Spiritual Strength, Ephesians 6:14-24

Pastor Aaron Shamp discusses Ephesians 6:14-24 in this sermon, focusing on our part in the spiritual war and how to engage in it. He emphasizes the importance of putting on the armor of God, which includes truth, righteousness, readiness, faith, salvation, and the word of God. Pastor Aaron explains that the enemy primarily operates through lies and false narratives, and we must combat them with the truth of the gospel. He encourages listeners to take captive every thought and respond with the armor of God. He also highlights the significance of prayer and worship in putting on the armor and experiencing the power of the gospel.

Takeaways

• Put on the armor of God by taking captive every thought and responding with the truth of the gospel.
• Recognize that the enemy primarily operates through lies.
• Engage in prayer and worship to experience the power of the gospel and put on the armor.
• See yourself as living in a story that ends in victory, knowing that ultimate victory is guaranteed through Christ.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Reading of Ephesians 6:14-20
01:52 Understanding the Reality of the Enemy
06:16 The Enemy's Tactics: Lies and False Narratives
12:06 Putting on the Armor of God: Embracing the Truths of the Gospel
17:14 Putting on the Armor Before the Conflict
27:19 Taking Captive Every Thought and Responding with the Gospel
33:27 The Power of Prayer and Worship in Spiritual Warfare
40:10 Victory in Christ: Standing Firm in the Battle

Creators & Guests

Host

Aaron Shamp

Lead Pastor of Redeemer City Church

What is Redeemer City Church - Lafayette, LA?

Pastor Aaron Shamp preaches about the Gospel and facets of Christianity at Redeemer City Church. These podcasts are his sermons.

Aaron Shamp (00:05.935)
Okay, so we are in Ephesians chapter 6. We're going to start with verse 14 and read to the end. If you don't have your Bible or you're having a hard time finding it, we'll have it here on the screen so you can follow along there. All let's go ahead and start in Ephesians chapter 6 and starting verse 14.

Paul writes, stand therefore with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. In every situation, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints. Pray also for me that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. For this, I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should.

So last week we looked at the first part of this passage here.

Aaron Shamp (01:52.763)
at the end of Ephesians chapter six, where Paul talks about spiritual warfare. In that beginning there, we really focused on the opposition or the enemy that we face in spiritual warfare. We looked at how there is a reality of an enemy that we face, that there is a devil with his hierarchy of demons who do oppose the kingdom of God. As the enemy, they oppose all that the kingdom of God does.

So as God through the gospel has accomplished salvation and he is building his kingdom on this earth, even today, building his kingdom, he is spreading his new society, he is bringing more people into his household. The enemy of God is opposed to this. So anything the kingdom of God seeks to do, the enemy will seek to oppose. That means the personal growth in your life as a citizen of the kingdom of God or as a child in his household, the enemy is going to oppose that individual growth in your life.

If you, through listening to this series, reading this book, have thought about how do we make our household one that is more distinctively Christian and follows the pattern that is laid out for us in the gospel that Paul describes here, the enemy will oppose those plans that you have and those intentions that you have to have a Christian household. If you plan to act more like a Christian and live by your faith and your work and in every area of your life, the enemy will oppose that.

Anything that we try to do as the church corporately, publicly in the world, the enemy will oppose that as well. So there is an enemy. We might tend to overlook this. We might tend to sometimes diminish the reality of the spiritual conflict that is behind the conflicts that we see in our world. But Paul is waking us up from ignoring that. He's waking us up from being asleep to that.

so that we might enter into the conflict that we live in.

Aaron Shamp (03:51.818)
But since we looked at that last week and we established that fairly thoroughly, what I want to do this week is ask the question. So we are in this spiritual war. There is an enemy. What is our part in this war? What is what is our part in this spiritual war? What are our weapons and our tactics? How do we engage in it? And that's what we're looking at this week in the second half of this passage here. Paul introduces the enemy, the opposition, and then he goes into our stand against it.

