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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!
I want you to take out your Bibles.
I want you to turn to Ephesians chapter number 6.
We're in this series called Armed.
I want to tell you today that you are in a fight.
Whether you realize that or not.
And the fight is not against the person sitting to your right or to your left.
It's not where you work.
It's not where you shop.
It's not where you live.
It's not in your community.
It's not with your HOA.
Don't you love them?
It is a spiritual fight.
that demands spiritual weapons.
The first week we talked about be strong.
Last week we talked about stand, standing, standing firm.
This week we're gonna talk about being fully armed and engaged in the battle.
Why should we be fully engaged in the battle?
We're getting ready to discover that.
I want you to turn to Ephesians chapter 6.
And I'm going to read a little larger portion of scripture than that will come up on the screen, most likely.
But I want to start in verse 10.
It says,
Therefore, what does that mean?
What is that therefore?
He's saying, in light of what I just said, put on the full armor of God.
So that when the day of evil comes, underline that, day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
In addition to all this...
He's saying, don't stop there.
Keep going.
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.
Nearly four years ago, Tange and I and our entire staff, paid staff, full-time staff here at Bridge, were at a retreat center in North Carolina, Hidden Knight, North Carolina, which is in the hills of North Carolina, just northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina.
And in this retreat on Wednesday night, the leaders of the retreat were talking about how to grieve loss.
We all experience loss.
Anybody in here ever experience loss?
I'm not just talking about the loss of a loved one.
You can lose a job and it comes with grief.
You can lose a house and it comes with grief.
You can lose your wallet and it comes with grief.
I wish I could lose some bills.
But loss impacts us all.
And then while we were there talking about grieving loss and talking about the cycle of grief and how to grieve well and how to go through the different types of grief and processing grief, our phone, Tangie and I's phone began to ring or getting text messages from our youngest daughter.
Couldn't really leave that meeting because we were wrapping it up.
It was in a small group type formation.
But eventually the calls kept coming at a rapid rate and just whispered to my wife, go see what Peyton wants.
She went out for a few minutes and came back in and whispered and said, you know, your sister just took her life.
We're sitting there.
In a session, learning how to process loss, one of the darkest moments in my life happened.
Paul says, put on the full armor of God.
Why?
Because the evil day will come.
Oftentimes we think about the evil day being somewhere out in the distant future known as the tribulation period.
Whether you believe it's three and a half years of tribulation and three and a half years of great tribulation or seven years of tribulation, oftentimes we think when the enemy totally tries to destroy this planet and the people on this planet, we believe that's the evil day.
But Paul was not calling that the evil day.
Paul understood that he was living in the last days.
The evil day for Paul was the day of tribulation.
the day of temptation, the day of evil that knocks on your door.
That evil day can happen any moment in your life.
That evil day for me was that night at 9.30 when we got that call and I had to leave that meeting and travel three hours to be with my family to help my grieving mom and my six brothers and sisters and do the funeral.
That was an evil day.
But how many of you know you don't prepare at the moment evil knocks on the door.
You stay in the state of preparation so when the evil day comes to your door, you will be ready to fight the good fight of faith and stand firm.
Stand firm.
When?
When the evil day comes.
Paul defines the ability to stand firm in this way.
It means don't retreat.
Don't give up ground.
How many know all of us are tempted to retreat, to go into hiding when the evil day comes.
Oftentimes we retreat into old habits.
We retreat into the ways of the past.
But Paul says, having done all to stand, stand therefore.
We need to be fully armed.
The apostle Peter tells us to be vigilant, be alert for your adversary, the devil.
How many of you know the devil is not your friend?
Come on, there's no party in hell.
The devil is absolutely not your friend.
Be vigilant, be alert for your adversary.
The devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
He finds the weakest link.
He finds the weakest person and he tries to devour that person.
We are in this magnificent fight over the souls of people.
And you have family members.
And if you're not engaged in this battle, guess what?
The enemy will run over your family.
If you're not praying for your children and your grandchildren, who's going to pray for them?
Come on.
Some of you try to talk your children into coming to church.
Why don't you pray your children into the church?
Come on.
