As we get started today, I want
you to I want you to listen to the lyrics. And if you want to
look at it again on page 30, that's fine. But think about
these lyrics, put them into a place of meditation, because what this
song and all the songs that we sing here at Grace Truth Church
as Grace Truth Church. We focus and emphasize greatly
on the knowledge of the gospel, the truth of the gospel, the
focus of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do not want to just
sing to entertain ourselves. We sing to please the name of
God and to proclaim the name of God and to exalt. That means
to find joy in the name of God through Jesus Christ. As we sing
this song, O great God of highest heaven, we call out to that great
God. And as Jesus says in Matthew's
gospel, when he teaches us to pray, pray in this way. Our Father
who is in heaven, holy be your name. Holy is the name of the
Lord. We cry that out. We oftentimes
fail to see just the gravity of the reality that we are indeed
an audience. We are in front of the eyes of
God. He is the audience of one, if
you will. And so we live out our lives
forever, a Coram Deo, in the face of God, that God views us.
And not only does God view what we do and how we worship and
how we function, God views the depth of our soul. He knows everything
that we are on the inside, every thought that we have, everything
that is hidden from our own understanding. God knows those deep things.
And even knowing that while we were still sinners, while we
were dead in our trespasses against Him, He what? Made us alive in
Jesus Christ with an everlasting love. We cry out to God in the
song to occupy my loving heart. Own it all and reign supreme.
Conquer every rebel power. Let no vice or sin remain that
resist your holy war. You have loved and purchased
me. Make me yours forevermore. I
was blinded by my sin. Had no ears to hear your voice.
Did not know your love within. Had no taste for heaven's joys.
Then your spirit gave me life. Opened up your word to me. Through
the gospel of your son gave me endless hope and peace. Help
me now to live a life that's dependent upon your grace. Keep
my heart and guard my soul from the evils that I face. You are
worthy to be praised with my every thought and deed. Oh, great
God of highest heaven, glorify your name through me. That's
what we've sung the last three weeks. I know about you as I
read that, and I know the reality of where that comes from in Scripture
and the power of the gospel that Brother Coughlin, as he wrote
this song, you know, six to seven years ago, that's what was causing
him to write this song in poetry. He was responding in his spirit
and in his mind to the gospel. And so as God gives him to be
a musician, he writes and sings that which is true about God.
Friends, these are real truths. And there are nothing that you
haven't heard before. We see them here in Ephesians
and in Ephesians 6 as we've been looking at the battle over our
souls and the battle for our joy against the enemies of God.
We know full well that God has established joy. God has established
victory in Jesus Christ. We've seen now in Ephesians 6
that all that God has called us to be is culminated in His
power and His promises, that God ultimately is in charge of
and reigns supremely over our hearts and minds as His people.
So therefore, we as the body of Christ, we govern ourselves
by the Word which reveals to us the heart of God and the center
of the gospel, Jesus Christ, that through that revelation
we are saved by faith. And then because now we are saved
by faith, God purposes all that he has promised to do an absolute
success in our hearts so that when we see sin encroaching in
our minds, it starts there. We are able to see it. Without
the grace of God, we could not see that sin was lurking at our
door. Without God's absolute sovereign grace, we could not
see that the enemy was attacking our minds. We could not see enmity
between us and God. God revealed that through his
son. He revealed that through his
spirit, through his word. And so we come to a place today,
and I know that it's frustrating sometimes, not in a bad way,
but it's sort of like it causes a tension. It's when when you
know that there's something we got to move on. You know, you
ever had somebody that started to talk and they start a sentence
and then they just sort of stop and they start talking about
something else. You're going to finish that. Listen very carefully,
you know, we need to. So I don't want you to know one
is this three things and two is this and then, oh, did you
did you see how much rain we got yesterday? And and you're
going, what's number three? And then they're running rabbit
down this way and running rabbit. The same thing in music. Distance
is created in minor seconds and sustained chords. And they have
to resolve. When you don't hear the resolve, it bothers our ears.
Some of us don't even know music. That song didn't finish. Or you're
listening to a song and it's almost over and there's four
words left to the refrain and somebody turns the channel on
the radio. I can't finish my music. Something's wrong. Preaching
is no different. Preaching can cause that kind
of dissonance in our minds when we go, OK, because here's the
sentence. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you
may be able to withstand in the day of evil 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 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, praying at all times in the Spirit with all
prayer and supplication." So now we've got this idea, and
I've been breaking it down about 500 weeks. We've been looking
at it in so many pieces. And today in verse 17, we're
going to look just at the first half of that and take the helmet
of salvation. And so if I don't tell you what
this is, if I don't show you what Paul is implying and assuming
that his readers understand, we don't understand it. We just
go on. And I remember as a kid, it's
back when G.I. Joes used to be about that big,
and now they're like this. They used to be this big and
real cheap, and now they're like this and five times the price.
So things get smaller and cheaper and more expensive. But in that
day, there were Christian companies who made soldiers that you could
buy David and Goliath, and you could play war with them. And
I'm like, we know how the story is. It's hard to make believe
with Bible characters. Because, you know, Goliath can never win.
He can't fly. He doesn't shoot laser beams
out of his eyes. So it really doesn't make a whole
lot. It's not really fun and imagination. We know that he
runs his mouth and talks about God and little boy David hits
him with a rock right after he tells him that he's about to
take his own sword and chop his head off so the birds would eat
his eyeballs out. And in the laughter, he hits him in the
between the eyes and knocks him dead and cuts off his head with
his own sword and the birds feast upon his eyes and his flesh.
And Philistines run and the army of the Lord is empowered and
they run after him and they slaughter him for hundreds of miles. I
mean, it's just you don't need an imagination. That's a pretty
good role play. He used to buy those Bible characters. There's
a point to all this. I promise. Look at the birds. I mean, and
I got for Christmas one day, sorry, I got for Christmas one
day, one year, a army of God, armor of God soldier, you know,
and it was an Eastern European looking guy, blonde hair, blue
eyes. and very pale skinned. And he had on this armor and
it was the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the helmet
of salvation, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit, the
gospel of peace and those things. There was you know, he wasn't
really praying. He was standing firm, which is what Paul says
to do. And I don't know how to role play with that guy, but
I kept it even in my teen years and always had it sitting on
my dresser. It's pretty neat. All my friends come over and
go, do you play with dolls? No, that's the armor of God.