This is what he calls us to do. He says, therefore against the attacks of the enemy. And so that's what we're looking at how to do today. What he tells us to do is to stand against the schemes of the devil with, he doesn't just say, you know, as best you can, but our power in our stand against the devil is by putting on the armor of God. And so the armor of God is what we're looking at today. We're going to look at the, let me see, we're going look at the what, the when and the how of the armor of God. So what it is,

when you need to put it on and then how do we use the armor of God or how do we act in it. I'm sorry, how do we put it on is what I want to do. Okay, so the what, the when and the how with the armor of God. Let's begin with the what. So as we have considered and looked at, what we learn is that there is an enemy, there is a devil, there is, as Paul says in the passage that we read today, there is an evil one.

who is opposed to the kingdom of God and who will be opposed to us as citizens in the kingdom of God. Therefore, we are in this conflict. But what does the conflict look like? Where does the conflict typically happen? Whenever we think about how does the devil work? How do we engage in spiritual warfare? Sometimes, I think often, our minds jump to these very, very fantastical, crazy, dare we say, spooky

images of what it looks like to encounter the work of the devil because much of our imagination about this has been shaped by Hollywood. think about, you know, maybe we hear about fighting the devil and going to spiritual war against the devil and we start thinking of the exorcist and other, you know, weird movies that depict the evil of the demonic world and the devil's activity, okay? And, you know, I'm not saying that there might be some rare cases like that, but very often

Aaron Shamp (06:15.278)
What happens is that the devil doesn't operate like Hollywood depicts. So obvious, so out there, right? So easy to see and to recognize. know, Paul said, he said, you got to recognize the schemes of the devil. And other places in the New Testament, says you got to watch out for the plans and the deceptions, right? He's not going to act in such an extremely obvious way as our imaginations typically go to when we think about this.

because I think they've been shaped by Hollywood a lot more than scripture. It's not so much like that. The devil doesn't operate like Hollywood depicts. Rather, he operates through something a lot more subtle. He operates through lies. Through big ones, but also small ones. He operates through lies, through false ideas, through false narratives that we hold in our mind, in our heart. He operates through lies. Go all the way back to the beginning.

Whenever the devil first began his rebellion, all the way back in the beginning in Genesis chapter three, how does he operate here? Does he possess Adam and Eve? That's what we often think of, right? When we think of fighting the powers of demons and so on. Does he do that? No. What does he do? He tells them lies. He lies to them and he gets them to believe those lies. That's how he that is how we see him working at the very beginning. And it's still it continues to work today.

Here's how you know or here's how the devil works in somebody's life. Whenever the devil comes and works in someone's life, he doesn't leave fang marks in their flesh like in a horror movie. Instead, he leaves a lie in the heart. That is how the devil operates. And so because the devil operates like that in speaking lies into our mind and our heart, speaking lies in our in our homes through, you know, through different means, speaking lies in our culture.

We must put on the armor to fight these lies. And that's what Paul instructs us to do here. He tells us to stand, but not in our own strength. He tells us to stand and not to design what our defense will look like. He tells us how what our defense is going to look like, but the power for our defense, the weapons for our defense, how we stand. We stand by putting on the full armor of God. He tells us we stand by putting on the full armor of God. Now, what does that mean?

Aaron Shamp (08:39.826)
to put on the armor of God. Well, you know, we have his words here with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest. We don't have time to go into each one of those individually and unpack everything it can mean. know, maybe maybe that'll make a great sermon series for a little bit down the road to take a week to go through each one of those. But if you look at it in the big picture, generally, what is Paul telling us to do? What he's telling us to do is to put on the things that the gospel tells us.

That's what Paul is telling us to do here. He's telling us that there are these truths of the gospel, know, the truth of the gospel, the peace of the gospel, the righteousness that comes from Christ, the work of the Spirit through his word that defeats lies and so on. Paul is telling us all of these things are available to us in the gospel like armor, right? Like a shield, like a breastplate, like a helmet that is laying before us. But as long as it is just laying before us, it does us no good.

