Strong in the Lord

0:10Thank you for listening to the Sermon Audio Podcast for Crossroads Reformed Baptist Church in Rockdale, Texas. Crossroads Reformed Baptist Church is a reformed confessional Baptist church that meets every Lord's Day at 10 a.m. for Bible study and 11 a.m. for corporate worship. For more information about our church or for directions, you can visit us online at www.crbcrockdale.org. Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

0:40Turn with me, if you would, to the book of Ephesians, chapter 6. We will be covering verses 10 to 12 this morning. We've made it to the final major section then of this great epistle. Before we get to those final greetings, which will be just in a few weeks' time. Over the past six to eight weeks, we have considered heavily all those ways in which we should walk worthy. All those ways in which we are filled by the Spirit, and by that filling or by that indwelling, we are spurred on to walk in faith and obedience. And that exhortation really began in verse 17 of chapter 4 when we considered that new life in Christ. But perhaps it is best summarized in verse 1 of chapter 5, therefore be imitators of God. This is the high call of the Christian to imitate God, and by that to walk in love, and to flee from sin. To flee from all sins. But especially those sins that Paul mentions just after that passage: sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, that is idolatry, these are particularly difficult, enticing, and dangerous. And so Paul exhorted to look carefully how we walk, and to walk according to the wisdom of God and not the wisdom of man. To make best use of our time, he said, to stay sober and sober-minded, to never neglect the gathering or the worshiping together. And to this end, that is, imitating God or walking worthy of him, Paul got even more practical for us the past few weeks, addressing specifically how that looks in the home, how that looks in family, how that looks in marriage, how that looks in our vocations. All of these things then, our personal lives, our minds, our spiritual lives, our wills, as well as our external life, that is, our family, our friends, our church, our home, our work, must all be brought under the authority of God, must be brought into obedience to Christ, and must be renewed into the image of the one who made all of these things perfect in the beginning. All sounds great in theory, right? It's good church talk. We can all nod and say yes and amen to all of those things. And we can even deep in our hearts genuinely desire all of those things. But still sit with the question, okay, but how do I do that? Maybe you like the idea of sanctification and transformation, but don't even know how to start, or to continue progressing. This is how Paul finishes perhaps his most eloquent exposition of the gospel and its application throughout the book of Ephesians. We begin to end where we started this whole thing way back in January. We know now, though, who God is, what he has done for us, what a worthy walk looks like. We finish then by seeing how such a walk is even possible. And that's what we will endeavor to do over the next few weeks. So let me ask you to stand once more then as we read our text this morning. Ephesians chapter 6, starting in verse 10. 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. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, we thank you always for your word. We pray and ask now, Lord, by your Spirit, would you illuminate this word? Lord, would you give us ears to hear and hearts to receive the exhortation and the encouragement that you have for us this morning? It's in the name of Christ that I pray. Amen. From how the text is given to us, but I do think it's important when considering this idea of walking by faith and obedience, when we consider how that is even possible, that we first understand that there is a formidable enemy against us in this fight. And that the fight of faithfulness is indeed a real fight. Satan and his legion of fallen ones are real, church. They are active. And they will corrupt everything they can until they are fully and finally cast into that place of torment on that last day. Verse 12, then from our text, said, 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. This is the battlefront of the enemy. The war for the world, the war for culture, the war for personal obedience, the war for transformation into the image of God is a battle against the wicked, corrupted spiritual realm. And so often we lose battles because we lose sight of who and what we are fighting against. Or we don't realize perhaps how menacing the enemy really is. The fight for holiness and purity and godliness isn't really against the internet, or against your phone that seeks to rob all of your time and freedoms. It isn't against your job or money that seek to divide your interest and pull you into these pursuits of personal gain. Those are some examples, but these are all weapons of war in the hands of the enemy that takes that which is good. Access to information, knowledge, work, family, marriage, even politics. And he mocks them. He bends them into instruments of his warfare. This is the point that is so masterfully illustrated by Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. Speaking of the shadow or the darkness that spawned those evil orcs, if you're familiar with the story, says this the shadow that bred them can only mock. It cannot make. Not real things of its own. And then Frodo says that it did not truly give life to the orcs, but only ruined them and twisted them. So when Paul says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, what he is communicating is that this war is ultimately not against the thing itself, but against the corrupter, against the mocker, against the ruiner, the deceiver, the one who divides and twists and perverts because this is all that he can do. How often in our peril do we personify those weapons that the enemy uses? And then we focus on them instead of the enemy. The internet is going to be the death of us, we might say. Our phones are going to ruin us. AI is going to end the world. The Democrats are going to destroy the country. Have you ever said that? The enemy loves this. Because we spend all our time worrying about a device in our pocket or a politician in Washington, or we blame all the problems on that which is bent. Maybe you feel like all your problems are a nagging wife, or a harsh husband, or a selfish boss, or whatever you want to come up with, and if I could just fix all of that, then life would be better. All will be well. The real battle is against the shadow, against the corrupter, against the evil one. The real war is against sin. This is what's so clearly shown to us in the book of Job. When God says to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? And in reply, Satan says, You're too good to him. Let me corrupt what is good in his life and see how long he continues to worship you. What is left then when we strip away all of the stuff? Well, there's light and there's darkness. There's good and there's evil. There's the God who made all things and the evil who corrupts all of those things. So who is the real enemy?