It's a little tiny, isn't it? And so the point is, we have
come to a place in our society that when we think of the armor
of God, we think of it very much like a child's play toy. We think
of it as something we put on, we teach our children to put
it on, and we do so with flannel graphs and little GI Joe men,
and we teach them that, and we never teach them what it is.
And so we contemplate in our mind's eye the armor of God.
No, we don't. We don't even contemplate it. We just go, well, there it
is, the armor of God. Yep, we've got to put it on. You know how many
times I've ever had people say, we've got to put on the armor of God.
You've got to put on the armor of God. And with me and my warped, not
sense of humor, but interest in how people think and why they
say what they say, I have to dig. I'm the archaeologist of
anthropology, so I like to dig into why they say what they say.
And then, well, how do you do that? What is the armor of God? If I'd never heard of the Almanac
of God, would you describe it to me? Well, you know, the helmet of salvation,
what's that mean? And so though we are learning, we still have
these ideals. We still have these play type
ideals and philosophies that have been driven into us in the
culture that we live in. I mean, you know, people that
live in third world nations who come to faith in the gospel.
And you think about I'm not saying China's a third world nation,
so don't take the thing. But like in China, the church in
China, the church in Saudi Arabia, the church in Iraq and in places
like that, that's underground, sometimes literally. And people
will come and spend days to get into a hole in the dirt or under
a house, and they will sing praises to God, and they will worship,
and they'll spend days to spend hours in the Word. And they don't have figurines. They don't have toys, they don't
have videos, they don't have veggie tales, and they don't have things
to try to teach and illustrate things that the scripture teaches
plainly. And so therefore, when the word of God is taught to
these peoples, they have a clear, unbiased reception of the pure
gospel and the pure word of God. And so that belief system of
what I want to just say is materialism doesn't invade their minds. Because what happens is materialism
invades the mind of American Christians, and we put church
as a place, and we put faith as something that we do and that
we have and that works for us. We put the armor of God as this
thing that we've got to put on. How do you put on the helmet
of salvation? And what is it? If I were to
ask everybody to take out a piece of paper and write down in one
paragraph, what is the helmet of salvation? What's the shield
of faith? You should understand what it was as of last week.
These are metaphors. They're not literal armors, but
in the sense that they're metaphorically speaking, that we're putting
on like a soldier going to battle. Then the metaphor then relates
in this way that there is a war and we do have weapons. And the
weapons of war are given to us in Christ, and we've always had
them. But we don't put them on and
go out there and try to charge the enemy. God has charged the
enemy and has empowered us with the weaponry. He's empowered
us with the armory. And so we see how this applies. So today I want to really, it's
difficult because you can't find a lot of A lot of dealing with
this stuff in the way that I deal with it, and I'm not saying that
I'm right. I'm saying that I'm anally thorough. Maybe that's
a bad combination of words, but it's just I cannot move past
just saying, OK, let's just do it all in one sermon. Most sermons
on the armor of God is a sermon, maybe two, and then it's over.
But what's the impact here? And as we saw in the belt of
truth, it's the truth of God. It's the truth of the gospel.
It's the reality of that truth. And the truth holds all the armor
on. The breastplate of righteousness.
The protection of our heart. Our heart is wicked and deceitful
above all things. You can never trust the heart. So the heart
of Christ is given to us. It's a breastplate of righteousness.
The righteousness of God. But it's not just God's righteousness
put on us. It's Christ's righteousness given
to us now. It's our righteousness. You see
that? God has created us to be like
Christ. Does that mean we're perfect?
No. But in His eyes, we're righteous. We're adopted. We're justified. We're sacred. We're holy. Because
Christ gave us His righteousness. It's not our own. But now it
is ours to claim. We are saints in the eyes of
God. Therefore, we put on the new man, we put off the old man
in practice. We no longer are slaves to sin. Those thoughts and desires and
feelings cannot rule our lives any longer. It's over. We're
not struggling to the point of what do we do as Christians?
We struggle in our battle against sin, but we don't struggle unto
death in sin. And we don't struggle unto death
because of temptation. Brother Jesse and I had a conversation
a week ago on Thursday about the idea that Jesus was so distraught
with the pending judgment of God, the Father, that his capillaries
burst from the stress of it. And as I thought a little bit
more about that, you really messed up my day, man. You just bring
that to my head and I'd already been thinking about something
very relative. I'm sitting there painting things that aren't supposed
to be painted. But then in that same way, Jesus
purely and fully remained and attained the fullness of joy
and peace while he suffered angst. And that is the mind that we
have, Philippians. Paul says the Philippians have
this mind among you, which is yours in Christ Jesus. And we
see that. So how could Jesus have peace?
Because he looked beyond the cross to the glory. And so we come now to the shield
of faith, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith we talked
about last week. It's not our faith that's the effectiveness. It's the faithful one and whom
we trust that's effective. It's not faith and faith. It's
not I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe. That's a little engine
that could and never did. I think I can, I think I know
I can, I know I can. No, that's not faith. Faith is only you
can. Only you can affect this in me,
God. And I find the fullness of joy in that, and I find the
fullness of satisfaction in that. So then we come to the helmet
of salvation. Ephesians 6, 17. And Paul has not been blind to
this already. He's talked about thinking. He's
talked about the mind. He's talked about learning in
Ephesians 4. He talks other places about the renewal of the mind
in Romans 12, and we'll touch on these. But we often see, we
look at it, just like we think of the little figurine, we think
about the kids toys, we think about spiritual warfare, we think
about fairy tales and superheroes and comic books and sci-fi. It's
not it at all. And then we think about this
hyperbolic, excessive, extreme, one-ended, supernatural stuff
like exorcists and all this other kind of stuff, this crazy stuff
we see on television in our mind's eye. Demons fly through windows
and wings and shooting fire and all that kind of stuff. That's
not how it operates. It does not operate that way.