For it to do something for us, we have to put it on. Paul's speaking metaphorically here by saying, what the gospel tells you and as if it were armor, adorn yourself with it. There's a parallel passage in Colossians, Colossians chapter three, where Paul tells us to take off, you know, lies and lust and evil. He tells us to put off all of these sins and things that hold us back from following Christ and to put on instead

virtues of the gospel. It's a similar metaphor. It's the idea of literally as if you were wearing garments, right? You were wearing, you were once wearing the uniform of the enemy and you're taking that off and you're putting on the garments of Christ. Here Paul is using a military metaphor where he tells us what to put on because we are in a conflict. So we have to put on the truths of the gospel. The late pastor Timothy Keller, here's how he put it, he said

to put on the armor of God is taking what's true of you, the privileges in the gospel, and putting them into your heart and creating new habits of the heart, new reflexes, new dispositions of the soul. It means that if the gospel tells us that we are justified by the work of Christ, right, that we are given a righteousness that is not our own, but righteousness that comes from outside of us, and all the blessings that come along with that.

Aaron Shamp (11:06.198)
The gospel says, this is true of you. But so often, we live our lives as if it is not true. So often, we continue to live our lives according to what used to be true about us, when we did not belong to Christ. Or maybe instead, we don't live by what the gospel says is true about us, but we live by what other people say about us. We live by what your family told you when you were growing up. You live by what teachers or coaches said about you, or what friends say about you.

Or maybe you live by what the culture tells you about who you are. Instead, what putting on the armor of God is, it's taking those off and putting on his weaponry, putting on his helmet, his breastplate, his shield, his belt of truth, taking up the sword, the sword of the spirit, which is the word, taking these things on so that whenever we face spiritual attack, whenever the darts of the enemy are thrown at us,

They don't just stick into us like a pin cushion. But instead, whenever the darts of the enemy fly, we reflexively, as a new habit, as a new instinct, because we have been putting this on, we raise up the shield and it extinguishes the darts of the enemy. That's what Paul is telling us to do. He says, this is how you stand, by putting on the armor of God, which means putting on the gospel so that what is objectively true about you becomes subjectively in your heart.

lived out. What is objectively true about you actually shapes the habits and the instincts and the reflexes of how you respond to spiritual attacks, to conflict, to tests, to storms in life and so on. You need the armor because spiritual conflict will come. Personally in your life, it will come in your family if you are discerning enough to recognize it for what it is. It will come in your family, in your home,

It will come in churches to threaten the unity of the body. It will come from the outside in the culture. Spiritual conflict will come. You need the armor. You need it. In the classic book by John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, I actually brought my copy this morning. In Pilgrim's Progress, it's about this main character in a dream that Bunyan has. And his name is Pilgrim. It's an allegory, so everybody's name is like what they are.

Aaron Shamp (13:33.879)
So Pilgrim is going on this journey where it starts out and he is wearing rags and he's carrying this heavy oppressive burden on his back, but he has heard that the burden can be relieved. He's heard the gospel and so he's making his way to find that city, that place, that king that can remove his burden. He eventually comes and he finds Calvary and there's the cross and he...

And where he goes before the cross and he puts his life down there, you know, this is allegorically like him being saved. He finally meets Christ at the cross. And what happens is, is his burden is removed. It is taken away from him. So he's no longer weighed down by it. That was the burden of his sin. But now he's not just sent on in his rags. His rags removed and he is given new clothing. And then he is brought as he goes down the road into a safe home where he is taught.

about some of the things that are going to come and he's given some wisdom and they help him to make sense of what he's been through. And then before they just send him on his way, they take him to an armory, a room that's filled with all these treasures that the saints have used throughout history in following the Lord. And there in the armory is helmets and breastplates and shields and swords. And before they send him on his way, they dress him up in the armor. They put the armor on him and then he goes.

He goes and he's walking along and it's not long after that that he meets this horrible creature or something like a dragon called Apollyon. Apollyon is a demon or the devil. And he faces conflict with Apollyon there. At first, he's tempted to go back because he doesn't think that he can take on what is standing before him. So he's tempted to turn around and flee. But what he finds is there's no armor on his back.

He suited up, he's ready to fight whenever he's facing a Pollyon. But if he were to turn around and retreat and flee, he would be subject to attack, to be killed. He realized there's no armor on his back, so he has to stand and fight.

