19 Mar 3/23/25 Eph. 6:13-15, 1 Cor. 12:7-11 “Our Gifts Are Armored!”
3/23/25 Eph. 6:13-15, 1 Cor. 12:7-11 “Our Gifts Are Armored!”
Sometimes I’m in absolute awe as to how the world is put together by our wonderful Lord. I think that if we go back far enough in our ancestry, we are all connected somehow. Here is what I mean. Sharon is originally from Barnesville, about 25 miles SE from Fargo. A few years ago, she found out at a funeral that she is related by marriage to some of the folks at our Zion church, which is about 30 miles SW from here in a different direction. It’s a small world. Sometime later, I found out that I used to work with a man at the Post Office who is from out east and who is the father and grandfather of a couple of people who come to Calvary. It is a small world. I’m sure that we all have stories like this where we have relatives and friends in places we never dreamed possible. We are all connected. Last week we talked about how John and James’ mother asked a favor of Jesus. There was a connection of this to our spiritual gifts. As a matter of fact, if you become a student of the Bible, you will find that everything is connected. The Old Testament and New Testament have so many connections and cross connections that it will almost make your head spin. Today, we are going to look at a few of our gifts and see how they are connected to our spiritual armor.
I have read many stories and so have you, about the bully who steals lunch money or something else from younger children. I have heard real life stories like this ever since our children were young. I do not condone this type of behavior at all. However, I don’t think more laws are going to solve this age old dilemma. The way to solve the problem of bullying is by more church attendance and following God’s laws and not more human laws. Think about it! Anyway, we have this problem even as adults. Big corporations eat up small ones and it is considered good business and not bullying. Nature has always been ruled by the survival of the fittest or strongest or the bully. In our sports programs it is usually the bigger students that beat out the smaller ones. We call this good competition. All I can say is that life isn’t always fair and we have to learn to deal with it.
One of the biggest areas of this is the age-old fight between good and evil. One of our song suggestions this week is ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’. I would like you to play this and listen to the words. This is a song about war, the war between Jesus of good and Satan of evil. Far too often we seem to think that spiritual warfare is some sort of pretend game. There is no pretending for the homeless person who hasn’t eaten in a couple of days, or the drug addict who doesn’t know up from down. There are many, many real life situations that are the result of evil winning. We don’t want evil to win so let’s start acting like we don’t want evil to win. Let’s put on the armor of God and take His gifts to us to the world.
If you want to be a servant of God, then you have to begin by putting on belt of truth. Now this doesn’t mean that you have an actual belt you put on. This means that you arm yourself with the truth. This also means a little more than just telling the truth and being honest, although this is also very important. What Paul is talking about here is that you know that all truth comes from God and if you use the truth of God, then you will advance His ways.
For example, let’s look at one of the gifts of the Spirit, wisdom. We have talked before about how the wisdom of God is the only wisdom worth trying to achieve. The wisdom of the world is worthless. Therefore, if you are gifted with wisdom, it is the wisdom of God. I might add that if you have this, I would consider you to be a very wise person and so would just about anyone around you.
So you have been given this gift of wisdom. How in the world are you going to use this if you don’t put on the belt of truth? If you aren’t anchored in the truth of the Bible, then you aren’t very wise. Does that make sense? If you have worldly truth and wisdom, then you are not very wise. Although wisdom and truth are separate issues, they are bound somewhat together if either one of them is to work effectively.
Let’s take another gift. By the way, I’m going to be talking about speaking gifts today. Someone divided up gifts into speaking, service and sign gifts. I think there might be more divisions but this is all I will be able to cover in the time we have. As a matter of fact, there are as many as 24 spiritual gifts according to some. When I taught this class, it was about 8 hours’ worth of material. I’m sure you don’t want me to go that long.
Anyway, let’s take a look at the gift of prophecy as it relates to truth. According to Bruce Bugbee, prophecy is the ability to expose sin and deception for the purpose of reconciliation. It is being able to speak timely causing conviction, repentance and edification. It is to see the truth that others can’t see and warn of God’s immediate or future judgment if there is no repentance. There aren’t many things that are totally impossible but this is one of them. You cannot have the gift of prophecy without the truth of God. This may seem like it is pretty plain and straight forward but there are a lot of people who think they are prophets without the truth of God. This is one of the reasons we have such heresy as cheap grace. What I’m trying to say here is that you have to stay anchored in Jesus Christ.
The same thing can be said about the gift of evangelism. You are not an evangelist if you aren’t speaking the truth from God. There are many so called evangelists who are only trying to line their own pockets. There is no truth in money. Money has been the downfall of so many people. We need it to live and that is about it.
Teaching and preaching are also speaking gifts. I have told you before that if you don’t think what I say is the truth, then tell me. It is very easy to accidently slip into false teaching. All I have to do is listen to many so called theologians. If you let me get away with it once or twice, soon it will be 5 or 6 times and soon after that if will be all false. It doesn’t take Satan long to grab onto anyone once you start down the slippery slope of relying on things that aren’t true or the truth.