The forces of darkness do not come in and invade with some
kind of weird, supernatural wickedness. If people started coming out
of their houses with horns and breathing fire, I mean, we know
that's the devils at work. And we'd flee from those people,
or cut their heads off, or whatever we do with zombie-like, demonically-possessed
people. Throw water in their face, or
shoot them with flaming arrows. I don't know what we'd do with
people like that. But we would have no doubt that the devil
has indeed. If somebody jumps up in the middle
of the church service and starts drooling, and blood comes out
of their hands, and they shoot fire out of their ears, we're
going, what? Demon possession. No doubt about it. How to know
if someone's demon possessed? Well, if they burst into flames
and roll their eyes in the back of their head and float six feet
above the ground. That just doesn't happen. What happens is that
the enemy attacks our hearts. I'm talking about our physical
hearts. I'm talking about our spiritual
hearts, our souls, our consciousness. The enemy attacks our ideas,
our understanding. It starts in the mind. The outcome
of the heart is beginning in the mind, so put on the helmet
of salvation. And it's almost difficult not
to jump into that and then take the sword of the Spirit, which
is the Word of God, because it is the only offensive weapon that
we have. Everything else is protective.
And this is offensive next week, as we'll see, Lord willing, the
sword of the Spirit. But the battle of the mind is
for the mind and the battle is in the mind. That's where Paul's
going here. So the power of the enemy of
God, the supernatural wickedness of the demonic, it works in the
brain, not in the reality of life. Now, the brain could make
reality think that it's really supernatural. You could see things
that aren't there. You could hear things that aren't there. You can experience
stuff because your fears are known, your ideals are known,
your philosophies are known, your belief systems are known.
And the enemy of God, the powers of darkness can infiltrate our
minds and can play games with us. Believers, yes, they can be tempted,
they can be bothered. Unbelievers, all the time. From
conception, unbelievers are bothered and tempted, and in some sense,
according to what we see in the New Testament, controlled by
the powers of darkness. Even those who do good things, unbelievers,
are controlled by the powers of darkness. What's the main
control? 2 Corinthians 4. For the God of this world has blinded
the eyes of unbelievers that they might not believe the gospel. So the battle is in the mind.
It's for the mind. In the mind. The battle of the
mind is for the mind. The enemies of God want our minds.
And the battle takes place in the mind. See, because our minds, before
we were born again, were of the old nature. And those minds,
just as in a way of remembering what Paul has taught us, those
minds were dark. Worthless. The futility of their
mind. Romans chapter 1. Those minds were disobedient,
rebellious, blind, and devoid of all righteousness, among many
things. We were, just like the rest of
humanity, instruments of destruction, sons of disobedience, who were
being controlled by the power of the prince of the air. Paul
says in 2 Corinthians, he's the god of this world. The effective agent in the minds
of unbelievers is the God of this world. He keeps them from
seeing the glory of God in the face of Christ. Ephesians 2,
6. I see Ephesians 4, 6. And he keeps them from seeing.
And the only way they can see is if God gives them grace and
gives them new eyes and rebirths them that they may see. And when
they see, they will believe. The will of man. is bent. It's bent toward self-centeredness.
It's bent toward selfishness. It's bent toward, this is not
good for me. This is not best for me. This is not what I need.
This is not what's best for my family. This is not what's best
for this. And those are not necessarily bad things when we're talking
about wise choices. But most of the time, it's like,
I don't like this because it's not what I want. That's not what's best for my
plans. But what are your plans? If your plans are not to, in
all things, give glory to God through Christ Jesus, then your
plans are a waste of time and your life will be a futile nothing.
And when you die, whether you live a hundred years or one year,
your life will be ridiculously worthless. And the world around us, one
of the whispers of the enemy of God will say, all people are
special, yet we're special instruments of destruction. Because we do
not deserve the grace of God, but God in his mercy, because
of the great love in which he loved us, made us alive again
in Christ. So, yeah, we're pretty special
because we display the glory of God's handiwork in redeeming
a people who cannot redeem themselves, nor should they be redeemed. But now you're in Christ, because
we're in Christ, our mind is changed, we have the mind of
Christ. It's all an introduction. We'll
get there, I promise. The mind of Christ, that mind
then changes the affections of the heart, and now we desire
holiness. The Word of God, the Law of God, John says, is not
burdensome to us. We see the Word says, do not
murder, and we go, yes, I don't want to murder. We see the Law,
and it says, do not covet. Man, I don't want what other
people have. I want to be righteous. I want
to be holy. I want to stand and present myself
before God and reflect himself to him. You see how that works? We're not going to stand before
God one day and God's not going to go, look at you, look at you. Oh, you did it, you did it. He's going to say, look at me. Put a mirror in front of us and
say, look at me. Look at what I made. Glory to
me. Isn't that a little selfish and
maniacal? No. Glory is due God. God is worthy of all praise and
honor and glory and power and wealth and dominion. It's His. We belong to Him. He spoke and
our world came into being, not the other way around. And he
commands holiness and he destroys wickedness. And in his mercy
and in his wisdom, he says, worship me and be like me or die by my
hand. And then he went, I will become
like you and I will kill my son so that I can forgive you. So
the very God that commands worship and holiness became like the
creation and then put his own wrath on himself. So we stand before God and he
puts a mirror in front of us and says, look at me and give
glory to me. It's not weird because he's due
it. And he did it. And he gave himself,
he lowered himself and came to those who hated him so that he
could save his people. So the mind of the believer meditates
on that. The mind of the Christian meditates
on righteousness. The mind of the Christian desires
to know and to live the will of God. We don't walk, and I
tell this to young people a lot, Young people, young Christians.