Aaron Shamp (15:44.913)
And this is what Paul is telling us as well. Guys, the armor of God doesn't include the option to retreat. There's no armor on your back. But whenever you face the enemy, whenever you face even your own sin, whenever you face your flesh, wherever you face the sin that is threatening your marriage, your home, wherever you face the sin that is present in our world, you have to face it standing in the armor of God.

This is how, this is what we've been called to, and this is how we face it. Not by fleeing, hiding, or going without the armor. You need the armor. Paul calls us, he says, as we have the armor on, to stand firm. He tells us to stand firm. This is, once again, this is something like, which you can imagine soldiers hearing in battle, as they are raging against the enemy, and the enemy is pressing their lines, and they are called to hold the line.

They're called to stand firm against the advances of the enemy. This is the similar calling that Paul gives us here. He's calling us to hold the line, to stand firm against the attack. He calls us to stand firm, and as we stand firm, to put on the armor. Let's talk about when to put it on, because all the words that he uses here to describe putting on the armor, this is interesting. He says that all the words when he tells us to put it on, the words he uses,

are all in the past tense. So in other words, Paul doesn't say once you start to be attacked, then put on the helmet, then take up the shield, then put on the breastplate and tie the belt around your waist. He doesn't say that. In the original language, what he's getting at here is like because you are equipped with the belt and the shield and the breastplate and the sword and the helmet. Because you have put these things on, you stand firm.

All the words that he uses to describe being equipped with the armor are in the past tense. In other words, they are something that is done before the conflict, just like in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Pilgrim is dressed before he meets Apollyon, before he goes into the shadow of death and faces any other enemy. He is dressed for battle before that. No soldier goes into battle and then gets dressed. They don't wait until they are under fire and then put on their

Aaron Shamp (18:11.223)
breastplate, put on their helmet, take up their weapons. Whenever they are going into conflict, they are prepared. Similarly, the Olympics are going on right now. None of the athletes go out there and then start getting dressed on the field. They go out there and they are ready. They are ready for the conflict. They are ready for the competition. And it's the same thing in our spiritual life. Just as soldiers dress for battle before the conflict begins,

We need to be putting on the armor before we're in the midst of the conflict. If you wait until you are in the thick of temptation to try to start practicing these things, guys, you are in a bad place. You are in a bad place if you wait until the time of testing, if you wait until the time of temptation, and until you wait until the time that you have a decision put before you. If you think you're going to start practicing these things, then that is a bad situation to be in.

just like a soldier going into battle that is not dressed. But what happens is that often whenever our life is going well, whenever everything is going smoothly, whenever we don't see or sense any obvious battles that are going on in our life, we start to spiritually coast, don't we? Maybe our Bible reading isn't as consistent or it's not as deep. Our prayer life often starts to kind of

drift off, we aren't praying as long, we aren't praying as earnestly as we did in times whenever we were very aware of our need and we were going through conflict. We start to spiritually coast so often whenever life is going well, whenever life is going easy, we aren't putting on the armor. But Paul shows us here in the way that he communicates this that the armor is something that we put on before the battle begins.

So you cannot wait until the conflict starts. You cannot wait until you are being attacked and questioned by the world, by the culture, to then expect to put on the armor and perform valiantly or successfully. It must be done before. So what that means is this. You must see today and every day as training grounds. You need to see today and every day as training. Once again, athletes, elite athletes, they don't.

Aaron Shamp (20:34.571)
start lifting weights or running or practicing on the day of the competition. They spend much, much time before that preparing themselves, getting ready. You know, even soldiers and elite soldiers, whenever they are not in combat, whenever they're not on an operation, do know what they're doing? Training around the clock. Training, training, training. So they're prepared whenever the time comes. Similarly, friends, we as soldiers of Christ,

must see today and every day as training, getting ready, training, because if we are discerning enough, we'll recognize that there are plenty of opportunities. You may say, well, there's no great testing. There's no temptation. I don't feel the pressure and oppression of the world upon me right now. If you're discerning, you'll see that's not necessarily true. Every day, even if there's no big battle, there are all these little skirmishes that are going on in our lives.