Why don't you talk to God about your children and stop talking to your children about God?
They don't want to hear that.
They're rebellious.
But when you get connected to God and you begin to pray, prayer moves the hand of God.
Prayer moves the hand of God.
Paul, he's writing this letter.
The first time Paul visits Ephesus is in 52 AD, in the spring of that year.
And he begins to form a church while there with some other people.
He leaves and he travels back to Jerusalem and Rome and that area.
He is imprisoned in 61 AD to 63 AD for about two years.
While he's gone, he has a desire to write the book of Ephesians to the church at Ephesus.
It is known as a prison epistle, Ephesians is, along with Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon.
These are prison epistles because Paul writes this while he's in prison.
We look at the armor of God that he writes about.
I wonder what inspired him to
to write this.
We know it's under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but I wonder what was he looking at when he got the idea to talk about the spiritual warfare that believers are in.
I believe he got the idea because he was chained to a Roman guard.
And that Roman guard would have had armor on.
And as he gazed at that Roman guard, the Holy Spirit inspired him to write about the armor of God.
And he would be saying, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.
Put on the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the enemy.
What are the schemes?
It's the strategy.
It is the tactics of the enemy to destroy your life and your family life.
He's trying to destroy your mental health.
He's trying to destroy your well-being.
He's trying to rob you and I of our faith.
The Bible says we have three enemies, the world, the flesh, the devil.
And we believers understand that we are in a spiritual battle that demands spiritual weapons.
These weapons are not natural weapons.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10, 4, the weapons of our warfare, they're not carnal.
They're not fleshly.
They're not of human origin.
They're not physical weapons.
We live in a nation that touts its weapons.
We spend billions of dollars and trillions of dollars on our military, and I believe we need to do that.
We need to keep our citizens safe.
and sound, but the weapons that the United States has, they're far superior than other nations.
Your spiritual weapons are far superior over the weapons of the enemy, but they're no good unless you put it on.
They're no good unless you engage the battle.
Oftentimes we live our spiritual lives unengaged.
I don't want to get involved.
I don't want to do this.
I don't want to do that.
How many of you know that's called complacency?
That's called average.
Halfway up the mountain.
You're not called to be complacent.
You're not called to be average.
You're called to be engaged in the battle.
Spiritual battles require spiritual weapons to win.
Paul writes this letter.
And he writes it like every other letter that he writes in the New Testament.
We know he wrote about two-thirds of the New Testament.
He begins this letter, half of the letter is about what you believe.
It's about knowledge.
It's about doctrine, teaching.
He's teaching people what to believe.
Why is that important?
It's important because as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
That's what Solomon said.
Paul is writing people that are in a pagan culture, and he's saying, guys, we have to have the right belief system.
We got to believe the right things.
We have to have the right thoughts.
We can't mix paganism with Christianity.
Come on.
You cannot mix paganism and Christianity.
You can't mix, come on, Buddha with Christianity, Muhammad with Christianity.
Come on.
You can't mix yoga and Christianity.
I'm preaching in here.
You can't mix secret societies with Christianity.
If I touch you, God bless you.
But stop all the syncretism.
Stop all the mixture of other gods and other religions into what Paul gives us and what Jesus gives us.
Pastor, don't touch my secret society.
I'm touching it.
What's done in secret will be exposed to the light.
Paul's saying, hey, this is what we believe.
The world that you came out of that has to die.
And you're coming into this new kingdom.
And the first three chapters are on what we believe.
The last three chapters are on how to behave according to what we believe.
How many of you know your behavior always flows out of what you believe?
You know the reason people behave foolishly?
Because they believe foolish stuff.
So my actions flow out of my belief system and Paul lays out doctrine, beliefs, so they'll behave correctly.
One person said this about the book of Ephesians.
It's laid out this way.
The first three chapters are about the wealth of the believer, that we are wealthy in Christ.
Paul uses the terminology in Christ 27 times in the book of Ephesians.
That we're wealthy.
We're seated with Christ in the heavenly realms.
We're way up here with Christ.
And because we're up here, every other thing is under our feet.
We have wealth in Christ.
Then he says, Don, do you have wealth?