Maybe I should say it more to older Christians, Christians
who have been Christian for a little longer. I often say as they come
for counsel and wisdom, if you're going to the Word of God to see
how close to the edge of right you can get in a specific issue,
just throw your Bible away. Stop. We don't go to the Word
of God to see how close to wrong we can get. We don't go to the
shadows of almost wrong. Well, can I do this as a Christian?
Do you want to do this? Sort of. You're not a Christian. Repent of that sin. What sin? The sin of wanting that sin. Man, you ever had regrets from
your old life? Most people say, well, I regret
that I did these things. You ever had regrets on the things
that you could have done before you were saved? Man, I just experienced that
when I was an unbeliever. See, that's a dangerous corner.
Repent of that. And when you have those thoughts,
it's not necessarily because you're unregenerate, it's because
the enemy's whispering in your ear. You shouldn't hear those often. Because when we come to faith,
when God makes us new, we really do hate our sin. And we know
with great joy, if there's sin that we haven't committed, praise
God that He gave us the grace to stay away from it. And when
we see the sin we have committed, praise God that He's given us
the grace to stay away from it, and that He put Christ as the
guilty party, as the object of his judgment. See the battle? See, just by
making statements like that, it causes stress in our minds. We begin to think, who thinks
that way? Do I? How about we just learn to live
the gospel and quit worrying about all that? So let's now look at the helmet
of salvation. Wow. Four things I want you to see. First thing is this. The protective
power of the helmet. The gospel, the helmet of salvation
that you are saved and this helmet is the gospel. Paul is saying helmet, because
your soul was not only saved, but your mind was saved, and
your heart was saved, and your eyes were saved, and your ears
were saved, and your hands were saved, and your feet were saved,
and are saved, and are being saved, and will be saved. So
all that we are, is say, where do our feet take us? Where our
mind direct? What do our hands do? What our
mind desires? What do our eyes look upon? That
which our mind wants. What do we listen to? What our
mind hears. So it starts there. It starts
in our consciousness. It starts in our thinking. That's
why I'm so big on thinking. That's why I like to teach thinking.
But at the same time, we have to be very careful not to listen
to so much thinking. We've got to learn to think about
our thinking. Are you thinking? The salvation of your soul includes
the salvation of your mind, and this establishes right thinking. As a believer, our thinking is
always governed by our salvation. You want an example? a significant
other, fiancé, spouse, parent, loved one, friend, close comrade,
confidant. And we've got things in life
and we're having a conversation and somebody in that role says
something to us about something we're doing. We hold that wisdom
or that opinion in high regard. Someone comes to us and said,
if someone came up to you today in this room and went, that is
the most unattractive shirt that I've ever seen you wear. Now, whether you're tough or
not, and you might say, I don't care. I like it. And you may
even wear it again. But when you wear it again, you're
going to be thinking, this shirt's really ugly, but my pride won't
allow me to not wear it. And you're going to be thinking,
maybe some of us would think, I'm not ever wearing that again.
You wear it to sleep in or to do the yard with or you'll tear
it real quickly and use it for an oil rag. Because what people
say affects you. Well, if people's thoughts, a
total stranger says, Hey, I've been eating some cake lately.
Pants are getting a little tight. I remember coming back into town
after being gone for a decade and being 200, close to 300 pounds,
265, 70 pounds. And I remember seeing someone
that I went to high school with. I haven't seen him in 10 years. First thing he says, You got
fat! And I was thinking, and you're
still ugly, but I didn't say it. And I thought, wow, so for the next
week I ate a bunch of Oreos and ice cream because I
felt so bad about my weight. But it affects us. How when people's
thoughts about our appearance affect us to that degree, cannot
God's thoughts about our sin affect us? You know why? Because the enemy
is continually working to delude us into thinking that we're not
thinking about our sin. Or worse, think that we're OK. Salvation in the mind affects
right thinking, and this right thinking is a defensive weapon.
It's defensive. It's given through the Word of
God, the sword of the Spirit, as we'll see next week. The Word
of God helps us fight against the thinking that doesn't line
up with the Word of God. So the helmet of salvation is
a continual meditation and focused thinking on the reality of what
God has made us in Christ. Therefore, we are empowered by
the continual thinking of these things to not live out the desires
of the flesh, but to live out the desires of the Spirit. We
walk by faith, not by sight. We honor God and glorify Him.
We don't glorify ourselves and build up our own kingdom. We
say, if the Lord wills, I will go, rather than saying, this
is what I can do because I can make it happen. Where there's a will, there's
a way. Except God doesn't will it. No
matter how your determination, no matter how great your resources,
no matter how mighty your hand, when God says no, you can't do
it. And no matter how weak and frail and fragile and unable
you are to do anything, when God says yes, it will be done.
It's sort of the gun argument, the defensive argument about
people like us who like firearms, just like them. And they assume
because we feel threatened. And I just like them. They're
fun. Fun to deal and shoot and look
at. I've always liked them. I got
my first gun when I was six and still got it. I love it. It's
just a hobby. It's just an idol. God will destroy
it. It has nothing to do with defense.
Do I believe in defense? Yeah. Do I put my hope in it? Absolutely not. And I remember
having these conversations, and Brother Dave was there in California
a few times, we were even on national radio and having these
conversations about how Christians could have defensive weapons.
And then the question was, well, do you lock your doors at night?
Do you lock your car? Do you turn on your alarm system?
Why? That's defensive. It's defensive. But the ultimate
issue comes in the sovereignty of God, that if I had the National
Guard at my house, And one burglar coming in, if it was God's will
that that burglar take my life and everything I own, they couldn't
stop me. And at the same time, if I'm by myself and the whole
United States Marine Corps is out there and it's God's will
that they perish, I will take them all out. So we don't put our faith in
these things. We don't put our trust in these
things. We don't think that we have the power to stand in this
weaponry with our resources. That's a sin. So this salvation, this protection
of the mind, empowers right thinking. It also empowers right loving. Right loving. So the affections
no longer are of this world. These affections now are for
the gospel. We love the call of the gospel.