All of these little skirmishes that are giving us little opportunities to put on the armor, giving us little opportunities to fight the schemes of the devil and to win those, to fight the temptations of the devil and to defeat those, to stand firm against them. There's always little skirmishes going on. And if you are aware of those little skirmishes that are going on, those temptations in your heart, the little conflicts in your home or at work, the attacks from our culture,

If you recognize them for what they are, then they're all little opportunities to train, to be equipped so that you can become battle ready. But sadly, what often happens is that many of us are losing those little skirmishes because we're not aware. We're not aware of the opportunity. We think that, you know, whenever the day comes that a big, obvious temptation or conflict is put before us, then we'll know it and we'll be able to stand against it.

but then we become blind to all the smaller battles. We overlook and we diminish the importance of, we play down the opportunity for growth in preparation that there is in fighting all those small battles. Because in all the small battles, the choices that you make, whether you will put on the armor or whether you will put on your old rags, they're all pushing you a little bit in one direction or another.

Aaron Shamp (22:58.245)
In all those small skirmishes, you see there's the opportunity to practice a little bit to push you more in the direction of someone who looks like Christ, someone who is becoming like Christ, someone who operates like Christ. Or we can choose the opposite and be pushed a little more in the direction away from Christ. But all of those little decisions and all those little opportunities are building up to incrementally and comprehensively over time draw us into someone who is strong.

like Christ, prepared, ready, or someone who is not ready at all. Someone who is far from Christ, starving the Spirit of God and unprepared.

We have all kinds of little skirmishes and opportunities to do this and prepare. Let me give you an example of just two little skirmishes that we often overlook, we miss, and so therefore we lose. The first one is this one. And these are two examples that I will safely assume are things we all do or wrestle with. The first one is this, being impatient with people. Impatience with people, whether it is your own family, whether it's your spouse.

whether it is a boss, supervisor, sometimes even our friends we have to practice patience with, right? But in patience with people, very often what happens is we start to have the lies of the enemy come into our mind of, you know, this person, whether it be your spouse or whoever else, they're a moron, a moron. They don't know what they're doing. They're incompetent, and they're this, they're that, or they don't recognize and appreciate

who I am and what I've done for them or so on, we start having these ideas coming into our mind. And instead of responding to those ideas in the gospel, we just believe them. And we say, you know what, they are moron and I should be impatient with them. I should be frustrated. We don't see that as a little opportunity to instead apply the gospel to those thoughts, to that moment that is happening and put on the armor. Another quick little example.

Aaron Shamp (25:11.885)
would be worry. How often do we worry? We worry about all kinds of things. Maybe you worry about your job, you worry about your future, you worry about your children, you're worried about how this situation or that situation is going to end up or go. And what's happening here is that we worry because we are operating on all these little lies that are in our mind. We have all of these things in our mind telling us that if I don't get this right, my life will be over, right?

the lie of I'm in control. We worry about other people not getting things right and therefore hurting us or ruining our lives, et cetera. And so once again, we're thinking about others being in control and not the Lord. We worry about all different kinds of things very often because somewhere in our heart, we're operating on a falsehood that we're in control, that someone else is in control, that this or that, whatever else might be the nature of that worry.

In that moment, we have the opportunity to recognize that lie for what it is and to apply the gospel to it. If it's something over control and you getting something right, you're worried about that, then you respond to that with, well, I'm not ultimately in control of my life, but the Lord who loved me enough to die for me, he is in control and he will work out all things together for my good. You see, that is taking the the shield of faith.

Aaron Shamp (26:41.377)
I remember. That is taking the shield of faith and extinguishing the darts of the enemy. Whenever he's telling you to worry, telling you to be afraid, telling you to act neurotically, to try to hold control of your life or whatever else, or control of your children, it's raising up the shield to extinguish those darts. Don't neglect and overlook all the small opportunities that you have, day in and day out, today and every day.

to put on the armor so that you will be equipped and you will be able to stand on the days of greater testing. So how do we put it on?

