HOW TO FIGHT

Ephesians 6:10-24

Morning.

Well Happy New Year 2026.

Today we will begin the year by finishing the book of Ephesians. The new year is usually filled with goal setting and resolutions and starting new habits. We want things to be better. We want things to be different. So often we want ourselves, we want to change and God knows what we want. And he knows better what we need even before we ask.

And my prayer has been that, he speaks to all of us today through his word. So let's review, and we'll get to it, for review. If you're new. We have been in the book of Ephesians. I think this is like the 15th of the 16th week that we've we've been in Ephesians. But Ephesians is split into two halves, chapters one through three, chapters four through six, one through three.

Paul is giving them truth. He is giving them truth about who God is and what God's done and what God is doing through Jesus. It's God's story, okay? Four through six is like our story. Our response to God's story one through three describes what we are to believe, and four through six is what we're called to do. One through three is doctrine, right?

Truth what we are to know, what we are to believe. And then in the second half of the letter, it's application, Paul wants to apply the gospel for us. He wants us to apply it. It's what we Christians are supposed to do and not do. Five times Paul uses the command or the imperative is what we call it walk.

Walk in unity. Walk in holiness. Walk in love. Walk in light, not in darkness. Walk in wisdom. Then last time we were in Ephesians. In the final section, Paul goes into the household coats. There it's what they're called. And he describes what a household should look like when living out and applying the gospel in everyday life outside of the regular church gathering.

This is in the home, in our marriages, in our parenting, in the workplace. He uses commands like submit and respect and love and obey. And Paul is saying that the gospel should affect every relationship that we have in every area of life, every part of our life, how we walk, how we live, how we relate to one another, how we treat one another.

God wants us to be a people shaped by the gospel. This is what God wants to do with his story and our story. That is the point of Ephesians. Paul knows that the Ephesians will not be able to do this on their own. He knows that we will need we will absolutely need God's help to obey his commands.

Paul knows better than anyone how difficult this is going to be. He also knows what's at stake. He knows this life is hard. He's been in ministry for a long time. He knows the consequences of sin.

Life is hard. Life is not a highway. Life is not like a box of chocolates. Life is a battle. There's a spiritual war going on, and we're all caught up in the middle of it, whether we're aware of it or not. Paul knew the reality of this spiritual war. And so he ends this letter to the Ephesians with encouragement and instruction, and in the landscape of their lives filled with sin and death and struggle, he wants to tell us how to fight.

If you have a Bible or mobile device, you can open it and, find the book of Ephesians, if you would. And whenever you are, able, if you are able, please stand with me for the reading of God's Word.

Today's reading comes from Ephesians. I'm going to read chapter six, verses ten through 17. Hear the word of the Lord. Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm, stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Let me pray.

Lord, we need you now.

Please grant us, the gift of your Holy Spirit. Open the eyes of our hearts that we may discern these spiritual things today. That we may be. That we may see and become aware of the battle in which we find ourselves. And where we are to go, to run for help. Open our eyes that we might behold wondrous things.

Lord, from your word, make much of Jesus. Allow us to see Jesus, who has conquered, who has triumphed, who has won our victory for us in his name. I ask these things. Amen. Verse ten, finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his mind. This is not a command to strengthen ourselves.

Paul is not saying, suck it up. He's not a football coach. Dig deep. No pain, no gain. That's not what he's doing. He's not telling us to pick up ourselves and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. That's not going to be enough in this life. Paul knows that true strength comes from reliance upon God, reliance upon Jesus. We call this dependance.

Let's talk about what Paul means when he says, be strong to be strong in the Lord means to look to God to be your strength. Look at the verse. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. To allow God to be your strength even when you have none. The Psalms are filled with examples of this.

In Psalm 59, David writes, O my strength, I will watch for you. The God who shows me steadfast love will meet me. God will let me look in triumph on my enemies. David is writing this Psalm in his house at night. His house is surrounded by Saul's soldiers. Saul has sent his soldiers to surround David's house to wait for him and ambush him and kill him.