What is that? To herald the great news of Jesus
Christ. The call of the gospel to live as though we are those
people who have been given grace. To live as though we are worthy
of the calling. The gospels are calling. It doesn't
matter if you're called to what we could say. You called the
ministry? Yes, you are. Is it your vocation? Might not
be. Some of us who are in vocational ministry can get quite hungry
some days. There's always something. Because
God's got it all right here. We have right loving. We love
the call of the gospel. We love the crowd of the gospel.
We love the church. We love the people of God in
a way that we cannot love even our own families who aren't in
the faith. There's something absolutely
divinely supernatural and powerful about the love of the saints.
Each of us uniquely gifted to minister to one another in a
unique way. Not all of us can minister the
same way. Not all of us can be called to
minister the same way. Not everybody in the church is
going to be able to teach the Bible. Not everybody in the church
is going to be able to sit with someone when they're suffering.
Not everybody in the church is going to be able to counsel those
who are sick and depressed. Not everybody in the church is
going to be able to have money to give to those in need. It
doesn't work that way. And so we need to stop pushing
ourselves into this mold and say, we are going to be like
this. Look, love the people of God. We don't have to feel threatened
by them. We don't have to feel less than
them. We don't have to feel superior to them. We are all needed and
vitally important. When you don't think that you're
vitally important to the whole of the church with humility,
then you are listening to the whispers of a spiritual war and
you are losing. Well, I can't give anything.
Can you? A couple. The Fulkerson's. He went to be
with the Lord just a few weeks back, 56 years old. And Alan
and Linda Fulkerson, Linda's still alive, she's on her third
pancreas and her body continually rejects them. And for years,
years, several times, probably three times now, In my ministry
in Virginia, I stood outside the hospital room with her husband
as he fell to the floor uncontrollably, thinking his wife was on the
way to her deathbed. And what does she do when she
gets out of hospital but serve and try to clean houses for people
and do things for the saints of God? What does Alan do? Feeds
the masses and gives his time, does missions trips. He came
to California and did some missions out there for us. And when they both got sick, it was
hard. Because they were always doing.
And when he came down with cancer, one of the things that he said
to me once is, it's hard for me not to give. And I always
told him, and when Linda had been sick several times, I said
this in front of the church, Alan, your greatest gift to me
is that you rejoice and you have a passion to serve others when
you need the service. He doesn't want it. And your wife is dying and you're
trying to help me move. leave. That's a greater, I can't
give that gift unless I have a wife that's dying. Man, he
sort of looked at me oddly. That's a gift! Use it! Rejoice! A brother named Len, who, he
had Parkinson's and it got really bad and he couldn't do that which
he'd always done in the church. And I tried to help him see,
look, your peace and the spirit of joy that you have in being
with the saints and the wisdom that comes, that God has put
you in a chair so you can sit down more than you walk and we
can have time now because you're so busy and so awesome and everything
you touch, it turns to gold. And we walk around and watch
things turn to gold. But you know what? It's really gold and
it's the wisdom you have. And if God hadn't put you here,
you wouldn't have sat down long enough to tell me anything. So
now you're a bigger gift to me than gold. Do you see your life that way? See how this is so like, really,
is that what the text is saying? Are you actually following this?
Yes, I am. This is the outcome of the help and the salvation
that we think wrongly about our lives in Christ. We think insecurely
about what God has said is confidently ours. And when we do that, we
say, God, you're a liar. You're lying to me because you
say this and I see this. Well, quit looking at you and
look at somebody else. Look at the Father and see His
glory. The helmet of salvation gives
you right loving for the Christ of the gospel. You love Christ
and you can understand when Paul says, I pray that in my suffering
I may fill up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ and
I do it for your sake. We don't get to watch Jesus on
Golgotha, but we get to watch Christ's
people now. Do all things without grumbling
and complaining so that you may be a light in a crooked generation. Why? Because when you complain,
you sin against the cross of Christ. When we murmur and frown
and fuss and whine, we're saying, God, what you've given me is
not what I want. I want something else. And if we're seeking our satisfaction
in finding another job, or moving to another city, or getting our
spouse healthy, or getting our marriage healthy, or getting
our bank account filled up, or getting our bodies healthy, then
we're seeking something but Christ. And that's a dead wish. It's
asking for rotted meat out of the back of a hot garbage can
and saying that it's an awesome meal. Because we have been given a
new mind, our affections are changed, and we do not seek to
make our life better for ourselves, but we seek to make our life
a reflection of the power of the gospel. It empowers us to
establish right thinking, right loving, and then wise thinking. You may say, but that's part
of right thinking. Yes and no. Paul says to not
be unwise, but walk as wise people. And wisdom specifically takes
what? Focused meditation on the truth
of God. Now, here's the kicker. Here's
the here's the full power that holds it all together, as I talked
about last week and as we've looked at in Peter and other
places, God in his divine power. So the new mind, the salvation
of your mind, needs to understand and hold fast to the fact and
the reality that all that we are to do is divinely empowered
by all who God is. You see that? Well, I can't do
that. You're right. God's already done
it. So the power is divine. I think about Moses and the bush. We talked about him a little
bit on Tuesday. And Moses saw this bush burning, not necessarily
amazing thing to inquire about, but when you see something burning,
that's not burning. So you see fire, but the fire
isn't consuming that which it burns, you know, anything about
fire, physics, chemistry. It's just fascinating. Fire requires
a fuel and requires oxygen. Requires combustion to start.