Let us move onto the breastplate of righteousness. One of the things that the modern Christian often does is to not protect their hearts. We need this when we start looking for worldly reasons as to why this happened or that this couldn’t possibly be true because it’s physically impossible. We have all heard things like this. The creation story in Genesis didn’t happen because it is impossible. Moses never parted the Red Sea. Jesus never fed 5000 people with little to no food.
People, I implore you to ignore these claims from the modern world. Ignore them and believe in God and Jesus. The more you believe in our worldly explanations of things in the Bible, the less you will be able to count on Jesus to help you out of your personal situations. This is just Satan trying to get you fixated on the big picture, the big worldly picture. He wants you believing in all these things that are not relevant when you have a death in the family. If you lose your job, the only thing that matters is that you have a strong personal relationship with Jesus Christ as He helps you. You have to protect your heart and quit using your brain as your heart. Don’t play Satan’s game.
This really shows up when you start to use your spiritual gifts. When was the last time you heard a wise person tell you that there are many things wrong in the Bible? I would like to add that I have never heard of a wise atheist. They just don’t exist because to have wisdom, you have to believe in God. As a matter of fact, you have to believe in Jesus with all your heart, soul and mind. This is the first step into wisdom. Then you will find yourself immersed in writings about God. If you have the gift of wisdom, which I think many Christians possess to some degree, you will be excited about learning more about your Father. You will be excited and you will want to pass on this wisdom and excitement to others.
And it is same way with the gifts of prophecy, evangelism, preaching and teaching. You do not have these gifts if you don’t have your heart in Jesus. How many of you can name some false prophets? How many can name some of the false teachers and preachers of the day? The list is endless. All you have to do to test these people to see if they are true or false is give them the old Bible test. If what they say is not what the Bible says, then I say to you run. Run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.
I don’t think that being a prophet is one of my gifts but I will give you this one piece of prophecy. If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your personal savior, you will be spending eternity in hell. On the bright side, if you know Jesus Christ as your personal savior, you will spend eternity in the glorious place called heaven. This is a prophecy for each person here today and for each person in the world. That is why it is so important that we confess our sins and ask Jesus to live in our hearts today. This is the only way to have the breastplate of righteousness and Jesus has made it simple for you to do today.
The last piece of armor I want to talk about today is the footwear of readiness. Now we all know that proper footwear is important no matter what you are doing and the soldiers in the day of Paul were no different. The soldiers had special footwear for battle that had spikes on the bottom so that if they got their enemy down, they could step on and kick the enemy with their spikes. This is far from a wholesome thought.
Anyway, we don’t have footwear like that today because our weapons are far worse and more destructive than in Paul’s day. But we still need solid shoes. As I get older, I realize how important good fitting shoes are. There really isn’t anything a lot worse than having sore or tired feet from shoes that don’t fit. It seems that you feel every pebble and inconsistency of the ground if things aren’t right.
Satan is our enemy and we need to keep him figuratively under our feet all the time. This is why this piece of armor is both offensive and defensive. In relation to our spiritual gifts of speaking we have to be aware that the ugly Satan is lurking around us at all times. He will get us thinking that maybe there is some merit to modern heresy. He will creep into our thinking as we think that there might be more than one way to heaven or Jesus would never do something like that. We need to be always vigilant against this evil being.
But also with the shoes of righteousness we can take the offensive. So many times we feel that we have to be passive in our loving Jesus. There are people here today who feel that they don’t have the weapons to combat Satan and the world. I say to you that you don’t have the weapons because you don’t want the weapons! The shoes of readiness are made for all of us.
Now you can have wisdom without acknowledging the weapon of readiness. Just by being ready to combat this creature is a weapon in itself. Being a preacher or teacher is a place where you have to be ready to defend your faith. Remember that when you defend your faith, the people you are up against don’t understand Christianity so you have to take that into account. They have no idea what love is. They have no idea how much grace means. To be perfectly blunt, they really have no idea about much of anything.
What I have been trying to say is that these gifts we talked about today go hand in hand with the armor of spiritual warfare. It is when you begin to integrate all the teachings of Jesus that you will begin to see real strides in your walk with Jesus. Along with this and just as important is your prayer life that we have been talked about many times. All of these things together help us to have a strong and vital faith.
Satan is powerful but he is absolutely no match for Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, Jesus Christ is absolutely matchless. He is able to supply all our needs at once. He floods us with grace that you don’t deserve. His mercy is beyond our wildest dreams. When He stands there is no one who can stand with Him. His power is beyond all the powers of the universe. He heals the sick and makes the lame walk. His knowledge is beyond all the computers that will ever be made. He was here before time began and He will be here after time ends. He is the alpha and the omega. He is righteous and the author of all peace. He is everywhere at the same time. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is everything to all people at the same time. He is so much more than this that I cannot even begin to describe Him. And even though He is all these things and more, He still has all the time in the world to talk to and listen to you. He will love you more than you have ever been loved before because He is the author of love.
Jesus has given us the ability to pray to Him and He answers even your smallest prayer. He has given us gifts and fruits to take to the world so that the world will be a better place. He has put in place protection so that we can do all this and more. Jesus loves you so much. We haven’t even begun to cover all He does. And He does it all just for you. He has your name on the tip of His tongue. Go to Him and thank Him for first loving you. Let’s pray.
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