Sermon: "Buckle Up"

3rd in the "The Full Armor of God" series.
Delivered July 15, 2007 by Rev. George Antonakos.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

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Welcome again everyone. We are so glad you are here. I want to start out with a joke today. I hope it's a joke. A woman married to a really miserly guy, right and she goes window shopping and he says what he always says before she goes window shopping, "Look, but don't buy." So she goes and she checks things out and she tries on this dress and sure enough she comes home with a box under her arm and he said, "I thought I said look but don't buy" and she said, "Yeah I was looking and I was thinking about what you said, but I tried the dress on and the devil said, "That really looks good on you" and he said, "Well right then you should have said "Get thee behind me Satan" and she said, "I did," but then he said, "It looks good from the back too." That may be a dumb way to start a sermon, but it sure raises the question of; in all this stuff about spiritual battle, how much do we blame on the devil and how much do we blame on what goes on inside of us? And we know from other studies that there are two natures going on inside; an old nature and a new nature if we are a believer and Satan tries to exploit all of that.

We are in week three of five weeks on the "Full Armor of God" of how to do battle with the unseen spiritual forces, and if you remember Pastor John's sermon last week, he said and he made it very clear that just because something is invisible it doesn't mean it's not real. And so we are talking about the spiritual realities that we have to come up against. And so, in order to do this Paul instructs his friends from 2,000 years ago to put on the full armor of God. Now obviously it's metaphorical. It is something that we do mentally and spiritually and psychologically, but we understand who we are in Jesus Christ, because one of the things as we go through this life, as Kim was saying to the children, that we have to be prepared for is temptation. Satan's greatest tool is temptation; where he tries to get us to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. That's a great definition. We are trying to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. I was hungry, so I stole. I felt inferior, so I lied. I needed money, so I cheated. I was lonely, so I ran with the wrong people. I was depressed, so I drank. I was bored, so I let my eyes wander in the wrong direction. I wanted friends, so I gossiped.

You know the list does not end there. You can think of all kinds of things. And what happens when we fail, when we succumb to that temptation; it is like temptation is the left hook and then accusation is the right cross, right? In other words it's the knockout punch. See, you did it again. And then all of a sudden all of this stuff starts to come up from within that Satan hooks us in to. We suffer recriminations of shame and guilt. And one of his primary objectives is to get us feeling wrongly about ourselves and thinking wrongly about ourselves. If you buy in to that, you will start to feel down and then you will start to feel depressed, and then you will start to feel bad, and then you will start to feel unworthy, and then inadequate, and then worthless, and like I am nobody. And when you are there you are defeated and that is one of the key ways that the enemy tries to nullify our effectiveness as Christians.

And so today we are going to address the battle that can rage within us like that through looking at the first three pieces of armor. We will look at the last three next week. And we are not to just look at the armor, we are not to just consider the armor, we are to put it on. Let's take a look at this photo; a similar type of photo that we have seen a lot of unfortunately in the news today. I mean you look at those guys over there in Iraq and you know they are not wearing flip-flops, right? They put on everything from head to toe to prepare for their day. And in a similar kind of way, Paul is saying that even before you get up and your feet hit the floor you can run through this armor in your head and equip yourself for the day for whatever is going to come against you; to appropriate it. Now somebody might say, Well how do you put on something that's, again, an armor that is not real?" Remember again what John said last week. "It's not material, but it's real." C.S. Lewis said,

"We can't even picture the atoms that hold together our whole world, how are we going to picture everything that goes on in the spiritual realm?" "And even if we could picture it", he says, "It would not be worth believing, because we would just wouldn't understand"; in other words just because it's not visible, it's not real.

And so, let me ask you a question; is your salvation real? Those of you who have come to put your faith in Jesus, is that real? Is what happened to you real? Could you see it, could you touch it? In some ways when you look at the sacrament of baptism and the sacrament of communion, the two sacraments in the Protestant church, that's trying to bridge the reality in some small way between the material and the invisible. And so, in greater terms our salvation is real, but it's not material. The battle is real and you can't see it, but you can see the effects all around. So the armor we look at today is God's armor.

In Isaiah 59:17, I think Paul was thinking of these kinds of verses when he thought about the armor. It wasn't just that he looked at a Roman soldier; listen to Isaiah 59, verse 17: "He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head." That is speaking of God and speaking of the Messiah, of the one who will come. And so, when Paul is talking to his Christian friends, he is saying you know what, this is what God does. God does all of this on our behalf and so when you are putting on the armor you are really putting on Jesus. You are really putting on what God has provided. So each piece is a gift to cover us fully. There are no unprotected surfaces so that we will be able to stand against every attack in Jesus Christ. Now, let me read to you the text in its fullness. Somebody may not have been here two weeks ago and even though I am focusing on 14 and 15, I want you to hear the whole context again of this issue of the armor of God in spiritual battle. Let's again pray before we read.