And neither the bush or the leaves or the air around it burned. Because God is his own source
of power. Nothing was needed there. And then the fire went
out, and the bush was fine. This power is ours. Now, let me go ahead and slice
away some of this hyper-spiritualistic ideals. We aren't creators, and
we can't tell God to do anything He doesn't purpose to do. But
He has said that the Spirit of Himself is in His people. The
same power that raised Christ from the dead is within us, and
God has willed that that power will empower us to walk rightly
before Him by faith, fully protected from the devices and the attacks
of the devil. So the weapons of righteousness
are divinely powered, and they always work. They are always
in His power and they are always given to us. So that's the protective
power of the helmet of salvation. Let's look at the productive
power of the gospel in the mind, the helmet of salvation. And
we're going to read some things and believe it or not, it won't
be long. I like to say that we live because
the power of God in our minds, we live in the glory of God's
mercy. Not just to see it, we live in
it. We live in the glory of God's mercy. So we walk around with
God holding us, and all of His mercy, and all of His power,
and all of His glory is surrounding us, it's in us, and it moves
through us, and it works out of us. Why do you think they
use the word baptismal? You know what that means? That means to submerge or put
into. We are baptized into Christ,
into the power of the gospel, into God's family. We're adopted
in. We're not just brought to sit
in the seventh seat that faces backwards. We're not an adopted
child that, yeah, this is our adopted son, John. We're baptized
into the fullness of all that Christ is, so much so that we're
called the body, He's the head. Because we live in the glory
of God's mercy, then in Romans 8, 1 it says, therefore, now
there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
So because of the power of God's salvation and our mind, we still
feel condemnation, but we shouldn't because according to the power
of God, there is no condemnation. Conviction when we sin? I hope
so. Condemnation? No. That's why
guilt and unforgiveness of your own sin in your own heart is
a sin against the gospel. Well, I can never let go of what
I did. Then you're saying Christ is a liar because He said it's
finished. But what do we have? If there's
no condemnation, why do I feel so condemned so often? It's a
war. In Romans 8, listen to these
words. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do
not know what we ought to pray, or what to pray for as we ought
to pray. But the Spirit Himself intercedes
for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches
hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit
intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Now, I can't
preach that right now, but I have. But ultimately, you just need
to know that God works out his will in your heart and in your
mind, and you will pray and you will succeed in your faith. You
will preserve your faith. It will be preserved until the
end. And we know that for those who
love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called
according to his purpose, for those whom he For new, he also
predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order
that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those
whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called,
he also justified. And those whom he justified,
he also glorified. What then shall we say to these
things? If God is for us, who can be
against us? He who did not spare his own
son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him
graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against
God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Jesus Christ
is the one who died. More than that, who was raised,
who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for
us. Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation? Shall stress, shall persecution,
shall famine, nakedness, danger, or a sword? For it's written,
for your sake we're being killed all the day long, we are regarded
as sheep to be slaughtered. No. In all these things, we are
more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Listen to that. It's not I who live, but Christ
who lives in me. And I live this life by faith
in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." The
words of Paul. Now listen to the words of Paul. No! Were any of these things separated
from the love of Christ? No. In all these, we are, look,
more than conquerors through Him who loved us. What's a conqueror? A conqueror is one who's victorious.
What's a more than conqueror? Somebody asked that question
Tuesday night, I'd love to talk about it. But a more than conqueror
is one who gets to put their feet on the neck of their enemy. It's done. So we're more than
conquerors in Christ Jesus and the devil and the powers of darkness
and the sin and the temptation and the frustration and all these
things are under our feet. Ephesians 1 10. For I am sure," 38 and 39 of
Romans 8. I am sure. The NIV, I think,
says, I am convinced. It doesn't matter if they're
good words. I am certain of this, some translations say, that neither
death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor
things to come nor power nor height nor death, nor anything
else in all creation will be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. What is that? That means in your mind, sancte,
you have the power to not have to be held by worldly hope, and
that your full hope comes fully in the One who loves you and
gives you life, and His name is Jesus. The writer of Hebrews says, keep
your life free from the love of money and be content with
what you have. For he has said, I will never
leave you nor forsake you. So we confidently say the Lord
is my helper and I will not fear. What can man do to me? Hebrews
13, 5 and 6. So in a way of application, the
last minute or two. Ask yourself this question, how
do I recognize the persuasive plot of the enemy in my mind? Well, let me give you some ways
of looking at how the God of this world operates. The enemy
plots and plans with ideas. He plans with desires. See what
James says in James chapter one. He says that we are tempted because
of what we desire. But the enemy plots with ideas
and desires and lofty things, Paul says in Corinthians. lofty things that make us and
non-believers, listen to me, he plots and teases and tempts
with these things and these ideas and these philosophies and these
desires and lofty things, and what happens is then we feel
adequate and certain in our ability to peruse and pursue these things. And as Christians, we feel certain
that what we are going to do is honoring God and it's His
will. And we walk blindly into disobedience. Sometimes this happens when we
think God is calling us. And I put the big air, quote,
think God is calling us. Amazing to me how many people
said, I've prayed about this and I think God's calling me
to this. I know this is the way it is. And then I ask them the
very next thing. Sometimes I say, well, tell me
what God has shown you in Scripture. And they can't tell me squat
and swiddle. because they haven't picked up their Bible more than
two minutes. God calls us through his word
and meditated prayer on his word and from his word and through
his word. You can't know the will of God. If you feel confident
about something that you think God's called you to do and it
didn't come from the word of God, the devil sent you to it and
you're doing his will. And it can be the godliest thing
you've ever seen. Whether it's holding a sign out here, or moving
to Arkansas, or preaching all across Canada, it doesn't matter
if it's planting a church in Claxton, if the Word of God is
not the bread and butter of your soul, and the calling to your
ministry, or to your obedience, or to your move, or to buying
a house, or to getting married, or to having children, or to
taking a new job, and your church doesn't affirm that, through
the Word of God, you are living in absolute rebellion to the
Word of God. Sola Scriptura doesn't just mean
about the written word as we understand it, it means it has
everything to do with everything we are and everywhere we go.
That's next week, by the way. You cannot know the will of God
without deep prayer and meditation on the Word of God. Two plus
two in the economy of grace equals zero. What does that mean? Two times a week for a couple
of minutes a day, or a couple of minutes a time in the Word
of God is not going to cut it. Christian, you're powerless when
you're not in the Word of God. You're worthless to the church
when you're not in the Word of God. And yet, so many times we're
at peace with it. I feel a little guilty now. Stop!
