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Welcome to the Bridge Church VB Podcast, your weekly source for uplifting and transformative Sunday messages! Each episode features insightful, practical teachings rooted in Scripture, designed to inspire and guide you on your spiritual journey. Led by our passionate Lead Pastors, Archie and Tangie Callahan, we strive to create a welcoming environment that encourages individuals from all walks of life to connect with the person, power, and purpose of Jesus Christ.
In this podcast, we delve into relevant themes and timeless biblical truths that speak to the challenges and joys of everyday living. Whether you’re commuting, exercising, or simply seeking encouragement, our messages aim to empower you to grow in faith and discover your unique purpose.
Join our vibrant community of believers as we explore how to apply God’s Word in practical ways, fostering a deeper connection with Him and one another. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to enrich your life through these dynamic teachings. Connect with us and find out more at www.bridgechurch.tv!
Well, good morning and welcome to Bridge Church.
My name is Micah.
I serve here as the youth and young adults pastor.
And this morning, I am extremely excited and honored because I get to share the word with you today.
And before I get into it, I wanna bring honor where honor is due, and that is to our lead pastors here at Bridge, pastors Archie and Tangie, and everything they do here and everything they do for Bridge.
Can we just give it up for our pastors?
Thank you.
Amen.
I'm super excited about this word.
It's something that I've actually even been studying since the beginning of the year.
So I'm very passionate about this.
And this is our second week in this series called Armed.
And we're going to be talking about standing firm, coming out of the book of Ephesians.
But before we get into it, I just want to bring context to the book of Ephesians and why Paul wrote it.
He didn't necessarily write it as a...
as a correctional letter to the people of Ephesus, but he was writing it to help believers understand who they are in Christ and how that identity should shape their lives, especially by promoting unity, maturity, and holy living.
The letter is less a response to one crisis and more a broad teaching letter meant to strengthen the church.
and show Christians and how Christian beliefs lead to Christian living.
And so if we look at chapter one, Paul praises God for blessing believers in Christ, choosing them, redeeming them, and sealing them in the Holy Spirit.
And then chapter two, Paul explains that people are saved by grace and through faith, that nothing you can do can earn your way to salvation, that it is only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Chapter three, Paul describes the mystery
of how the Gentiles are now God's people.
Chapter 4, Paul urges believers to live worthy of their calling by preserving unity, using spiritual gifts, and growing into maturity.
He also contrasts the old life versus the new life.
The old me is dead and gone, and I am now a new creation in Jesus Christ.
Chapter 4, Paul calls believers to imitate God by walking in love and light and in wisdom.
He also gives instructions for marriage, especially the call for husbands to love their wives sacrificially.
Not just when she cleans the kitchen or puts the kids down, but sacrificially always.
And then chapter 6.
Chapter 6 has instructions for family and work relationships.
And then he finishes it with a command for all believers to stand firm.
And that's what we're going to focus on today.
Ephesians 10 to 15.
But specifically where it says to put on the full armor of God.
So that you may be able to stand in the evil day.
And having done all to stand, stand.
Taking up the belt of truth buckled around your waist.
The chest plate of righteousness in place.
And feet fitted with the shoes of the gospel of peace.
As I was getting ready for this message, I was looking at it and I was kind of talking to my brother-in-law, Ethan, Pastor Archie's son.
And we were just talking about some stuff and then we were talking about football and I asked him a few questions about like his career in football.
Ethan played at a D1 school in Maine for college.
And we were just talking about, you know, he was a lineman.
He was like 315 pounds and he was heavy.
And
We were just talking about it, and I asked him, I said, what did you run in the 40?
He said a 4.89.
That's a lot of weight moving real fast.
And now if I'm having to stand firm and that hits me, my.
But that's why I pursued golf, because of people like him.
But I asked him, I said, what makes a good lineman?
And he said, somebody who doesn't give up ground.
Somebody who can stand in the gap, keep the hole from being taken, and holding your position.