Chapters 4, 5, and the first 10 verses of chapter 6 teach us how to walk wealth.
out of the wealth that we have in Christ.
So we see the wealth of the believer, the walk of the believer, and verse 10 of chapter six all the way to the end of chapter six is the warfare of the believer.
The reason we can win the warfare of the believer is because we understand the wealth of the believer.
We understand who we are in Christ Jesus.
Micah did a great job last week talking about standing firm.
But today we're going to talk about being fully armed.
Look what he says.
Take up the shield of what?
Faith.
He said, in addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish.
The word extinguish means to put out fire.
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.
He says, take up the shield of faith.
I remember when I was a young kid and we would used to play snowball fights, mud ball fights.
And if we were real brave, we would play rock fights.
Sometimes we would use a slingshot when they weren't looking.
But during all those fights, we would get an old trash can lid and that would become our shield to survive.
Some of those trash can lids would be plastic.
Some would be tin.
Anybody remember the old tin trash cans?
And you would use that.
And you could tell if they were really throwing a snowball or an ice ball depending on the way it sounded against that tin shield.
When Paul talks about taking up the shield of faith, he's not talking about a shield the size of a trash can lid.
Historians 200 years before Paul ever lived described the shield that Paul was talking about.
It was a shield that was four feet long and two and a half feet wide.
It was made out of thin ply type wood that was glued together multiple times.
They would put linen around the outside of it, wrap it in linen, and then they would wrap it in a tough leather, and then they would put metal all the way on the outside, all the way around, and then they would put a hand grip right in the middle of that shield.
But the shield was not flat.
It had curvature.
It wrapped around the body.
Why did it do that?
To protect the person who was standing behind it.
This was not Captain America's shield.
Captain America's shield looks good.
It's got a star on it, just like the cowboy's helmet.
I guess that's why I was a Captain America fan growing up.
That's probably why I liked Evel Knievel.
He had stars everywhere.
And don't come to me about the Redskins or the Commanders or the Eagles.
Don't come to me.
I already know that God is a Dallas Cowboys fan.
The Bible says we shine like stars in the universe, holding out the word of life.
Amen.
Amen.
I just had to go there for some of y'all.
Football season's coming.
But it wasn't a Captain America shield that you could take off and just toss.
It was a shield that was meant to protect your life.
Who is Paul writing to?
He's writing to the church at Ephesus.
Is he writing to an individual?
No.
He's writing to a corporate body of believers.
He is saying corporately, you people, you take up your shield of faith.
So when the battle in Roman times, when the battle got fierce and there were flaming darts coming toward them, every soldier would lift up their shield and get back to back and it would create like a turtle effect, a turtle shell.
And all the fiery darts all the way around them would
would be thwarted because they picked up their shield.
How many of you know the church needs to pick up its shield, not just individually, but corporately together.
When the enemy comes in like a flood, God said, I will raise up a standard against him.
What is the standard?
It's the shield that you carry.
It's the shield that I carry.
And I'm going to lift it up for you.
You never grow in isolation.
You grow in community.
Paul was talking about a communal shield, not an individual one.
I know in America we love individuality.
I love it.
But I understand that the kingdom is not independent.
It's interdependent.
I need you.
You need me.
And so we pick up that shield of faith.
Something about the shield of faith.
If you don't have the shield of faith, none of the armor works.
None of it.
Without faith, it's impossible to please God.
God is a rewarder of them who diligently seek him.
Why?
Because it's impossible to please God without faith.
Jesus said in Mark 11, 22, have faith in God.
Four times in the Bible it says the righteous will live by faith.
It's time to take up the shield of faith, folks.
It's time to lift it up.
Protect your family.
Protect your life.
Then he goes on to say, put on the helmet of salvation.
Oftentimes we think of salvation for our heart, our soul.
But salvation is all about your mind also.
Because Jesus came and preached, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.
Repentance...
is not just you weeping.
Repentance actually means, in a Greek word, metanoia, it means to change your mind.
So when Paul is talking about putting on the helmet of salvation, he's talking about that helmet protecting your mind.
Romans 13, 11 through 12 says, and do this, understanding the present age.