If you feel guilty when you miss breakfast, just eat lunch. And if you do feel guilty for missing
breakfast, stop! Just eat lunch. The enemy plots through natural
means. He does not give us spirits.
He doesn't put demons in us and make us do certain things. I mean, he could, but that's
not typically how they work, how the enemy works. He provides
the world's ways and he offers what the world has. And these
things naturally meld into our thinking. You want to see how
the devil tempts the people of God? Look at how he tempted the
Son of God. He's not going to be any more aggressive or any
different in our temptation. He's going to use the greatest
power that he has to tempt the God man. And he's not going to
back up and punt, he's going to come just as aggressively
with us. So when we think of things and we consider things
and we desire things, we need to do something with that. Every
thought needs to be captive in Christ. Everything we look at,
it's like we, you know, we were moving some stuff. Bishop and
Brother Mike and I, we were moving some things, some pretty heavy
items. And there were some brothers outside the house yesterday,
and they saw us coming in with this heavy object, going up a
flight of stairs with about, I don't know, a millimeter clearance
upside this 113-year-old wood that I had just refurbished.
And I'm thinking, don't mess it up. Then I referred to it
as, don't touch my wood or I'll kill you. And then I verbalized
it this way, y'all, we've got to mind the corners. We've got
to mind the wood. Mind your fingers too, but I don't really care
about them as much. And so that was a joke. What was I going
to use that illustration for? Shot away. But ultimately, in
the end, you know, we come to think we know what's best and
and we need to take our thoughts captive. We need to put our place,
put our put our minds and understanding what is proper, what is focused,
what is right. And what's natural in the world
and in our thinking sometimes, if we're not looking at it and
discerning it, we will not be able to see what's around us
that's coming. And this is the point where the
dryer, the big heavy object. There's such a small boundary
there as we're taking this impossible thing up the stairs. You know,
one little wrong turn could put us into a bad position. Either
the wall is going to fall. Somebody is going to get hurt.
The whole thing is going to drop and then I'm going to get hurt
because my wife on the bedrest will avoid that and come after
me. So there's going to be some things that take place. And so
what we have to do is we have to be wise. We have to be conscious
of our surroundings. And how we do that is through
continual practice and meditation on the surroundings. I knew what
was there. Brother Mike knew what was there.
And not only that, but Brother Mike has moved fine pieces of
furniture in tight spaces for a long time, so he knew how we
had to get that. Some other brothers come in and
go, hey, I'm going to get it, just rarr, rarr, rarr. Well, that rarr,
it got on my nerves a little bit. I'm like, no, no, no, no,
it's not rarr, rarr, rarr, nothing. We'll set it up outside and wait for
another day. But they weren't aware of the dimension. Let's just get it up high and
get up high where there's a ceiling right there. Let's get it down
low. Let's twist it. Let's pick it
up over the rafters. Let's all walk together. Good intentions. No discernment. Know the boundaries
of how the enemy works. He provides the world's ways.
And sometimes we're not able to see them. Ephesians 4, now
this I say and testify, my Lord, that humanists no longer walk
as the Gentiles do in the worthlessness of their minds. They're darkened
in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because
of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their heart.
They become callous in giving themselves up to sensuality,
greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not
the way you learned Christ, assuming that you've heard about him and
were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to put off your old
self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt
through the deceitful desire and to be renewed in the spirit
of your mind and to put on the new self created after the likeness
of God and true righteousness and holiness. See, the reality is that God's
power in you is great. And because of God's grace, you
church have learned and continue to learn who Christ is. Dr. Sam
Storms out of the West Coast, he states that the weapons of
the enemy are this. And he gives a list here, and
I love them. Human ingenuity. These are the weapons of Satan.
Human ingenuity. Human wisdom. Showmanship. Flash. Charm. Persuasive personalities. Eloquence. Devoid of the spirit. Every arrogant claim. Every haughty
or prideful thought, every pompous act that forms a barrier to the
knowledge of God. For example, every argument used
to rationalize sin and unbelief and delay repentance or obedience.
Dr. D.A. Carson of Trinity Seminary
says that the weapons of the church, on the other hand, quote,
destroy the way people think. That the heaven of salvation
destroys the way people think. It destroys the way we think
in our flesh. It puts on the mind of Christ. He says it destroys
the way people think, it demolishes their sinful thought patterns,
and it demolishes the mental structures by which they live
their lives in rebellion against God. Friends, if you indeed are
in Christ, the heaven of salvation changes those things. So then how do we practice this?
Well, it's really too easy. But it's not so simple. Or maybe
I should twist that it's very simple, but it's not so easy,
because if we're not careful, we'll listen to the lie, even
in the context of rightly learning how to live in the power of God.
First, we must know the truth. We must know the truth through
the sword of the spirit. We must know the truth of the gospel,
not just know with our minds, but know with the fullness of
our being. We must be born again. If we continually try to live
a Christian life with no success at all, no power over sin, no
real joy in the word, something's wrong. We need to cry out for
God, renew the joy of our salvation. And sometimes it just may be
that we've had a mental faith and not a spiritual rebirth. But we've got to know the truth.
Secondly, we have to live the truth. Works without faith, without
works is dead. For he who knows to do and does
not, this is sin. We've got to love the brethren,
we've got to study the word, we've got to proclaim the gospel,
we've got to fight against temptation, we've got to flee sexual immorality,
we've got to put on the new self, we've got to put off the old
self, we've got to stop talking about things that are wrong.
