this one and that one. Oh, this one is really cool. I like that wicked double hook on the sword. No, it is exactly what we need. It is the full set, and we're not picking out parts and pieces.

Why? Because after all, this armor is really Jesus Christ. It is really the position that we have in Him, and why would we want parts and pieces of that? The Lord Jesus Christ is plenty sufficient. is provided by God as a complete defensive package, the whole thing. It is exactly what we need to stand. That's one of the points that Paul underscores. It is precisely what we need. Then, the outcome. You will be able to stand firm. Not you hope so. Not it'd be sure be nice. But given that the believer puts on the full armor of God, there's no question the believer is able to stand. That's the outcome. That's the result. As long as we're on this planet, there's going to be that battle. As long as the Lord has us here, that battle is going to be there.

But it is sufficient. We are called to stand firm, not because we are hopefully able to do so, but in Christ, in His strength, with the full armor of God, we are completely able to do so. We are adequate. One of the points we made last week is that many people struggle with adequacy. They come into various situations and they wrestle with it. This is a situation, you look at it, are we adequate in Christ, in His strength, with the full armor of God? The very person and character of Christ, the position in which we stand, plenty adequate. No question of adequacy.

It is not some sort of a Rube Goldberg contraption. Have you ever seen one of these things where you pull on this lever and this little ball rolls down here and it goes down there and this little car goes here and this little flame starts and it burns a string and all that stuff? At the end, you hope it all works. This isn't like that, okay? This isn't a Rube Goldberg contraption. It isn't something you'll say, whoops, I sure wish I'd had something else. It is sufficient. It's complete.

The other thing that he points out here is the schemes of the devil. Interestingly enough, this word schemes is from the Greek word methodeia. It has nothing to do with Methodist per se. But it is, this word method, it means that there is a system, there is a strategy that Satan is trying to use.

Now, a Christian can err in two directions. One is underestimating the place and the value of what the Lord has given us in this defense. And the other is trying to overestimate things as well. If we hold Satan to be an equal to God, we've got a problem. We have to recognize that He has a strategy, He has a method, a system that He is trying to use. He is trying to work that against us.

He is not coming at us randomly. We put on the full armor of God because God knows that the full armor of God, which is the person of Jesus Christ, the position that we have in Him, The full armor of God is adequate for every one of those strategies, every one of those systems that we're going to be approached with.

The war is already won. We just put on the full armor of God so that we win this battle. We hear about, you know, you can win the battle and lose the war. This is the other way around. The war is already won. The only thing in question is the battle right now.

Our struggle, and this is an insight, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and powers and world forces of this darkness, the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. This is an insight that we as believers need to keep in mind. It is easy to do as the rest of the world does and begin looking at physical situations and other people as the enemy. He's giving us the spiritual insight that we need desperately. The world may be telling us that it's only what you can see that is real. If I can't see it, it's not real. The insight he's giving us here is it's what's behind what you see that is actually what's going on and that matters here. That's an important, valuable insight. The battle is spiritual, not a physical one. We wrestle not with flesh and blood, okay? Weird, okay. Now, I want you to also understand this too.

The world is not going to communicate to you what's going on spiritually. You ever notice that? We get things on the 6 o'clock news or whenever it is you watch it. We get things on the newspaper. The world is not going to communicate things spiritually. The world is going to communicate things externally without the proper spiritual insight. The world is going to look at the superficial approach.

It takes God's revelation to give us the proper insight. The other thing that Paul lays out here for us is there is an authority structure. Not only is there a system and a strategy against us, there is an authority structure. He doesn't give us all kinds of details, and that's something very interesting, is that while a lot of things outside of Scripture will name all sorts of angels and will give all sorts of details about things in the spiritual realm, Scripture is very limited in the detail that it gives us about names and structure, but we know definitely that it's there, and we should not be ignorant of it.

With any battle, we need to keep the spiritual nature of it in mind, recognizing what the true enemy consists of. Now, isn't this interesting? We're called daily to be in a battle in which the war is already won. All right, go to battle, not to win the war, the war is already won, but to win the battle, not the war. The Lord has already fought the war. As a matter of fact, as you go into battle, what do you have to fight with? The person of the Lord Jesus Christ. You're in Him. It's His power and strength. His outcome is already determined. Satan's outcome is already determined. And so we're not having that in question at all.