The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber because our salvation is nearer than we first believed.
The night is nearly over.
The day is almost here.
So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor.
Of light.
He says put on the full armor of God.
Here he calls it the armor of light.
The armor of light.
So the helmet of salvation protects what?
My mind.
Say my mind.
Fiery darts can be deception.
They could be thoughts of jealousy, envy.
They're the fiery darts that the enemy puts in our mind.
The thoughts of anxiety, the thoughts of stress, the thoughts of worry.
But Isaiah said this, he will keep him at perfect peace whose mind is stayed on him, whose trust is in the Lord.
Can I ask you this question?
Do you have the helmet of salvation on?
Are you protecting your thought life?
Are you allowing the enemy to run all over your mind?
Are you allowing social media to dictate what you believe and what you think?
You're allowing the medium of this world to change and transform your mind.
Are you allowing or are you allowing the word of God to cleanse your mind and keeping the helmet of salvation on?
That word salvation there is the only time in the Greek that that word is used in the Greek.
It means peace.
It simply means the helmet of peace.
That salvation becomes my peace of mind.
That I am in Christ.
I know I'm with Christ.
I'm in Christ.
I'm redeemed.
That God chose me.
Christ redeemed me.
But the Holy Spirit has sealed me to the day of redemption.
I am in Christ.
My mind is at rest.
You know where panic attacks come from?
They come from your mind that's racing.
You know where fear comes from?
Your mind, your thoughts.
They're fiery darts.
They're flaming darts that inflame the thought life of a person.
And we have to need that helmet on.
There's a rule in the NFL.
If your helmet falls off because there was a mechanical situation with that helmet, maybe the chin guard was bad.
If it falls off, you have to come out of the game.
If a linebacker from the Dallas Cowboys hits you and it comes off, you have to come out of the game for a play?
How many of you know we don't have time to come out of the war, the battle that we're in as believers because we fail to put on the helmet of salvation?
Then he goes on to say, take up the sword of the Spirit of
which is, look here, is, not might be, is the word of God.
The sword of the spirit.
Now, when I said sword, some of y'all immediately thought about this long sword, three or four foot, Conan, the barbarian sword, a Zorro sword, a Z on your back,
When Paul said, take the sword of the Spirit, it comes from a Greek word, machero, which actually is a sword that's anywhere from 18 to 24 inches long.
That sword would hang on the belt of truth.
And it was for combat, not for people that were way out here.
It was for hand-to-hand combat, close-quarter combat.
It's when the enemy gets close enough to you to destroy you.
Hey, as a last thing, you can take that sword and get him.
But how many of you know you can't use a sword that's not connected to the truth?
If you don't have the sword, how can you use it in close combat when the enemy comes toward you?
Hebrews 4.12 says this, For the word of God is living and active, operative, full of power, energizing, effective, sharpening a two-edged sword, penetrating as far as the division of the soul and the spirit.
Both the joints and the marrow and able to judge the thoughts are exposing and judging the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
That the Word of God is so powerful that Jesus showed us that even the Son of God in Luke 4, when he was being tempted in the day of evil, when the devil came to him, he had to use the sword of the Spirit.
If Jesus had to use the sword, guess what?
Your sword can't be left at church on Sunday.
It can't be left at home when you go to work.
It can't be left at the grocery store when you walk out of Walmart, Harris City.
You can't leave it.
You've got to have the sword.
I'm not even talking about a physical Bible.
I'm talking about having the sword of the Spirit memorized on the inside of you, ready to do hand-to-hand combat when the enemy comes against you or your family.
That's not a time to prepare for battle.
You already have to be prepared.
We are
people that live prepared for the battle it's not if the battle will come it's just when it's not if the day of evil will come it's when will it come paul writing to his spiritual son timothy second timothy chapter number three he writes something that is very powerful
He's warning Timothy of the day in which he lives in.
And look what he says.
But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come.
That word perilous can be translated dangerous.
How many of you know we live in dangerous times?
That's why guns are being sold at a record rate in America.
Because people are all about security.
How many of you know security is an illusion?
The only secure place is in Christ.
Financial security is an illusion.
Tomorrow, it all can be gone.