We stop making fun of sin in the world, we stop entertaining
our minds with things that are filthy. That's not really filthy,
but you know what? Compare it to the righteousness
of God and all that he is. Most things are filthy. And we've
got to practice the truth. not just live it and know it,
but put it into practice. We've got to walk forward. That
means I'm going to put it in the metaphor that Jesus used
in John 6, because it really works in my life in this way. We must daily eat the bread of
life in Christ Jesus, who is the living word of God. And what
that means is that every second Not once a day, not a couple
of times a week, not on Sundays and Wednesdays and Tuesdays and
Thursdays, but every second of our life, we must always be depending
upon the sufficiency and the filling of Jesus through the
Word of God. We don't go to the Word of God
to get the answer to all of the specific issues. We go to the
Word of God to fill up on Christ, who is our absolute morsel, who
is our greatest desire, who is our love above love, who is our
husband. We are his bride. We're dependent
upon his sufficient filling and his sufficient power and his
sufficient worth, not our ability in walking in him, but his ability
in walking through us. It's not I who live, but Christ
who lives within me. Do you believe that? Do you trust
in that and do you live in that? The second way we put this into
practice is we put all things good and holy and righteous in
our minds. We put them there. We always
meditate on the good. We don't get inundated with the
bad. We don't focus on the negative. And I'm not trying to speak of
Joel Wallstein's false type of stuff. I'm talking about just
naturally what Paul has commanded to put our minds on the things
above. Sometimes Christians, we put
too much emphasis on what we don't like, don't do and don't
care about that we forget about that which we are. Votie Bauckham, I believe, no,
it's not him, somebody preached a sermon years ago when I was
a teenager in high school and he talked about the ratio between
the rear view mirror and the front shield when you're driving. When I drive cross country, I
drive in my rear view mirror. I really do. I know people coming. So it's bad. Don't do that. You will hit where you're headed.
And I'm interested in who's driving crazy behind me. I see people
coming. But typically, the average driver glances rarely and only
on occasion when needed in the rearview mirror. But we focus
where we're going. Such is with our hearts and minds
and focus on things in this life. We are reminded every now and
then about the sin that we have. We don't glory in it. We glory
in the grace of God and the perfectness of Jesus and we push toward it.
We don't look at all the mess that we've had in the past. We
glory in all the glory that we have in the future. We don't belabor all the things
that are in the present, that are just under our feet, that
we have no control of. We are actually rejoicing in the Bread
of Life, who is Jesus. We are sufficiently satisfied
and full. Though we might be hungry in the flesh, we are full
of the Spirit. Though we may be dying in the flesh, we are
daily being renewed by the Spirit. If we don't do this, we're not
going to be prepared to fight the battle. And finally, we test. We test all thoughts, we test
all ideas, we test all truth, we test all everything. 1 John
4, test the spirits. Romans 12, do not be transformed,
I mean do not be conformed any longer to the patterns of this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so
that you may discern, I mean test, and by testing you may
discern what is the will of God, what is good and perfect truth. Test. Well, I'm thinking this. Have you seen it in God's word?
No. Throw it in the garbage. I believe this way. God's word
revealed that to, you know, throw it in the garbage. I think this
is right, as God's word affirmed to you that it's right. Throw
it in the garbage. Well, I know this is right. Well, you're right.
But is it right for you as God's word led you to this and throw
it in the garbage? You know, preachers can send
preaching correctly the Word of God at the wrong time for
the wrong people with the wrong heart. But the good news is, is God's
Word does not return void. So when God puts it out there,
it always it always does that which it was purposed to do.
Next week, you'll see the reality of the power of the Word. Friends,
if you want to overcome the battle in the mind, you must put the
Word in it. You must test the Spirit. You must put all things
good. You must eat on the bread of life, which is Jesus Christ.
You must depend upon God by putting on His power, by grace, through
His Word. If you don't do that, it's like
saying, well, I'm not going to buckle my seatbelt, but I know
it'll save my life. And then you're going to call
me or another brother or sister up, and you're going to say,
oh, I don't know what's wrong. I can't get through this. And
I'm going to say, well, did you have your seatbelt buckled? Well,
no, but I think I can get through it. You can't. It's like taking
a plastic spork and digging a roadway. It's insane. It's insane. That might be a good evangelism
tool. You dig me a swimming pool? Quit
trying to save yourself through righteous words. Can you dig
to the other side of the world with this? And quit trying to
fight the battle in your mind with your own ideas and wisdom.
Where's the wise of this age? Where's the soothsayer? What
does Paul say in 1 Corinthians? There's nothing. Paul tells the
Corinthian church, I did not come with you, come to you with
eloquent speech and with craftiness, with skill, but I came to you
with fear and tremble, stuttering over myself so that all I preached
was Christ and him crucified. What does Paul say in 2 Corinthians
4? And we have this power in vessels of clay so that the insurpassing
power can be clearly seen that it belongs to God and not to
us. So nothing's different in our
battle and our minds. Friends, let me tell you something.
Every time you hear sermon, the war is in your mind. Every time
you think about walking with Christ, the war is in your mind. If the devil could give us diarrhea
at Bible study hour every time, he would. If he could give us
all cancer, he would. And if God permits it, he will.
And we can rejoice and praise God in the midst of it, and he'll
be glorified. Let's pray. Father, it is a wonderful day.
It's a wonderful day. We thank you so much for your
absolute power in our lives. And Lord, though there's so much
to say here, and there's so many things going through my mind
that I want to share, by your grace, Lord, that which has been
said is sufficient for what is needed today. I pray that as
we leave this place, as we gather again in the future, Lord, as
we share our faith, as we go about our day, that we would
be able to just powerfully internalize and apply everything that you
supplied in Christ. Help us to focus on the things
of eternity and not the things of this world. Help us to encourage
other people through our words and counsel to do the same. The Word that is given help us
to be saved through the saving power of Jesus Christ, who is
our hope. That the mind of salvation, the
helping of salvation is that we have indeed been saved. And
there is no way that we could have been saved apart from your
grace and mercy. Let us exercise faith in that,
in Christ, in that manner. not depending upon our actions
or even our own faith, but Lord, your faithfulness and the promises
that you've given to those who are yours. Lord, we again continue to pray
for those who are in need. And Lord, we pray for ourselves
as we need the strength to continue this life and this ministry and
this calling. And we pray these things in the
name of Jesus, our absolute King. Amen.