Standing ground.
Standing means to not back up.
Not back down.
Not blend in.
Not give in.
Not conform.
Not give in to temptation.
Stand firm.
Sometimes,
Victory isn't just moving forward.
It's refusing to back up.
At what points in our lives or parts of our lives are we letting back up a little bit?
Are we backing up on and need to stand firm on?
And in verse 10, he says, be strengthened by the Lord your God.
He says, be strengthened.
This is a call.
This is a command as well to saying,
This isn't your own strength.
You could never do this alone unless you have the strength of the Lord and put on the full armor of God.
We are no match for the enemy unless we put on the full armor of God.
No match.
But he says, be strengthened.
This isn't saying be motivated.
Get psyched up.
Sing your favorite hype song, rap song, whatever you do.
whatever it is, I like Lecrae, but fires me up.
But he's saying, don't be motivated.
He's saying, be strengthened, meaning rely on God at all times for your strength.
So that way you may be able to stand and put on the full armor of God.
We need his strength in order to do it.
So why do we stand?
We stand because we live in a culture that is constantly pressuring us to bow.
Constantly pressuring us to compromise.
Constantly pressuring us to blend in and to give in to temptation.
And one of the things that I've noticed, especially about the culture in America, we have a very big mob mentality.
As in, as soon as somebody else believes it, I'll believe it.
And if they believe it, I'll believe it.
Oh, and then everybody.
And it's like a chain reaction.
And if, do we have any Disney fans in here?
I grew up with three sisters.
So movie nights weren't always gladiator.
Sometimes we had to watch Beauty and the Beast.
And in Beauty and the Beast, I will just do a quick summary.
But in Beauty and the Beast, there's this beast.
He was a handsome guy at first, but then he got cursed by this witch or something.
And he got turned into a beast.
And if he didn't make a woman fall in love with him by the time this flower died, he was going to be a beast forever.
Forever.
So he ends up taking this girl captive named Belle.
And he's trying to make her fall in love with him.
He's kind of got an attitude.
He's a hard guy to love.
Eventually, they start kind of liking each other.
And they start falling in love.
Actually, even as ugly as he was.
There's hope, guys.
I'm just kidding.
Just kidding.
But they start falling in love.
But what the beast didn't know was there was another man.
there was another guy.
But Bell didn't want nothing to do with that guy because he was a prideful joker.
His name was Gaston.
And Gaston wanted Bell so bad that he found out that Bell was taken by the beast and he goes all around his town and he begins to spread lies, feed lies to people.
This beast is gonna kill Bell.
And when he gets done, he's gonna come over here and he's gonna kill all of us.
So we gotta take action.
We gotta go kill this beast.
And then one lie to one person
And then the next person.
And then eventually everybody is believing this lie that this beast is going to kill them.
How easy is it for us to get wrapped up in lies and believe stuff?
We see something and we believe it and then we begin to act in fear about it.
All these people begin to live in fear thinking this beast was going to come and kill them.
But really it was just a lie from one person trying to manipulate them.
It's like the enemy says he prowls around like a roaring lion looking for the next person to devour.
He's a lion with no teeth.
All he can do is lie.
He's as the Bible says, he's the father of lies.
If he can get the lion one ear and get somebody to believe it, he can get it in the next.
And that's exactly how he devours is through lies.
We live in a culture that is constantly putting lies on people.
See, culture can get loud, but truth must stay tight around your waist.
Because Paul doesn't say if the battle comes, he says when.
And the question isn't, will the battle come?
What will the battle be?
It's, will you be standing when the battle is over?
See, the Bible says to resist the devil and resist him every day.
Part of standing is fighting because that translation and other translations, it even says fight him and fight him every day.
Part of standing is also fighting.
That's why you have, what would you need armor for if you didn't have to fight?
If there wasn't going to be a battle.
Will you be standing when finances aren't good?