Why is it that whenever it comes to the gospel, I'm sure all of you in here know the truths of the gospel, but so often we aren't experiencing the power of those truths in our life. If I was to hand out an exam this morning on the gospel and on some of many of the basic truths of the Christian faith and what scripture tells us about certain things in life, I bet that

Pretty much all of you in here would make a 100. Perfect score on that exam. But then if we look at the exam, if you will, of our lives this past week, yesterday, or maybe this morning, if we look at the exam of our lives and we ask, OK, I can get it right on a test, but have I been getting it right in my life? So often, we don't have a plus. Why is that? Why is that? You probably passed the test, but then as soon as

testing in life comes, a storm comes, you start to act like the disciples who were in the boat with Jesus who shook him and woke him up and said, don't you care? Have you ever said that in your heart whenever testing comes? Why is that? It's because we haven't been putting on the armor. Remember, putting on the armor is a metaphor for taking the truths of the gospel and putting them on our life, receiving them so they become

Aaron Shamp (28:44.532)
different from something that we just know about intellectually to something that we know and we hold in our heart. Something that is a reality, a power that we have experienced, right? How do we do it then?

The first thing that you have to do to put on the armor, the first thing is that you have to take captive every thought, every thought that goes through your mind. it particularly, whenever you recognize that, hold on, there is an alternative truth here. Well, there's no such thing as that. There's a falsehood, or alternative narrative is what I should have said. There's an alternative narrative working here in my mind and heart. I think that there's a falsehood. There is something off going on in...

in my life right now, what is causing it? And you find that belief that you're operating on, or you find that narrative that you are living by, and you recognize it for what it is, and you respond to it with the gospel. That is what it means to take every captive thought. So much of what putting on the armor does, particularly in those times of preparation, so much of what that does revolves around our thoughts. The devil's battlefield is the realm of the mind, guys.

It is the realm of the mind. Whenever, yeah, I'll go ahead and get here. So, whenever, once again, going back to Pilgrim's progress, whenever Pilgrim faces Apollyon, Apollyon doesn't go at him with, you know, once again, all the things that we imagine from Hollywood in that battle, you know, as Pilgrim is standing there before him. Instead, how Apollyon attacks him is first with this. He attacks him with temptations.

He's telling him, you know, the road you're going down is really dangerous. And if you come with me, it's a lot easier. You know, he starts to offer me all kinds of temptations somewhat along those lines. He says, well, how do you know that that you're really going to experience blessing and favor in your destination? Because I can offer you those things better and easier without all the dangers that you're about to go through and the hardships you're going to experience. He offers them all these temptations to to step off.

Aaron Shamp (30:57.156)
of the narrow path that he was following him, that he was following. So that's the first way that the devil often works in the battleground of our minds and our thoughts is through temptations. Pilgrim stands against those temptations and he says, he says, no, I know the road that I'm on. So then Apollyon switches his tactics and he starts to accuse him. He says, you know, didn't you back there, whenever you saw, I don't remember what it was, it either a hill or was two lines, but he saw some danger.

And he says, and whenever you saw that, for a moment, didn't you think about turning back? And you know, you remember this point in your life, whenever you did this, he starts to accuse him of unfaithfulness and all these different things so that he might question Christ's work in his life and removing the baggage and clothing him in new clothing and giving him the honor. He starts to accuse him of all these things so that since temptation didn't work to get him off the path, maybe accusations would work.

And the devil does the same thing to us. The devil primarily works through our minds because our thoughts, the thoughts of our heart influence the will in our heart, the things that we love, the actions of our hands. So if you want to get control of your actions and feelings, you got to get control of your And the thoughts of the heart is where Satan works, through temptations, through accusations. So what you have to do is you have to identify the lie.

that is being told to you and respond with the armor. Whenever you are receiving the accusations of the devil, of don't you remember this? Don't you remember you doing this? Don't you remember you thinking about this? Throwing all those accusations in your face, how do you respond? You respond with that breastplate of righteousness that was given to you by Christ. No, those things are not true of me. I have been covered by the blood of the lamb, his death atoned for mine and I am now

wrapped up in his righteousness. I am righteous positionally in him. You respond with that. Whenever you are experiencing accusations and questioning even your salvation, the work of Christ in your life, you take up the armor. You take up the armor so that you might, the helmet of salvation, and you put it on, and you remember, my salvation is not based upon what I have done, but based upon what Christ has done. It is secure.

