Fellowship as a Means of Grace in Helping Put On the Full Armor of God

Sermon delivered Sunday, August 23, 2009 at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Lewis Center, OH. If you would like to hear the audio version, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: 1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What is the Human Condition?

Good morning, St. Andrew’s! Today we continue our series of sermons on fellowship. You recall that we define fellowship as living life together in intimate relationships in the context of small groups so that Christ can use us to help each other grow to his full stature, which we define as Christian maturity.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus asks one of the most lonely, existential questions in the entire Bible. After having lost many of his followers because of his “difficult teaching” about himself and his Gospel, Jesus turns to the twelve and asks them this question: “Do you also wish to go away?” It is enough to break the heart, isn’t it, and we are left wondering why it is so hard for many of us to accept the Good News that is Jesus Christ and him crucified. Why do so many of us, even the most devout among us, sometimes (or even often) struggle to accept God’s free gift of grace in Jesus Christ? Why do we sometimes (or even often) struggle to believe our Lord’s promise to send us the Holy Spirit to live with us until his coming again so that we can open up ourselves and our lives to him and thus be transformed by his Presence?

Paul provides part of the answer to this bedeviling (no pun intended) question in today’s Epistle lesson. He reminds us that we are at war, not with other human beings or earthly powers, but with the Evil One himself, and he is a formidable and powerful enemy. In the book of Job we are reminded of the destruction Satan can heap upon our bodies, our homes, our wealth, and our families and friends. The writers of the NT call him a tempter (Matthew 4:3), a roaring lion prowling around looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8), a serpent (Revelation 12:9), and the god of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4). Our Lord himself called Satan a murderer and a liar (John 8:44), and who had to deal with him all his earthly days. Whatever your conception of Satan, it is a terrible mistake not to take him seriously and a deadly one not to believe he exists because that is exactly what Satan himself wants; you become easy pickings. If our Lord Jesus, himself God Incarnate, believed in Satan’s existence and took him seriously, we had better do likewise.

Paul goes on to remind us that Satan is not alone in this war, that he has demonic helpers to carry out his evil plans and murderous intentions for us. And because Satan is a deceiver and a liar, he will not stop at anything to bring us to ruin. Now we must not be too quick to ascribe all evil and suffering in this world to the devil, but we must take him seriously because as Paul reminds us, we are facing a powerful enemy who is hellbent on our destruction, and who will stop at nothing to get us to fall away from the faith.

What is Paul’s solution to this mortal danger that is Satan? It is to put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:11) because left to our own devices, none of us has the power to withstand Satan and his evil minions. When Paul  urges us to put on the whole armor of God he is reminding us that our spiritual growth and our ability to withstand the wiles of the devil come from God and we must call on God, who is stronger and more powerful than Satan, to be our defender. In other words, Paul is reminding us that it is God alone who can and does protect, defend, and transform us. It is not of our own doing.

Where is God’s Grace?

Now if you read today’s text carefully, you will see that God’s armor is mostly defensive in nature, and that makes perfect sense because Paul is reminding us that we are the ones under attack, and consequently we are to call upon God every day of our lives to help us defend against the Evil One. We are to put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the Gospel, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation. All of these metaphors would have been quite familiar to Paul’s readers because they would have seen the armor worn by Roman soldiers.

What’s more, Paul tells us that we are to take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, because as good warriors for Christ, God’s Word can help us defeat the wiles of the Evil One, much like Jesus did when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. This latter weapon is the only offensive one in Paul’s arsenal, but it is a powerful one because it refers not only holy Scripture, but to Jesus Christ himself.

In fact, Jesus’ struggle with Satan provides us with a perfect example of how Satan works (see, e.g., Luke 4:1-13). When Satan tells Jesus to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple so that God could rescue him (thus tempting God), he is quoting (or rather misquoting) from Psalm 91:11-12. Jesus responds to Satan by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” For you see, what Satan wanted our Lord to do, in part, was to test God, to “triple-dog dare” God to be good to his word when it was not necessary for Jesus to do so.

In this case, we see Satan using God’s Word, albeit incompletely and out of context, to tempt Jesus. Had Jesus not known God’s Word intimately, he could have been lead astray, and these days we do not have to look very far into the mainline Christian churches to see how the devil perverts God’s Word and darkens our minds to lead us astray. As we look at the whole armor of God, we see how much is dependent on us having a thorough knowledge of Scripture.