Will you be standing when your family is going through it?
When your kids are trying to walk away from the Lord?
Will you still be standing when the battle is over?
Because when you put on the full armor of God, you become more than a conqueror.
You become someone who can look the devil in the eye and say, get out of my life.
Get out of my family.
Get out of my house.
Get away from my children.
Get out of my thoughts.
Get out of my mind.
It says to resist him and resist him every day.
Fight him and fight him every day.
We have to fight against many different things.
Many different things.
So how do we stand?
We stand by number one, putting on the belt of truth.
Truth anchors us.
Truth has to stay tight around our waist because it holds everything together.
Truth holds everything together.
If I didn't have my belt on, I'd be sitting here pulling up my pants, trying to keep them up.
If you don't got truth tight around your waist, you're gonna constantly be dropping stuff.
be having to pick up your pants.
Without truth, feelings lead, the culture defines, and lies dominate.
I was talking with a buddy on the phone the other day.
In today's day and age, we are so drowned by opinions.
Most are wrong.
Most opinions are wrong and most of them are lies.
We're just drowned by them, especially our young people who are all over social media.
We're just drowned by opinions.
And I was on the phone with a buddy the other day.
He's a bit of a conspiracy theorist.
And we were talking and he's like, oh, I got a crazy one for you.
And I don't even know where it came from.
But he said that we were close to a one world government.
The elites are gonna take over.
We're done.
This is it.
That's what he said.
That's literally what he said.
And I'm like, okay, cool.
Who's they?
Who's they that keep saying all this stuff?
And he said, well, you know.
Well, you know.
The stuff I've been reading, the people I've been reading.
I'm like, okay.
That's the next step.
Send me the stuff you've been reading.
And he's like, okay, I got you.
He sends five links, five.
And every single link was an Instagram reel.
So this gentleman let 60 second clips of lies get on his feed, watch it, believe it, and now he's in fear that we're gonna get took over by a one world government and we're done.
And we're all gonna be slaves.
But truth anchors us.
The Bible says, truth, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
Jesus says, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life.
He doesn't say, I am a way.
He doesn't say, I am a truth, or I am a life.
He says, I am the truth, the way, the life.
Anybody who comes to me, you cannot get to the Father except coming to me.
Buddha is not the truth.
Muhammad is not the truth.
Allah is not the truth.
The Republicans are not the truth.
The Democrats are not the truth.
LGBTQ is not the truth.
Oh, this one might step on some toes, but cute Christianity is not the truth.
Did you know you can drown in an inch of water?
I believe there are so many people, so many believers who are drowning in an inch of sin.
It's just the parts that need to breathe that have to get covered.
And an inch can drown you.
An inch.
We must stay rooted in the truth.
In the truth.
Only Jesus Christ is the truth.
And my question today is do you know the truth?
Or have you become a little bit wavering on it?
Starting to believe the lies and the opinions of the world.
Stay rooted.
Keep the belt of truth buckled around your waist.
When the belt is loosened, when the truth is loosened, the battle often begins to collapse.
Things often start to fall apart.
And so we keep this belt of truth buckled tightly around our waist.
And then it says to put on the chest plate of righteousness and keep it in place.
The chest plate guards your heart, protects your heart from relationships, from what you see, from what you hear, what you listen to, who you hear.
And this righteousness is not a self-righteousness.
It's not a, well, I'm better than so-and-so.
This makes me better than them.
It's not.
It's Jesus Christ's righteousness covering you.
Because without that, we're doing nothing but being legalistic and having a works-driven faith when we try to work for it.
I think one of the most dangerous things in Christianity today is, you know, I was a mess.
I was living in sin.
Jesus pulled me out.
He cleaned me up.
I'm still a mess, still going through it.
But at least I'm not as much of a mess as so-and-so down the road or sister so-and-so over here.
At least I'm not going through that.
At least my sin's not that bad.
And we get self-righteous thinking, okay, well, I'm at least better than them.