And in the middle of this, David is writing this Psalm in the middle of this night as he is surrounded. Listen to this. But I will sing of your strength. I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge. In the day of my distress. O my strength I will sing praises to you.

For you. Oh, God, are my fortress. The God who shows me steadfast love. David doesn't know how this situation is going to end, but he is confident in the strength and the favor of his God. He is certain of God's steadfast love for him. He remembers the promises of God and he reminds himself of those promises. He strengthens himself in the Lord.

Be strong in the Lord. Friends, we have no chance by ourselves, in and of ourselves. We have no chance against the spiritual forces of darkness that are waging war against us. God did not leave us to fend for ourselves. Though Paul is pointing us to Jesus in these passages, he is pointing us to the Lord. The Lord has already proven that he has all the power and all the strength that we could ever need.

We must remember our job is to remember how weak we are. Our job is to remember and admit how often we fail. Like the old hymn says, prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Without Jesus, we are hopeless against this fight against sin and Satan. We must remain humble and broken and needy and dependent upon the Lord.

This is what it means to be strong in the Lord.

It goes without saying, but to be strong in the Lord means we must be in the Lord, to be strengthened by the Lord. It comes from being in the Lord, in him, in Christ. We call this union with Christ. This union with Christ is how we are able to have communion with God through Jesus. And communion with him is how we are able to draw from his strength.

Do you know Jesus? Do you know that he has saved you? Have you experienced his steadfast love and his forgiveness?

Do you know that he sought you and he bought you, and he chose you, and he found you. Do you feel like he's searching you out now?

Another caveat I should mention is that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to be strong in the Lord. When we are living in sin and outright rebellion against God, sin quenches the Spirit of God. Sin robs us of intimacy. It steals away our communion with him. There's a there's a division and a split and a distance that occurs in our relationship when we're living in, in, in sin outright.

I would just encourage you that guilt and that shame, it separates you.

It causes a division in your relationship. And I would just say he he sees and he knows and he calls us to confess and to repent and to return and to get right with him so that his strength can return. This verse, verse ten, it reveals our neediness. Paul is revealing how much we are in need. I'll read it again.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. God needs nothing. God is self-sufficient. He is self-sustaining. He is self-existent.

We, on the other hand, we need God for everything. My heart doesn't beat if God doesn't say so. My next breath won't work. If he doesn't say so.

So much of this life occurs. We have no control. We have no say. It's just happening all around us. It's happening because God makes it happen. Paul says in first Corinthians, what do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? Put simply, we are called to be people that are prayerful.

We are called to be people that are thankful. We are called to be people that are dependent.

This is what it means to be strong. Dependent hearts acknowledge God's glory and his strength and his sovereignty. Dependent hearts. Delight in God's Word and God's ways and God's works. What he's done. Dependent hearts. Meditate upon all that God has done in history and also in our lives, what he's doing in our lives. We meditate and celebrate what he's done.

Dependent hearts are desperate. Hearts. Seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his presence continually. Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles and the judgments he uttered. Dependent hearts are desperate. Hearts desperate for God, desperate to know him more desperate to to to know his mind. To know his heart. To know his likes and dislikes. To please him and honor him and obey him.

Friends, we are called to cultivate a heart of dependance. This is what it means to be strong in the Lord. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. If you, put this verse into your favorite AI tool, it's going to pop out a lot of the same stuff that many scholars, believe about this passage.

They think that Paul is choosing to describe these various pieces of armor, because he would have witnessed first hand the weapons and the armor that the Roman legionaries would have worn in first century Rome. Right. So he's picking these pieces to create a visible illustration for the Ephesians. And this sounds really smart, and it might partly be true, but I think it's mostly wrong.