For example, how do we know what God’s truth is? How about God’s righteousness? If we do not know what living a righteous life means, we cannot attempt to live one and thereby help the Holy Spirit in his transforming work in us. If we are going to have the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as the foundation on which to stand, how well do we know it? A flimsy gospel will provide a lousy foundation for our lives, but God’s true Gospel will give us a solid, stable, and unshakable foundation on which to build our lives. If we do not know what the Gospel is and how it has impacted our lives, we cannot possibly stand on it in our dark hours or share it with others. What about the helmet of salvation? Do you know God’s salvation, really know it? If you do not, how can you ever gain an eternal perspective on life? How about the shield of faith? Paul is not talking about a saving faith in Jesus Christ here but rather about having a faith in the Lord’s ability to sustain, comfort, nurture, and transform us daily, even in the midst of all that can go so terribly wrong in our lives. Do you have that kind of faith? If you do, you have the power to stand against all that life can throw your way. In other words, if we are not intimately familiar with God’s Word, we cannot use it fight Satan and the multiple temptations we face every day of our lives.

What I want you to see is that when Paul urges us to put on the whole armor of God, he is most certainly not telling us to kick back, relax, pop open a cold one, and let the Spirit do all the work in resisting the devil while we do nothing. Yes, it is true that we must ultimately depend on God’s power to help us in our struggles, but like a good soldier we must be familiar with our God-given spiritual tools of warfare so that we can use them effectively in the fight against Satan. Make no mistake. Satan will not hesitate to use any and every weapon at his disposal to lead us astray. We must likewise be willing to use every God-given tool at our disposal to resist his attacks.

Where is the Application?

So what does all this have to do with fellowship, you ask? Just this. While Paul rightly reminds us that our spiritual victory must come from God alone, it is important to remember that fellowship is a critical means of grace to help us put on and wear the whole armor of God. A soldier who fights in battle by himself is easily defeated. Likewise when we attempt to put on God’s whole armor and fight the battle by ourselves without the help of other faithful Christians, we are more likely to be overcome than if we put on his armor and fight along side other Christians.

For example, when we enter into the accountability of a small group, we allow the Lord to use us to help each other in our faith journey. Are we helping each other to read the Bible each day so that we become increasingly familiar with God’s word and recognize when it is being misquoted or misused? Are we helping each other in our struggles with difficult biblical passages? Are we teaching each other how to study God’s Word contained in Scripture? Are we praying for each other every day as Paul commands us in today’s lesson? Are we worshiping God together every week so that we can enter into his glory and be sustained by feeding on his body and blood as our OT and Gospel lessons remind us? Are we helping each other be good evangels to our neighbors and other folks in our daily lives? Satan likes to darken our minds so that we forget about God’s mighty acts in history and in our own lives. Are we telling each other about our “God moments” so that we remember he is alive and well and working in his world? These are just some of the ways that God can use our small group fellowship to help us put on his full armor so that he can help us successfully resist Satan’s attacks.

Summary

We live in a broken and fallen world and life is often hard. That’s the bad news. The Good News is that in Jesus Christ, God has overcome the world (John 16:33) and promised to redeem it and those of us who believe in his promises. As we await our final redemption and attempt to live the days of our lives faithfully, we can do so with hope and courage because God has given us spiritual weapons to use to help us in our struggles and in our infirmities. He has also given us fellowship to help us more effectively put on his full armor so that he can better transform us in the living of our days. And because he has given himself for us in a terrible and costly act on the Cross, he has also made it possible for us to live with him forever.

Are you willing to put on the whole armor of God so that he will help you in your struggles? If you do not think you need God’s armor you are deluding yourself and setting up yourself to become a victim of Satan’s wiles. If, however, you are willing to put on the full armor of God, you are promised the ultimate victory, not only over Satan but over death itself. Fighting the war will not be easy, no war ever is, but if together in the context of small group fellowship you are willing to humble yourself, roll up your sleeves, and let God work in and through you as you do battle with Satan and other forces of evil, including your own fallen nature, God has promised you victory, both in this life and the next. That’s good news folks, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.