12:25The corrupter. And sin.

12:32It's only when we know who our enemy is that we can make true advancements against him. Church. This is giving a win to the evil one. Only when we know that may we be spurred on to say, no, I will not give a victory to him or to sin. I don't care how tempting it may be. I will not allow the enemy to have a victory over me because any victory the enemy has over you is a small victory for him against God. Do you understand that? We're all in Christ now, remember. We're members of the same body with him. We're together, all members of the same body, and the spiritual forces in hell rejoice when we fall for their corruptions of good. They rejoice because they cannot corrupt God. They tried and failed to corrupt our Lord. So the only way they can get to Him is to corrupt you, to make you fall and fail, to frustrate you, to force you into black backsliding in your march towards holiness. Do not give in, church. Resistance then begins with the proper understanding of the enemy and his potency. I will say, though, that too often we give the devil credit where credit is not due to him. You can't blame him for everything, as though he is the instrumental cause of everything that is wrong or bad in your life, and that you are simply a victim of his schemes. Surely the enemy is involved in some primary or secondary way, but your own sin is very often the culprit. Nevertheless, the enemy knows this and he uses this. Let me give you a few examples from Scripture. 1 Chronicles 21, verse 1, then Satan stood against Israel and incited David. He actively seeks to lead David into sin. Zechariah 3, verses 1 to 2, Joshua the high priest stands before the angel of the Lord, and Satan stands there accusing him. So Satan stands as an accuser of God's people. Matthew 13, as the parable of the sower, Jesus explains that the evil one is the one who snatches away the word. He's the one who sows the weeds. 1 Corinthians 7, verse 5, Paul warns that Satan tempts the unmarried to sin through their lack of self-control. 2 Corinthians 2, verse 10, Paul, in regards to overcoming bitterness and unforgiveness, he says, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs. Satan is trying to outwit us. Ephesians 4, verse 26, we are commanded not to harbor anger, for such will give an opportunity for the devil. 2 Timothy 2, verse 25, Paul guides us to correct our opponents with gentleness that they may come back to their senses, having been captured by Satan, he says, to do his will. So Satan accuses, he entices to sin, he snatches the word from us. He tempts us in our lack of self-control. He tries to outwit us. He seizes upon opportunities that we give him in our own sin. The battle that we fight is real. And we must fight. And this battle that we must fight is against the evil one. And it's against our own sin, which he uses against us. These are at our disposal. Verse 10, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. We often say with respect to the sinner's prayer, that is ever so popular in our modern times. And this sinner's prayer supposes that all involved, or that all that is involved in salvation, is the repetition back of some pastoral scripted prayer, right? As though eternal life is given simply to those who, through pressure or emotion, or coercion, say this proper incantation to receive eternal life. That's closer to witchcraft than the gospel. When we say in such rebuttal to this, that the gospel is far deeper than simply knowing the right things to say, or simply saying the right things. The Spirit, when he moves and truly moves upon a person, revealing the true nature of their sin, revealing the true glory of God, the heart desires not simply to repeat an incantation to get out of hell, through some mechanical recitation, but rather a longing to be made right with God and astirred in their affections towards Him. In the same way, then, we must not consider this command this morning, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might as some incantation that you can simply repeat to yourself to help you overcome temptation. It doesn't work like that. This is not a spell book. It is the living and active word of God, and it is communicating not words to fix your problems, but truth to change your heart. So in the face of our own sin and the schemes of Satan coming after us, what is the truth this morning and how does it change us truly? Aside from what we just labored over, that the great strength, that great strength is required to overcome the forces of evil and our own sin. The truth is that our good and gracious God really does offer to us his strength and his might to stand against the evil one. Let me give you two examples to demonstrate the magnitude of the might of the Lord. I'm not going to bore you with the science mostly because I don't even know all the science. But consider for a second our sun, which is essentially a giant nuclear reactor. It produces, according to people who are smart, 3.8 times 10 to the 26 joules of energy every second. Let me put that into perspective for you. That amount of power is so staggering that one second of energy from the sun, one second of energy from the sun is enough to power to supply the entire world's needs for some 700,000 years. And the sun, by comparison, As a small star in our perhaps infinitely large universe, our minds cannot even comprehend or compute the amount of power that is churned out by the whole of our universe every second. It's unfathomable power. This leads us to ask then, from where did all that power come from? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and the darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.