I think this perspective is self-centered and man centered. And Paul was not man centered. Paul was God centered in everything. His perspective and worldview were saturated by the Old Testament scriptures. And so we're going to see that today. Notice we are to put on God's armor, not his armor that he gives to us to it's God's armor. Put on the full armor of God.

This is the armor that God wears. God wears this armor to rescue and save and redeem his people. What does this mean? Now that we are strong in the Lord, dependent, now that we are in the strength, we have the strength of his might. Now we're going to put on the Lord's armor that he wears to fight for us.

How is this going to work? Paul's going to answer this, but first he's going to tell us why. Verse 12, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. We do not wrestle. We do not struggle against flesh and blood.

That's what that word means. Our struggle is not with flesh and blood humans. As much as it feels like that at times. There are spiritual forces behind all of the evil that we see today, behind all the systems and the power structures of this world, behind death itself.

The battle is raging. People's lives are on the line. Our lives are on the line. Our kids lives are on the line. There could be generations and generations of lives on the line. Death is coming for us all. Friends. We spend our lives avoiding death, trying not to think about death, doing whatever we can to prolong our life and avoid death.

But death is coming for us all.

Where will we spend eternity?

Will death lead to judgment? Or will death lead to Jesus? Then the dragon became furious with the woman, and he went off to make war on the rest of her offspring. That is, the church on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. The devil hates the church. The devil hates the people of God that follow Jesus.

He hates those who pursue God and pursue holiness. He hates God. Therefore, he hates God's people. This is why Peter tells us, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. We should not be surprised that our lives as Christians seem to be filled with struggle, because we are at war.

Therefore, verse 13, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. We are to take up. We are to take hold of the entire armor of God. This is God's armor.

God is the originator of this armor. He is the source. He is also the original wearer of this armor. We will soon see God created this armor and designed this armor. And he designed it for protection. God is giving us his protection as we withstand in this evil day. We are withstanding the spiritual enemies of God. This word is to resist.

We are to resist. Resist the devil and he will flee from you, says Peter. We are to stand against God. We are against the spiritual enemies of God. We are to take our stand in this evil day. We are to stand our ground in these days that are filled with evil.

We are to stand our ground and take our stand against the evil that we find even in us. We must hold fast to the armor of God.

Satan and his forces are powerful, and they are universal. But they are not God. They are not omnipotent. They are still created beings, and their power is and always will be limited. I think it's important to notice of all the commands that he could have used. He stops using the the imperative walk. He could have used fight. He could have used wrestle.

He could have used struggle. He could have used conquer. He could have used wage war. Battle. What does he use? Stand.

Stand there.

We are to do nothing. We can't do nothing but stand there. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness. The belt of truth comes from Isaiah 11. Speaking of the Messiah that was to come. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. Isaiah is prophesying that God would one day send a divine messianic warrior king.

He would wear righteousness as a belt around his waist, and he would wear faithfulness as a belt around his loins. That's where you put your sword. That word, faithfulness is the same Greek word that Paul uses in Ephesians for truth. It's translated truth. It's a belt of truth around his loins. Jesus came as the way and the truth and the life he came to undo Satan's lie.

Adam and Eve were deceived by the serpent by by his very first lie. And we have been buying into his lies ever since.

Satan deals in deception. Jesus says he is a liar and he is the father of lies. Isaiah 59. Truth is lacking. The Lord saw it, and it was evil in his eyes that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede. Then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him.

His righteousness. He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak. God came as a divine warrior to save us.

Because we could do absolutely nothing to save ourselves. Therefore, he says, Because God has done it all, because God had to do it all. Stand. And as shoes for your feet. Having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace, we are to stand. We are to stand and be ready always to share the gospel with others.

That word has to do with eagerness. Readiness is eagerness. We are eager to share with others the peace that we have found in Jesus, the peace that we have come to know in God. Because of Jesus, we have peace with God, and we have peace with one another. And we want others to know this peace.