But if we try to gain this righteousness without Jesus, we're doing nothing but having a works-driven faith with no relationship, without his righteousness, without his righteousness.
And I think one of the best stories that can show this is when Peter walked on water.
I've never walked on water.
I wish I could.
It'd make fishing a whole lot easier.
But if you read this story, it was late at night.
It was pitch black dark.
It was in the middle of the night and they're fishing.
And it says that they see this figure walking up on the water.
Some of the guys were thinking it was a ghost.
I too probably would.
As an outdoorsman, I don't know how many more outdoorsmen are in here, but I know when I'm walking through the woods at 5 a.m.
and it's pitch black dark, I can't see nothing, it's scary.
Really scary.
And it never fails.
You're gonna hear a stick crack right behind you.
And you're gonna get that thought in your head like, this is it.
I'm done.
That's it.
I know Lord.
That's good.
But so you can imagine what these guys are thinking as this figure is coming to them on the water in the middle of the night in the pitch black dark.
And then it says Peter recognizes that it's Jesus.
And Peter goes, Jesus, if that's you, tell me to come.
How much better would our decision making be if we would say, hey, Jesus, if that's you, tell me to go.
Hey, Jesus, if this new career is you, tell me to go.
Hey, Jesus, if buying this house is you, tell me to go.
Hey, Jesus, if this relationship is you, tell me to go.
And then guess what Jesus says?
come to me.
He didn't say, now Peter, I want you to hear my heart here.
It's gonna get scary, okay?
I've got a five-step program I need you to follow to get out of that boat and then take some steps on this water.
He didn't say that.
He said, come to me.
How much easier would it be to live if every time Jesus said, come to me, we did it.
If Jesus said go and pray for that person, we did it.
If every time Jesus said bless that person, we did it.
Jesus said come to me and Peter steps out of the boat and he begins to walk on water.
See, when we let Jesus' righteousness cover us, it helps us to pursue him deeper and pursue a life of holiness.
See, just like Peter here, when we draw near to Jesus, we see ourselves doing things no man has ever done before.
We see, just like Peter, Peter's walking on water.
No man has ever done that.
We see, you might not walk on water.
Just get that.
But if you let Jesus' righteousness cover you and you begin to pursue his holiness, you'll see that business take off.
You'll see that marriage restored.
You'll see those kids come back home.
You'll see your family come back to the Lord.
But it's Jesus' righteousness that covers you and helps you live that holy life because we could never do it alone.
And we can't, just like I said earlier, we can't get stuck in that cute Christianity where we only put that chest plate of righteousness on on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.
It doesn't work like that.
He says, keep it in place.
You have to have it on at all times.
Can't live reckless all week and expect to have his righteousness just on Sunday.
And then our self-righteousness out in the world.
Because when we do that, just like Peter was walking on the water, then he started looking around and was like, what am I doing?
Instead of, Jesus, what are you doing in this?
And what happens?
He begins to sink and we catch ourselves in this cycle of, okay, I'm drawing near to Jesus.
Okay, now what do I do?
And then we get scared and we get our eyes off Jesus and we begin to sink and we catch ourselves reaching out and he pulls us back up and then we do it again.
If we keep our focus on Jesus,
And his holiness will see our lives absolutely transformed and changed.
So we keep the belt of truth buckled tightly around our waist.
The chest plate of righteousness in place.
And then it says to have the feet fitted for the shoes of the gospel of peace.
Shoes bring stability and mobility.
It brings both.
So I just want you to picture just for a second, a team of Navy SEALs going into a mission, getting ready to go in.
They're all strapped up.
They're loaded up.
They're ready to go.
But instead of the boots that were given to them, which have the nice long laces so they can pull them tight, have the good ankle support so they got good stability, and then the good grip on the bottom for traction so they can run, dodge, dip, dive, everything they need to do.
But instead of those, they got six inch red bottom heels on.