Aaron Shamp (33:25.22)
Therefore, you defeat that lie. Whenever he lies to you with temptations, trying to get you to indulge your pride, trying to get you to indulge anger, bitterness, resentment, and so on, you fight those things with the gospel. You put on the armor, the righteousness, salvation, truth, peace, the word, and so on. Whenever Paul tells us in Romans chapter 12, to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ,

This is what he was talking about.

So something that you're going to have to practice. You're not going to be great at it immediately. You have to practice this of becoming more aware of the narratives and words and thoughts that are floating in your mind and influencing the direction of your actions and choices. Recognize those for what they are. And am I living by a lie or the truth. The devil is a liar and he's going to place lies there. So respond and fight and defeat those lies with the truth.

That's the first thing. Take captive every thought. Secondly, how we put the armor on is we put on the armor in prayer and in worship. Paul, as he describes the armor, he also tells them to pray at all times. In Pilgrim's Progress Bunyan includes this as a piece of the armor called all prayer. All prayer is a piece of the armor that Pilgrim has to rely on against some of the other dangers that he faces.

Because this is one of the ways this is one of our weapons and this is one of the ways that we train that we put on the armor and that we respond to the devil's attacks is in prayer and in worship. In prayer and worship is also one of the primary ways that we that we that we put on the armor. And because in prayer and worship we experience the truths of the gospel. Like I said before if the truths of the gospel are like the armor just laid out before us but we are not wearing them then we don't experience them.

Aaron Shamp (35:22.516)
How do we put them on? In prayer and in worship. Because in prayer and worship is where we meet the Spirit of God. We fellowship with the Lord and we experience His grace. We experience His peace. We experience His presence. And that is assuring. That brings us the peace that we need. That brings us the confidence, the assurance that we need when we experience the Spirit of God. We do that in prayer and in worship.

The spirit, the Bible says, is what fills our breath with lungs. Sorry, our lungs with breath. Whoa, yeah. The Bible says that the spirit fills our lungs with breath, and then we are called to sing to the Lord. The one who fills us with breath tells us to use that breath in worship to him, to sing to him.

to pray to Him. So as we breathe in the Spirit, you might say, as we breathe in, we then pour out in prayer and worship to Him, responding to Him. The Spirit gives us breath, and we use that breath to pray and to worship. And in doing this, it helps to connect what we're holding up here in our heads with the reality of what we experience here in our hearts.

Remember that in the Old Testament, after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea fleeing from the Egyptians, fleeing from their captivity, they crossed the Red Sea and after they cross, God makes the water come back together and it destroys the army of Pharaoh. And in response to this, Moses' sister Miriam sings a song of worship to the Lord. And she sings and in that song, she calls God a divine warrior.

Because he is a divine warrior who goes against the empire of evil. He goes against the empire of sin and death to deliver his people. But what ends up happening in the Old Testament is that as Israel becomes unfaithful, Lord, divine warrior, turns his war towards them because they are participating in sin. They are doing idolatry. They are committing evil, wicked acts. But throughout the narrative of the Old Testament,

Aaron Shamp (37:41.865)
who comes to this place in Daniel, where in Daniel, he prophesies about one who's going to come and he calls him a son of man. And this son of man is going to defeat evil. He is going to be the warrior of all warriors who is going to defeat evil and liberate the people of God and bring them into his kingdom. When then what do we see whenever Jesus comes? Whenever Jesus comes, he calls himself the son of man. He's the son of man that Daniel foretold about. And so they were excited.

They thought that he was going to be the son of man who was going to go to war against the Roman Empire and liberate them from that oppression. But instead, Jesus, the son of man, who was the ultimate divine warrior, would go against sin. He would go against wickedness, evil, and death. Because just like Israel, who turned to idolatry, we, whenever, because of our sin, we deserve death as well. So how is Jesus going to defeat evil but

offer salvation to us, he does it in his death. He does it in himself. He does it in his own body. Whenever Jesus goes to war against sin and death, he doesn't pick up a sword. He doesn't wound. Instead, he taught and he healed. And he took in himself and in his own body the punishment for sin. And in going to war with it this way, he defeated sin and opened up for us the way of salvation.