One of the other mistakes that people often make is they think of God and Satan as opposites, but they also posit them or place them as equals. That's not the picture here either, is it? God is mighty in power. Is Satan called that? No. He has a power, but it's not equal and opposite, even though it's opposed. Nowhere near equal. Satan is a created being.

That's one point in fact. He has a limited power, a limited duration of freedom. God is eternal. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite. You know, Satan doesn't know everything. As a matter of fact, he does not have the capacity to go after all of us all at once. God can keep us in Christ all at once. But Satan is not eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite. He's a limited, created being. Should we take him seriously? Yes. Should we quiver in fear? No. He is a being of power, but not God's equal by any means.

Satan calls upon us to maintain a relationship to that which we've already died. Have you noticed that? Christ died on the cross. so that we might be dead to the world and to the sin nature. And yet, in the midst of that, what does He do? He wants us to pay attention to exactly those things.

Furthermore, the world and the sin nature that He calls us to are both terminal. When we're out of here, is the world going to be a concern? No. Is the sin nature going to be a concern? No. So here is this defeated enemy calling you to depend upon and be connected with and act upon two entities that are terminal, that are not going to be around when you're out of here, at least not for you. Here's another interesting thing.

Satan doesn't really care if you believe in him or not. Isn't that interesting? He really doesn't care. If somebody doesn't believe in Satan, he's just fine with that. If you want to believe in Him a lot, He's fine with that too. With the Lord, however, it's quite different. Belief is exactly the issue. Belief is precisely what the Lord is pointing to and concerned about. Belief is what counts. With Satan, it doesn't make a lick of difference. He doesn't really care because he doesn't care about you. For God so loved the world.

Can Satan say the same thing? No, he can't. Satan has to ask God for permission to do what He's going to do. How about that? Satan is even used, as we see in passages of Scripture, used of the Lord. Twice the Apostle Paul said that certain people were turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Was that so Satan was taking sovereign control?

No. He talked about believers, believe it or not, talking about believers, that the Lord was going to use Satan to bring them around to a place of obedience. God isn't going to allow anything in our lives that is contrary to His purpose. Satan can't do anything to the believer that the believer cannot withstand in Christ's strength, in our position in Christ. He can't do anything that the Lord doesn't give him permission to do. We have this insight here, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness. He has characterized the forces that oppose us.

This darkness is used many times in the New Testament. It describes the beings and the domain that lacks light. Now, to get an idea what that would be like, suppose I were able to turn the lights off, block all the light at the doors here, turn the lights off so that this room was pitch black.

And now I say, okay, let's hurry up and leave. What happens? There's all kinds of stumbling and bumping and all sorts of damage going on. Why? We can't see a thing. And as he describes it here, this darkness is a matter of not seeing. Frequently people are concerned about the knowledge of Satan. The reality is he is characterized as one of darkness. He doesn't get the picture. Can you imagine some being that having already lost the war, is going to go out and fight the battle, and attempt to take on something that he can never win, when he knows the end result? What kind of smarts is that? How intelligent is that?

Satan is not an infinitely knowledgeable and wise being. Against the forces of wickedness, this is ultimately the character of what stands against the absolute holiness of God. Satan simply is not God's equal, even in this evil, because the wickedness is not something as much as it is the absence of God's holiness. It's a vacuum that creates his wickedness rather than something of itself. Therefore, he finishes off the last verse here. He's taken the information in the first verses, 10 through 12, and now he's summarizing it and bringing it all together.

Based on the truths that have been revealed before, let's pull it together. Here's the summary logical statement. Here's this word here that follows everything that's been said before. He says, okay, let's pull it together. What does this mean for you as a believer? He says, okay, now, first thing, take up. This is the first step in putting on, is it not? This is a simple imperative. It's valuable not only to see it for what it is, but also for what it isn't. First of all, it isn't make up the full armor of God.

Hey, come up with something. Boy, God wants me to be really strong. Okay, what do I need? Boy, you think of something. No, we're not to make up something. We're not to conjure up something. We have it. It's the person of Jesus Christ. We don't select from. We don't pick the parts and pieces. We don't have the weapons buffet. It isn't automatically there. We must believe God. We must act on the basis of faith and the facts, the facts that He has revealed.