Lord, we pray because we know that apart from your Holy Spirit we will not be able to understand or grasp what you have for us and so we pray that you would use these words not just as words of ancient times, but as words today to each of our hearts as we have need and we pray this in the power of the Holy Spirit in Christ name, Amen.

Okay if you care to follow in the pew Bible it's on page 830 or you can just look at the screen.

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should."

See we are to put on every piece so that we might fight the good fight of faith as Paul says in another context. So it makes complete sense that when he begins with these six pieces of armor or six pieces of military dress as it were, that he starts with the belt of truth. He says to buckle it on; to put it on firmly around your waist, buckled around your waste. There is an ancient idiom that we still use today sometimes; we don't hear it a lot in conversation, but we say it to people and if we are quoting it we will say "Girt up your loins" "Get ready" and people would be told and would practice girding up their loins and putting this belt of truth around if they were going to go out on a long journey or if they were going to fight in an arena or something like that; that they needed to wrap this girt of truth around themselves to get moving in the right direction and to be ready for what they were about to do; to walk long distances or whatever. I just heard a statistic on the radio last week that it's estimated by the folks who study this that 15,000 lives a year are saved because people buckle up their seatbelts. There was a time when there weren't even any seatbelts and there was a time that people didn't even buckle them if there was and even some may still not buckle them up, but the majority of people because they do it, 15,000 lives are saved it's estimated. So what a great image to say the first thing we've got to do is buckle on the truth of who we are in Jesus Christ; to be safe in him.

Now, there are three kinds of belts that could be referred to here. One could be a leather apron that a soldier would use for protection. Another would be something akin to a carpenter's belt where a sword could be attached to it, but then the third kind of belt is interesting, it could be a belt that demonstrates the identity of a high officer or a high official like a sash that is worn to indicate dignity. Listen to Isaiah 11:5 for a hint of which three it might be speaking again of the Messiah. "Righteousness will be his belt, literally his girdle and faithfulness the sash around his waist." So it's not like kind of like a warrior, kind of like that file photo, it's more like this dignitary who's coming and when you see it you say, "Wow look at that person." And so what does this say in terms of how we should use it in spiritual warfare? Well, the belt of truth is to be put on a deeply held truth and understanding that God is always faithful to us, that God is always for us, because one of the things that the enemy will do when we screw up is that he will say, "See I told you. It will always be that way" and like I said before all this stuff will pile on and if we take that belt of truth and say," No, we are somebody in Jesus Christ; even though we screw up, we are in him and so we are safe in the truth of who Jesus says that I am."

If you walk on the grounds of the service academies you can quickly detect the differences between commissioned and noncommissioned officers. You can tell by the stuff that they wear and their dress whites or whatever, scrambled eggs on their visor. If you go on the miliary academy you will see stars and medals and all this. I remember one time going down to the Naval Academy; it's right in plebe summer right now in Annapolis and I saw this one guy, this one plebe who was dressed like all the other plebes in dress whites, but there was something different about him and I didn't know what it was and my son pointed it out, he said "You see that insignia on his chest" and I said, "What is it?" It was a world, a globe and above it was an eagle and he said, "That means that guy is a Navy Seal already and he is coming in to Annapolis to become a commissioned officer, but he has already gone through Navy Seal training, so everybody would look at that and they go "Whoa" that guy you kind of step aside for, because you know what it took to go through all of that.

I say all that to say this; there is no distinguishing in the Christian body of commissioned and noncommissioned officers. Everybody is called as a Christian to believe that the truth that they have wrapped around them is that they are highly regarded in God's heart and mind, because of their union with Jesus. That is the belt of truth. That is who we can settle in on. That is who we are. And so when the devil tries to tell you that you are a nobody, you know it's a lie. The law came through Moses; am I keeping up, am I keeping up with the law, am I doing okay? Maybe I am not doing it well enough. Grace and truth, faithfulness came through Jesus Christ and in our relationship with him we are safe.