This life is so hard. Striving for peace. It is impossible to find peace. True peace without Jesus. So we stand ready. How beautiful. Upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news. Who publishes peace. Who brings good news of happiness? Who publishes salvation? Who says to Zion, Your God reigns.

This is our mission to invite people into life with Jesus. This is what God has called us to do. It's why it's a privilege to be able to create a space, to invite people, to be able to come and and meet God and hear from God and be changed by His Word. It's a privilege to be able to serve others.

It's a privilege to be able to give of our time and our talent and our treasure. It's a privilege that we have this opportunity to renovate another building. God is moving us to another space, a bigger space, Lord willing. A nicer space where we can invite more people. More people can worship God and know God and meet God.

And we do this together. I know it seems like Joseph's doing everything, but we are doing this together.

He is doing it through us. The local church is God's strategy for accomplishing his mission in the world. It is the mechanism by which Jesus accomplishes his mission. Evangelism.

Discipleship. Sanctification. These are accomplished through the local church. May we be a people who stand at the ready, ready to do whatever Jesus calls us to do. Verse 16. In all circumstances, all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. The first time that the word shield is used in the Bible, God is making his covenant his original covenant with Abraham, who then later becomes Abraham.

Genesis 15. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision. Fear not, Abraham. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. And the Lord brought Abram outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars. If you are able to number them. Then the Lord said to him, so shall your offspring be.

And Abraham believed the Lord, and it was counted to him as righteousness. What do we put our faith in? Who do we put our faith in? In what or whom do we trust?

Our faith.

Is to be put into God. We put our faith in the one who is himself, our shield. He says, Psalm 18 I love you, O Lord. My strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge. My shield and the horn of my salvation. My stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised.

And I am saved from my enemies. It is assumed the Bible is filled with the reality that this life will be impossibly difficult. He is our shield. He is our strength. He is our fortress. He is our deliverer. If life was all easy, why would God need to be these things for us?

Faith in God is not some mystical power that, like, defeats Satan. Faith doesn't. We don't change our reality with our faith by believing it, or speaking things into existence, or rebuking things out of existence. Like that's that's nonsense. It's not in the Bible. Faith in and of itself does not protect us. Faith runs to God. Faith grabs hold of God.

Who is our protection? Who is our fortress? Who is our refuge? Who is our hiding place? Who is himself? Our shield.

Faith in God becomes our shield precisely because it is by faith that we run to God and make him our shield. Does that make sense?

We run to him for protection because we believe that he can protect us.

And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God, the helmet of salvation. I don't know if you noticed. We covered it earlier in Isaiah 59. He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head, his salvation. He accomplished salvation by his arm and the sword of the spirit.

Well, this is the Word of God, he says, and the Word of God was wielded by our Savior perfectly. Isaiah 49. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother. He named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword in the shadow of his hand. He hid me. He made me a polished arrow in his quiver.

He hid me away. Again in Isaiah 11 speaks of of Jesus. And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Jesus uses the sword of the spirit as a weapon. God's word. He uses God's Word against all the spiritual attacks of the devil in the wilderness, when he was, when he was tempted, and in our life.

This is how we combat the lies and the temptations and the trials that come at us. Three times Jesus was attacked. He was tempted three times. Jesus responds to Satan with the Word of God, and Satan flees and leaves him alone, at least for a little while. This is not necessarily Jesus doesn't like preach the gospel to Satan.

Sometimes using the sword of the spirit is preaching the gospel to ourselves or others. But it's not always that. Sometimes it's just speaking God's word. To defend ourselves against the lies that are coming at us, against the temptations that are flying at us. All the struggles that are coming at us because of the difficulties of this life. We don't recite God's Word as a magical formula to get what we want from this life.

He's not a genie in a bottle. We fight the good fight of faith with the Word of God. The Word of God is the instrument. The weapon that the Holy Spirit uses.