They aren't gonna have very much stability nor mobility.
And I think we're gonna have more broken ankles than any other injuries.
So shoes are needed for every occasion.
Just like military, they need boots.
Like football, they need football cleats.
Soccer, they need soccer cleats.
Golf, you need golf shoes.
Dancing, you need dancing shoes.
Bowling, bowling shoes.
Dinner?
Dinner shoes.
Don't wear your boots to dinner, guys.
Come on.
So we need shoes for every occasion.
Just like we need the gospel in every season.
In every season of our life, the gospel grounds us in peace with God and then sends you out with a purpose.
And not only grounds us in peace, but it gives you purpose as you go and tell people about Jesus.
See, we stand firm because we're secure, but we move forward because we're called.
Jesus calls us, but we have to stand firm.
I think one of the most beautiful stories in the Bible is when Jesus washes the disciples' feet.
Because the Bible says that Jesus alone is our peace.
And then it tells us to have feet fitted with the shoes of the gospel of peace, meaning he wraps our foundation.
He gives us stability.
He gives us peace.
He gives us confidence.
So if you look at that story, it says that Jesus brought the disciples in and he's washing their feet.
And if you think back then, they didn't have closed-toed shoes or boots or anything like that for travel.
They had sandals.
So their feet got gross and nasty and muddy and dusty.
And he's washing all this stuff.
But what the dust and dirt represented was everywhere they had already been.
their past, where they had come from.
And what does Jesus do?
He brings them in, he sits them down and he washes all that away.
And then he sends them out with a purpose.
The gospel washes everything off of your past, every past thing that you think you can do.
I promise I'm one to speak.
There is nothing
too far or too far gone that Jesus cannot wash off of your life.
There is nothing.
I was somebody, I was addicted to alcohol and drugs and there is nothing.
He brought me out of my mess and I never turned back.
I knew that I had to keep my eyes on Jesus.
I couldn't turn away.
He washed it off and he sent me out with a purpose and he called me and he can do the same for you today.
Peace doesn't mean that there's not gonna be a battle.
It means you'll be able to stand in the middle of it with confidence.
In World War II, it was December of 1944.
The days were the 20th through the 27th.
It was in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge in a small city called Bastogne, Belgium.
It was during the last major war
offensive of Hitler of the time.
And they knew that they had to take this place because it was strategically important because it had seven roads crossing right there.
And the Germans needed it to capture it to keep their offensive moving.
So they surrounded the city with thousands of troops.
The 101st Airborne Division, along with elements of other U.S.
units, were ordered to hold Bastogne until help arrived.
They were told to stand there and hold it.
um they began to run low on ammunition on food on supplies and this is the scariest part for me because i was i'm a florida boy i got warm blood and uh so they also had to endure the extreme winters of germany
And they were running low.
Some guys were almost dead.
And they get a message on December 22nd from the German army to surrender.
And General McAuliffe famously replied with a one-word response.
Nuts.
Nuts.
That's it.
That's all he said.
And then the Americans continued to hold their ground
And the Third Army broke through the German encirclement and the Americans were able to take the city and hold it.
Go ahead and stand to your feet if you will.
These men were not commanded to charge.
They were not commanded to back down.
They were not commanded to do anything except stand firm and hold the crossing.
Not move, hold it until help arrives.
Jesus stood on the cross in our place so that way today we can stand firm for him.
There's a book that I read at the beginning of this year called Stand Firm and Act Like Men by Pastor Joby Martin.
It's a phenomenal book.
If you're a man in here, I highly encourage you to read that.
If you're a woman in here raising boys, read that book.
I promise.
Great book.
It's a free ad.
But in that book, he repeatedly said, before you can ever stand firm, you must first bow down.
You must first bow and make Jesus Christ your Lord above everything, above your pride, above your job, above money, above everything.
He comes first.
Laying down everything.
In order to put on the full armor of God, you must first take off everything that you carry.