About a month ago one of our members who is here today Brad Santer and I got together at his initiative to talk about a ministry that we started dreaming about launching, because he had been helped in another context in divorce care ministry and other places and he had this burden; he started to talk about this burden that he had to help people who are struggling with the throws and consequences of divorce. So in a way, I guess I am sneaking in a commercial; I am putting out an initial call that if maybe you have struggled with that, either because you have personally been in it or maybe you have been a secondary sufferer of a divorce situation, maybe God might be calling you to be part of a divorce ministry team. I mean there is a lot of work to do and a lot of organizing; Brad is willing to be the point person. Brad, why don't you stand up so people will know who you are. Brad is right here and he is willing to be the point person to start to get a team together because it takes a lot. It's about classes and support and everything, but I thought to myself after I left, what an unbelievable arena of ministry to remind people of the belt of truth that they have around them, because so many people have been through that and they feel so poorly about themselves, they feel guilty, there is a lot of sorrow, they sometimes feel they can't be used as much in kingdom. I mean there are some churches that won't let you do anything if you have gone through that. It's very rigid and what a time to say, "Look, maybe your marriage is done, but God is not done. God is not done with you." Now it doesn't have to be just that; I mean we are not advocating divorce or anything like that, but we are saying we want to be wounded healers no matter what the issues are; to look at you and say "you messed up that bad, God is still not done with you if you will wrap on that belt of truth of who he is and of who you are in him."

Secondly, put on not only the belt of truth, but the breastplate of righteousness. This is a piece of armor that goes from the neck down to the waist and it covers for protection and the truth that we are covered in Jesus Christ and his righteousness. Now compare the two pieces; belt of truth and breastplate of righteousness. In some ways the belt of truth tries to guard us whenever we start to feel bad about who we are, overly bad and Jesus wants to save us from that. The breastplate of righteousness sometimes can really help us when we are starting to feel like we are too good. Now let me explain. The Bible everywhere condemns what is called self-righteousness. It's the belief that our own moral strength or goodwill can carry the day, even this past week.

I was talking to somebody and we started to get down to the nuts of bolts of what does it mean to be a Christian and we talked about I can know about Jesus and I can assent that he was who he said he was, but if I don't commit myself to him with my heart, exchange my life for his, give over all I know of myself to all that I know of him as an act of my will, then I am still shy of what the Bible talks about becoming a Christian. And he said that why I just believe that if I am a good person I will be able to make it. We just went through that whole conversation. Nobody is good. Nobody in the sense of good enough to bridge the gap that gets us to God, nobody is good enough to do that and so the self-righteousness, the breastplate of righteousness reminds us that in Christ we have been made good through him. So this whole idea of putting on the full armor, again, reminds us of why we are accepted by God, because again even Christians can get in to a performance mode and put on that breastplate and say, "No it's not my righteousness that gains me favor." God is not going to love me more or me less, it's because of Christ.

Author Robert Hicks wrote a book called "The Masculine Journey: Six Stages of Manhood" and he quotes a British psychiatrist who was studying the impact of the holocaust and kind of bring some lessons from that and the psychiatrist writes about as he went back and started to study this he said,

"You know to think that every guard who was recruited to work in concentration camps was a psychopath or a sociopath or a sadist would be to assume too much. It makes no sense at all to suppose that these people were all like this" and he continues and I am reading right from his book, he says "One has to accept that quite ordinary citizens of what had been one of the most cultured nations on the earth could be persuaded without too much difficulty and on an unprecedented scale to treat their fellow citizens with barbarous cruelty."

He says, "One of Jewish friends puts it even more graphically. Upon visiting one of the extermination camps he noted that in the middle of the camp was the commandant quarters. One went through a stone fence with a white picket door. Inside was a grassy lawn complete with a set of swings. My friend at that point uttered, My God this man had his children there. At the entrance of the house besides the door on a coat rack were his Nazi overcoat and hat. In the living room was a piano and with the music of Bach, Beethoven and Handel still on it. His next thought was this man gassed people all day, buried them with lyme, covered them over and then came home and took off his Nazi uniform and sat at the piano and sang Christmas carols with his children" And he asked the question, "What kind of person can do this?" And he answers it, he says, "The kind of person that I am." I have done the same kind of compartmentalizing. In my mind in order to carry out someone else's unjust wishes on many occasions the only difference is the degree and the job description. The psychology is the same.

Now listen to what he says now. Please listen to this.

"Until I realize the evil that I am capable of, I don't really believe that Jesus Christ means all that much. I mean, I know I am saved, but I have no real idea of what I am saved from."

I believe I am now just beginning, he says, to catch a glimpse of this reality after 25 years of being a Christian. Only now am I seeing how utterly incapable of righteousness that I am. What a powerful testimony; a powerful testimony of how much we need Jesus.