Are you in Christ? Has He told them that? He's told them, you're in Christ, you're in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're in the Lord, you're in Him, you're in the Beloved. He's told them repeatedly, you are in Christ. He's given them those facts. It isn't automatically there, but He's given us the facts. It's simply a matter of our believing, our trusting Him. It's also not an add to, it's the full set. Take up the full armor of God, not add to the full armor of God. Now, he's reproduced the words here that he had in verse 11. He says, if I'm going to summarize it, I'm going to take the exact same words. He does that in order to emphasize what's happening here.

It's an expansion of what it means to stand firm. You take up the full armor of God so that you'll be able to stand firm. Now, he says there also you'll be able to resist in the evil day, having done everything to stand firm. This word resist, it means to stand against. We pointed out how both Peter and James said resist, and they used the same word. Resist Satan and he'll flee from you. Stand against him. It's not an attack, but it is indeed standing your ground. And then finally, stand firm. It means remain stable and upright, unmoved from your original position. All you got to do is stay there. You have a position in Christ, stand there. Resist in the evil day, having done everything.

What's this, the evil day? Is today a good day and tomorrow's an evil one? Is that what he's talking about? We talked some weeks ago Paul characterized, as the New Testament authors often did, from the time of the fall up until the time when the Lord comes again, that is called the present evil age. And it is an accumulation of days, is it not? So that's what he's talking about. Up until the day when the Lord takes us out of here, It is the evil day. It is the day in which we must fight the battle. It's the day in which we must stand. It's the day in which we must put on the armor. Those days, one after another, every day. We also see here Galatians 1, 3 and 4 says, The Lord Jesus, who gave himself for our sins, so he might rescue us from the present evil age, one day after the next.

Having done everything. Now, I had a question just before the service. What's this having done everything all about? Is there something else I've got to do? Well, no. What he's saying is, what do you have to do? You put on the full armor of God. Have you done everything? Yeah. So that you can stand. That's the end result. Having done everything. The intent is you've done all of what he said, and that is put on the full armor of God. That's what we've been called to do.

To stand firm is the end result that we're called to here. That Greek word translated resist means to stand against, so essentially it's said four times in these set of verses, to stand. Now, the believer is to stand based on the believer's position in Christ.

Where do we stand? We don't stand firm because we get real stiff. We don't stand firm because we try real hard. We don't stand firm because we're just really stubborn. We stand firm because we have that position in Christ and we're standing in it. We're standing in it. We're not running to catch up with it. Not running to get in it. Not trying real hard. to get in that position. We simply stand in that position because that's where God has put us. We're in Christ. We're in the Lord. One of the things that is important to look at while this passage that we're looking at here is oftentimes thought of as that's the central passage on spiritual warfare.

The truth is that Paul and other apostles told the believers that they were writing to stand firm. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, which is certainly a church that needed some kind of instruction on standing. He says, be alert, stand firm in the faith.

He wrote to the church at Philippi, in this way, stand firm in the Lord, my beloved. Twice to the church at Thessalonica, stand firm in the Lord. So then, brethren, stand firm. This standing firm is a message to all believers, not just to the special group, not just to some small group. It's something that every believer must do. It is in the Lord, standing in the Lord, the place we have in Him, in the very person of Jesus Christ. And finally, Peter, stand firm in the true grace of God. Or as he puts it, the true grace of God, stand firm in it. Stand firm in that grace. You don't get extra strong because you add law to it. You don't get extra strong because you tried really hard. You don't get extra strong because there's something you can add to it. It's the grace of God. It's the grace of God.

That's where we stand. We stand there because by the grace of God, we are in Christ, in Him. He is the very person in whom we stand. Let's pray. Lord, as we look here at this passage, there's certainly lots of detail that we've examined. And yet in the end, we're called to place our eyes upon you. In the end, we're called to stand firm, not in some hypothetical position or some place that we have because of academics, but in your very person. We have that place in you eternally in the heavens. You've called us to stand there, to remain in that place where we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing, to remain in that place where we have, by your grace and your marvelous, marvelous glory, the very person and character of Jesus Christ as the ultimate defense against the enemy. How wonderful. How marvelous. In Jesus' name, Amen.