Don't put your hope in your strength.
Don't put your hope in your money.
Put your hope in Jesus.
For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, disobedient to parents.
disobedient to parents, unthankful.
The only time they get thankful is when they see a turkey in November.
Unholy.
Unholy.
Go to church on Sunday, dress up, live like hell Monday through Saturday.
Unholy.
Unloving.
Unloving.
Unforgiving.
I'm preaching, baby.
You can give me a kiss tonight after I take a nap.
Amen.
Unforgiving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, without self-control.
Go from one addiction to another.
Pastor, I just laid down nicotine, but I picked up weed.
Without self-control, brutal addiction.
Brutal.
People are brutal, man.
Hear about all the murders.
Despisers of good.
Now we're calling evil good and good evil.
Despisers of good.
Paul had it, didn't he?
If you didn't know better, you'd think Paul was here today right with us.
Traitors.
Headstrong.
Can't tell me nothing.
That's exactly why you're in the position you are.
Because nobody can tell you nothing.
Haunting lovers of pleasure.
Have you ever lived in a day where people just love pleasure?
They can't stop, man.
They're from one beach to another beach.
They're from one theme park to another theme park.
They're from one video game to another video game.
They want to pleasure themselves.
They pleasure themselves and rob God.
Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God having, look here, having a form of godliness.
Having a form, Presbyterian Church USA, having a form of godliness.
I've got all the ecumenical stuff on.
I've got it all on.
Our church is beautiful and we've got a pride flag on the outside.
Having a form of godliness.
But no power for transformation.
Amen.
No power to see lives change.
No power to raise the dead.
No power to heal the sick.
We have traded all the goodness of this world for the God that has power for us.
And now we're trying to make it where everybody can come.
I mean, you know, all can come, but you all have to come to the cross.
Amen.
Everybody has to come the same way.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
And no one gets to the Father unless he goes through me.
Jesus was not about pluralism.
Jesus didn't teach pluralism.
Jesus didn't say all religions go to the same place.
No, he said, if you don't get to God, you're going to have to come through me.
That's what he said.
If you don't like it, take it up with Jesus.
Look what he says.
And from such people, turn away.
He says the people that live that way, disconnect your life from them.
People who love drama, people who are drama filled, people who are contentious, I just can't walk with you.
Now, if you change, that's one thing.
But if your life is just contentious all the time and you're beating people down all the time and you're just sour as yesterday's grapes, folks, you've got to learn to walk in the Spirit and recognize that you're in a battle.
Some of you would have peace if you just trimmed...
Your friend population now.
You don't have to take every call.
Some of you would be at peace if you learned to say no.
The older I get, the more I say no.
It just comes out so easy.
You ever notice that?
No, I'm not doing that.
I'm not doing that.
Pastor, let's do this, man.
Let's create this outreach.
No.
You can do it, but I can't.
Because the fact is, the older you get, the more focused life becomes.
This is what I do.
This is what God's called me to do.
I want you to stand.
Church, you're in a battle.
But here it is.
You're in a fight.
But the good thing about this fight, it's fixed.
Jesus won it.
2,000 years ago on the cross, he defeated death, hell, and the grave.
He defeated the devil.
And the only weapon the devil has today, he's been using it
for a couple thousand years.
Here it is.
Lies.
Lies.
You know what the purpose of the truth of God's word is?
You know what the purpose of the truth is?
The purpose of the truth is not for you to take it and beat somebody else up.
The purpose of the truth is not you to go down to the ocean front and tell everybody they're going to hell.
The purpose of the truth is to make you and I truthful.
That we become true in every sense of the word.
That we become like Jesus who is the truth.
Let's bow our heads.
Lord, I just thank you that you've given us an opportunity to hear the word.
God, collectively, we pick up the truth.
We pick up
the shield of faith.
We pick up the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, the breastplate of righteousness.
We shot our feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
Today, Lord.
We're equipped.
We're prepared.
And we know the battle, the war has been fixed.
We don't fight for victory.
We fight from victory.
We fight from the finished work of Christ as we stand in him because we're wealthy in him.
And because we're wealthy in him, we win the war.
We win the battle.