In a few minutes when this sermon is wrapped up we are going to sing a song called "Jesus, I come" and if you sing that with the understanding and in truth and you really mean it, you will be in essence putting on the breastplate of righteousness. You will be affirming again how much the need, how great the need it is to be united with him and come to him again and I pray that some of you, I don't know where you might be or how deep of a valley or how much of a struggle or what you are thinking about yourself or whatever, but again use this opportunity to again realign yourself with God in his righteousness and that's what leads to righteous living. It's not trying to be a person who lives righteously to gain God's righteousness. We are righteous in him. We desire to do that which is right.

Thirdly, and lastly for today he says now in Verse 15, "And with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace." Now this is a little hard to grasp, because commentators debate whether the focus is on readiness or preparedness to preach the gospel or the stability of peace that comes because we are living in the gospel. We are living in the good news of Jesus and the equipment that Paul has in mind was a heavily soled sandal that had metal studs, almost like a soccer spike; it was strapped up to the knee and so that when a soldier could get a firm grip to hold the shield or throw a spear or whatever they would stand firmly; they wouldn't slip. And so that if that is the emphasis more than preaching the gospel it would read this way; Put on steadfastness, because the gospel of peace is strapped under your feet, just like Jesus' truth, just like Jesus' righteousness, so he brings peace to our wounded souls.

He will ultimately bring peace to the whole universe. The battle is won. D-Day again, after that was all said and done, the battle was won. It wasn't complete, but it was won. And on the cross in the resurrection the battle is won and the whole universe will become subject to God in Jesus. Yes, there are many battles, but it's won. Let that peace fill your mind so that you don't have to do things to try to grasp for yourself, that you don't have to listen to the enemy to say, "Look, take this shortcut." No, hold your peace. Keep peace. It's won. Don't take matters into your own hands and if you do, correct it in his strength. Don't lose the peace footing by forgetting a life that is lived in truth and righteousness.

One of my favorite illustrations and I know I have shared it before and if it's too redundant please forgive me, but it just makes the point. It's about two kids who went to visit grandma's house for the summer, to their farm with grandma and grandpa. This summer grandpa gave his grandson a slingshot and he said, "Look, you go and practice with this out in the woods, you know trees, cans, rocks and don't aim it at anything living you know people or birds or anything like that." And he said, "Okay, grandpa" and he does it. He can't hit a thing, right? So he is coming back into the barnyard or the farm area yard and he sees grandma's pet duck and so he says, "Well I haven't hit anything all day. I might as well" and wouldn't you know, he pulls the slingshot back and the stone hits it, kills this duck, gone. He picks it up, puts it in the woodpile and tries to bury it, tries to hide the evidence right?

So he comes back in the house and there he sees on the porch his sister Susie who sees everything. She saw it all. They are sitting at dinner that night and grandma says, "Come on Susie, help me with the dishes." And so Susie says, "Oh no, I just talked to Johnny. He said he would love to do the dishes. I know how much he does, right Johnny?" He says, "Yeah" and she whispers in his ear, "Remember the duck. Remember the duck."

You know, I don't know what is getting whispered in your ears these days about who you are or what you are supposed to be in Jesus, but there are some folks who are saying "Remember this. Remember how you did this." Anyway, he goes through this like days on end, every time she is telling him the same thing and he is doing all of her chores, doing everything "Remember the duck. Remember the duck."

Finally, he can't stand it any more and he comes to grandmother and he sobs and he asks for forgiveness and he tells her what happened and she says, "I saw the whole thing. I was standing right at the window when it all happened and I already forgave you, but I was wondering how long you were going to let your sister make a slave of you."

And Jesus is standing at the window today and he is looking out and nobody knows what you are thinking, but there is stuff going on in your head and it's slave stuff and you are thinking in a way that's robbing you of your peace, because you are not assured of what the gospel shoes, of the ground you are standing on. It's the peace that only Jesus can bring that's brought us back to God. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Those who are in him have peace with God. So strap these three pieces on for sure, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, that gospel of peace under your feet and know who you are in Jesus Christ and don't let the enemy rob you of any of that as you walk faithfully with Christ today.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your love and your goodness and grace to us far more than we deserve and yet so powerful to tear down strongholds, to take captive every thought, to live as life was intended to be. Thank you that we are forgiven people and that because of your armor we can be better people. We pray thanking you for that because of our union with Christ and we ask that you would help drive this home to us so that we live in the mindset that you desire for us. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

© 2007, Rev. George Antonakos
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org