So whenever you go to war against your sin, remember the Son of Man. Remember the Son of Man, the divine warrior who fought the ultimate battle for us and who, as proven through his resurrection, won that battle. Guys, he won that battle. That means that all the battles that you are facing, individually, the battles that your family is facing, the battles that the kingdom of God is facing today in our world, the end is

Victory. The end is victory. You are looking at some of the temptations, the struggles that you've been going through, besetting sins that you have been fighting against and you have questioned, you have wondered, you have had doubts in your mind because you feel as though you're never going to defeat those sins. You're never going to defeat those temptations. You look at situations in your family, you think there's no way they could ever turn out for good. But what the gospel tells us, what the son of man's resurrection tells us is that there will be victory.

Aaron Shamp (40:08.279)
If you look at the pressures of the culture on the church today, the opposition of the gospel, and you are worried about it, friends, there will be victory. It is guaranteed. It is secured. And so now, guys, no matter what kind of opposition and conflict you face, you can face it in the confidence of knowing that in the end, we win. Because we who are in Christ are more than conquerors.

through him who loved us. So what I want to leave you guys with today, as we wrap up this series and I give you this final charge to apply and live out what Paul calls us to in Ephesians. To do so in knowing that there is a victory. And if you have been weary in the fight, if you have been questioning, if you have been struggling, falling down in the fight, I want to give you this. See yourself as living in a story. See yourself as living in a story and ask yourself,

Am I living in this battle today in a way that down the road I'll be able to sing a victory of? Or am I living in this battle today in defeat? Am I living it in worry and doubt whenever I should be living it in peace and confidence? Am I living this so that one day whenever there's a victory I'll be able to give God praise for how I lived today?

See yourself in a story where you know you are confident that there is victory in the end.

Some of you will experience that victory in this life, but even if you don't experience that victory in this life, one day when we are in heaven with God the Father in the presence of God, there will be victory in that day and we will sing his praises. We will glorify him for his deliverance. After Pilgrim, in Pilgrim's Progress, makes it through his battle with Apollyon, he makes it through the valley of the shadow of death and he looks back

Aaron Shamp (42:11.93)
as the sun rises and he sees all the dangers that he passed through, all the enemies that were defeated, the fiends of the devil that were trying to pull him off of the path. He looks back at all that he made it through, that he was carried through, and he sings this, and I hope that this is our prayer and song as well. He says, world of wonders, I can say no less, that I should be preserved in that distress that I have met with here. blessed be.

that hand that from it hath delivered me. Dangers in darkness, devil's hell and sin, did compass me while in this veil I was in. Yea, snares and pits and traps and nets did lie my path about, that worthless silly eye might have been caught and tangled and cast down. But since I live, let Jesus wear the crown. Let's pray.

Lord, we ask that you let us see the sunrise over the valleys that we live in, over the valleys that you have taken us through so that we can see how in spite of devils and hell and sin and snares and traps where us sinners so easily could have fallen into, we live and we stand because you have carried us through. We stand firm because you dress us for war. You equip us.

with the sword, with the helmet, the shield, the breastplate, the sandals on our feet. And through that equipping, you give us victory. Lord, let us see your goodness this morning. Let it encourage us for whatever battles we are facing right now, that yes, even for these, you are carrying us through, you are leading us down the narrow path, that there is victory. We will see victory in our lives.

in our homes, in our families, in our city, in our country, in our nation, we will see victory because you reign over all. And Lord, let us agree with as Bunyan wrote, since we live, let Jesus wear the crown. We pray these things in the name of our King who victoriously reigns and wears that crown. We pray this in his name, amen.

Aaron Shamp (44:35.209)
Let us stand together and respond to the gospel this morning as we, receiving the breath of the spirit in our lungs, send it back up to him in prayer and worship, thereby putting on the armor. Let's worship.