22:55And God saw that the light was good. And again, in the beginning was the word.

23:10And the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. And without him not anything, not and sorry, and without him was not anything made that has been made. In him was life. And the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The fullness then of that inestimable power originated and flowed from the Word of God, from the mouth and mind of God, from the Word made flesh, the person of Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God. This is where that power comes from. And that power now given to you. So to stand in the strength of his might is to stand in nothing less than the power that created the whole of the universe. The power that sustains all things, that gives life and breath to all things. This power is quite honestly more than words could ever express. The prophet Isaiah foretells of a man who had come from God and speaks of him in this way. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Assuredly, he has borne our griefs, and he has carried away our sorrows, yet we esteem him stricken and spitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with him and with his wounds we are healed. All like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. What kind of strength does it take for a man to bear the griefs and sorrows of the whole world? How much strength is required for a man to take upon himself the transgressions of billions, perhaps? How much might is required to have laid upon himself the iniquities of us all? I don't know about you, but my own sins at times are unbearable. But the sins of all? The power required to carry the full weight of sin, of grief, of sorrow, of transgressions, and iniquity is as unfathomable as the power of a trillion sons. But this is the strength of his might. This is the power of the Lord that we are called to be strong in. This is the source and supply of power given and available to you to stand against the enemy, to fight against your own sin. This is the might that is, if you by grace through faith have received the inner working of the Holy Spirit living in you, it's dwelling in you. Yet we complain about the fact that we're not strong enough to resist sin, don't we? We complain that we're not strong enough to fight temptation. We complain that we're too weak to battle the sins of our mind or to fight our emotions or to overcome our sinful desires. Of course you are too weak. Of course, you don't even have an ounce of strength required to come even close to mounting any sort of resistance. But praise and thanks be to God. That he has never asked you to stand in your own strength, but in his. Amen. To secure your eternal freedom, to secure your everlasting security, but we are in no way transported instantly through time to reap the fruits of that victory. Though the victory has been won, the battle today still wages on. But the grace of Christ is this: He has shown you the end. He has given you this blessed opportunity to lay on your deathbed, to taste death, to see the end, to see that glorious victory that awaits, to glimpse that victory feast when all will gather and sing and shout the victory. He shows us that.

36:21It is finished, he says. Now stand and fight.

36:32What a grace and an encouragement that is to know that we do not fight in vain, but we fight from victory. This truth is indeed what makes life not safe but good. A final note then is that if all of that wasn't good enough or wasn't enough to keep us in the fight, our good and gracious God equips us with the armor. We need to fight like a true warrior. He wins the battle. He encourages us with the revelation of his victory. He empowers us with his strength and might to fight against the enemy, and he provides to us holy armor to defend and advance against our foe. I began then by pointing out that we often desire to be in this fight. We desire to walk worthy. We desire to be transformed in the image of Christ, to win those victories, but how do we do it? I pray you have seen that the answer to this question begins with wisdom. It's an understanding that the enemy is real and he's active. He's cunning, he's deceptive. There is indeed a battle raging, and we must fight it whether we want to or not. We must. It begins with knowledge that the unfathomable power of God is supplied to you to give you strength. You are in fact not helpless, church. You're not powerless, but by his grace, he supplies you with his divine strength and might. It begins with the revelation that Christ of Christ, that the victory is ours. Truly, the freedom has been won. So we are encouraged and empowered all the more to stand, to fight. Because we fight not from victory, or not for victory, but from victory. And next week, then we'll see how we actually use that armor that he supplies and to defend and to attack our formidable foe. But I'll say this then as we close. For those who fought bravely with William Wallace, there was still for them a bit of fear, right? Mixed with their courage, because their enemy could indeed take their life, and did. But be encouraged this morning and every day in your fight, and that we should stand even more courageously and fight even more zealously and boldly against our sin and against the enemy, because according to the promise and the protection and the power of God, we fight an enemy that cannot take our lives, as it is hid with Christ, and will never take our freedoms, because this was paid for fully by the blood of Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the encouragement this morning and for the truth, Lord, that the enemy is real. He is formidable. But Lord, you have called us to put on the armor that you have provided and the strength and might that you have provided, Lord, that we would stand against him. Lord, we know that we often feel powerless to wage war against our own sin and against the enemy. We often feel unworthy, helpless, hopeless. Lord, I pray for us all this morning that by this word and by your spirit you would help us to see this morning that we are indeed helpless, hopeless, and powerless. But Lord, it is there that you provide us with your strength and your might. And we stand with your armor given to us, Lord, and that we will, by your grace, see the victory. So, Lord, help us to fight against those sins and against the enemy. Help us to spur one another on, Lord, encourage one another, and let us boldly proclaim this good news, Lord, that you have indeed won the victory through Christ and through his blood. Ask all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.