I think an interesting note is, the armor that the Romans would wear. The sword would go. It would be housed. It would be sheathed in the belt of truth. The Spirit of God is directly connected to truth. Praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication to that end. Keep alert with perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

Friends, we are to be a people of prayer. Prayer keeps us alert. Prayer keeps us connected and in communion with God. Prayer keeps us strong in the Lord. Prayer keeps us dependent. Prayer keeps us aware of the battle in which we find ourselves in.

Prayer is how we keep hold of the armor of God. Verse 21 he closes so that you also may know how I am and what I'm doing to the beloved brother and faithful minister. And the Lord will tell you everything. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts.

Peace be to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, with love incorruptible, or with the love so pure. This man took a kiss, delivered five letters for Paul. He delivered Colossians. He delivered Philemon. He delivered Ephesians. Second Timothy and Titus.

What a cool story. You got to do some digging to figure that out. But I love watching the stories of these men and women in the Bible unfold as I dig in the New Testament.

What a ministry this man had. He just delivered letters.

But God had specific things for him to do, and it has affected millions and millions and millions of people over 2000 years because he just said yes to Jesus and did his job.

God has specific things for you to do and for me to do.

He wants to do things in you and I. He wants to do things through you. And I.

Your ministry will be different from my ministry. Your gifts are different than my gifts. But God has a unique ministry. He has things for us to do that are unique to us.

Our life experiences are unique to us. The things we celebrate, the things we struggle with, our battles. My battles are my battles. What you fight is your battle. There's no accident in your life being your life. Only you can fight it. Only you can take hold of his armor and stand. You have to do that.

We can help one another. We can encourage one another and build one another up. We can strengthen one another in the Lord. We can remind one another of who God is and who who we are.

But God has called each and every one of us to stand, to resist the world. The flesh and the devil, to stand firm and take hold of the armor of Christ that he wore for us. I close with this. These this armor is God's armor. This is Christ wearing this armor. God created it, and he had to send a man and clothe that man with his armor, because we could not.

It's his belt of truth. He is the truth. It's his righteousness that's now our righteousness. It's his gospel of feet of peace that that puts shoes on our feet and makes us eager to share with others, eager to present peace and be at peace with others.

He puts that desire in us to give our lives away for the sake of others, for the sake of the gospel, because he gave his life away for us.

He is our shield and our very great reward. Jesus has become our salvation.

The sword of the spirit is his to wield. It's his to use in our lives to cut us and to prune us, and to sharpen us and shape us. And in times of testing and temptation, he uses the word through us, in us and through us to resist the devil. To combat the lies.

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. But they have divine power to destroy strongholds. The armor that God wears, that he's giving us access to, is not a set of disciplines that we are to perform or exercise or memorize or recite.

This is God's armor that he offers to us freely. Jesus is the divine warrior. It's his armor. He wore it first and he used it triumphantly when he defeated Satan, sin and death. The victories won.

Jesus is the mighty, triumphant divine warrior king. He remained faithful even when we were faithless. He gave us his righteousness as our own righteousness, because even our best righteousness is like filthy rags. The prophet says he was victorious, and now his victory can become our victory.

He allowed himself to be conquered so that we could conquer. He took his stand in the garden by falling to his knees and sweating drops of blood, and surrendering his will and his life to his father, and saying, not my will, but yours be done. That's how he stood on his knees.

His victory was displayed in defeat. He took a stand by hanging on the cross. For you and for me.

Jesus is our righteousness and our shield of refuge. Friends, there is a war going on. There is a battle raging. And we cannot fight this battle in our own strength. We do not have the power in ourselves to endure to the end.

Our enemy is much stronger than we are.

We cannot fight on our own. We must put off ourselves and put on Christ. We must take ourselves, our eyes off of ourselves and fix our eyes on Jesus.

Humble ourselves. Remember how needy we are. Dependent. We are. We depend on the one who accomplished for us what we couldn't, what we could never accomplish for ourselves.

This is how we fight.