"Know Your Armor, Part 3" Ephesians 6:10-17
- This message was preached by Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison on July 16, 2023.
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Audio Transcript
Thank you worship team for leading us today and all those encouraging songs. Just want to give you a little update of some people we’ve been praying for. As of last night, Joe Tompkins is continuing to improve. Renee said that his kidneys still are not waking up, but God is working there and he’s thinking, thinking better and he’s progressing. Bill Bore the doctor was happy with the surgery.
They couldn’t quite do everything they wanted to do, but they had him up walking and he may be coming home today keeping your prayers. Dale Ness’s family, he passed away this past week. His service will be Monday week and then Jamie Rose service is on Friday, so continue to pray for their family members. If you’ll take your Bibles now and turn to Ephesians 6, we’re looking at spiritual warfare. Know youw Armor, Part 3, Ephesians 6 and I will begin reading in verse 10.
Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to resist in the evil day. And having prepared everything to take your stand.
Stand therefore with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest and your feet sandaled with the readiness for the gospel of peace in every situation. 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. May we pray? Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you that it is sweet to us. Thank you that it instructs us. And sometimes it is painful for us to read, Father, because it touches our heart in areas where we are sinning against you and not behaving as we should. But we do ask that as we go through your word today that it would touch us where you want it to meet us, Father, to bring us to a better understanding of what you’ve done for us, to help us to see what we need to change in our hearts and our lives, that we might be more like your son. And most of all, Father, we pray that if there are any people here today that do not know true salvation, that they would come to faith in your son, Jesus Christ.
What he has done for us on the cross through his burial and his resurrection it’s in his name that we pray. Amen. Question number one of the test. Know your enemy. Who is the enemy?
Satan. Number two. Know your source of strength. Who is that? And presently we are looking at Knowing youg Armor.
We’ve talked about the Belt of Truth. We’ve talked about the Breastplate of Righteousness. We’ve talked about the Shoes of the Gospel. We’ve talked about the Shield of Faith. Today we’re going to be looking at the Helmet of Salvation.
And then next week, the Sword of the Spirit. I brought some pictures here for you to say. A visual always says more than a thousand words. This way we can get out of here more quickly. All right, so here you have a Roman helmet.
They look different because people were making their own helmets back then. Can you imagine if our army was making its own armor? You know how well we would succeed? Eventually they started mass producing them. But helmets could have been passed down from your father from a previous war.
But they were made out of a leather cap. And outside the leather cap, they put this metal on top of it. There was a leather strap that connected it underneath your chin. The top of the helmet was strengthened by knobs. They also put rings or buttons of metal that not only decorated the helmet, but made it stronger.
And they had a. A neck protector. Thank the generals for that. So if you got whacked from the back, it didn’t cut your head off. And then they were trying to protect your nose by putting that little thing there in the front.
Here’s another picture. You can see that there were some differences in how they looked, but they had the same basic design. So here’s the next test question. What was the helmet meant to protect?
Come on. Now, the kids knew the answer. What was the helmet meant to protect? Okay, so I don’t have to go into that so much today. All right, that’s what the helmet looked like.
Let’s go to the verse now, verse 17. And we are going to look at two words in particular today. We’re going to look at take, and we’re going to look at salvation. Because I think you know what a helmet does and what it’s there for. But we need to understand these two words, what they fully mean.
Verse 17 in the text says take, the helmet of Salvation. So that’s the Greek word there, I think, is decomai. I’m not really good at pronouncing these words. But let’s look at. Here’s a definition for it.
This word take means to accept an offer deliberately and readily to Take to oneself what is presented or brought by another. It means to receive that thing. And it’s important to understand because there were different words for taking. This is not taking. Where you go in the store and you steal a piece of candy, there’d be a different word for that.
This isn’t a word like you’ve grown something in your garden and you’re taking a piece of fruit off the vine. There’s. There’s more to it. When we’re talking here about taking the helmet of salvation, first thing I want you to see is that’s a choice. You don’t have to take up the helmet of salvation.
It’s a choice for you. That’s why the definition says to accept an offer deliberately. You’re choosing to take up what is being offered to you, and it’s not forced on you. The helmet wasn’t placed on your head. You had to take it up.
And not only is it to be accepted deliberately, but it’s accepted readily. I mean, if you were going into an army and they’re offering you a helmet, you’d say, yes, I’m at the front of the line. Please don’t run out. I want one. You would be excited and happy to get that, to see the purpose of it.
But the next part of the definition, it says to take to oneself what is presented or brought by another. In other words, there has to be someone that is providing to you what you need. You’re not able to provide it for yourself. This isn’t the tomato that you’re growing in the garden. It’s not the garment that you’re sewing on your sewing machine that you take up.
Somebody else is bringing something to you, and you say, yes, that’s exactly what I need. And I accept that readily from you. So that’s the definition. And there are three ways that it could be used. In the Greek language.
It could mean just to take into one’s hand. So instead of you growing the tomato, that’s me coming, and I’m offering to you the tomato that I’ve grown, because you’re not a gardener and you’re not able to do that for yourself. So you readily choose to take the tomato. You accept it, but it’s been brought to you by me. It also means to receive or accept.
Maybe you don’t necessarily take it in your hand, but somebody brings you a gift, or they bring some flowers to your house, and you say, yes, I accept that. Set that there on the table, but you’re still accepting it. But the definition, when it comes to salvation. The third usage here is what is most important. It means to also receive by the earth.
Because sometimes people give you something that you need and you can’t literally take it with your hand. It might be a thank you, it might be a word of advice, but it means to receive by the ear and also to admit with not only the mind, but to admit with your heart that you approve of this thing that you’re accepting. You embrace it, or you’re going to follow after it. So when we’re talking about salvation here today, it’s something that we hear with our ears and we admit it with our mind, but it’s deeper than that. We also admit it with our heart, and we approve and we embrace and we follow it.
I would use the picture of a wedding ceremony where the bride and the groom say to each other, I take. Take you to be my spouse. You’re accepting them mentally, but it’s more than that. You’re accepting them what with your heart. And then you’re not just going to set them aside, but you’re accepting them because you approve of them and you want to embrace them and you want to follow them.
So when we’re talking about this word take here, that’s what Scripture is saying salvation is to us. We have to choose it, we have to take it readily. We have to accept it with our head and with our heart. And it’s something that has to be provided from another source, which is Jesus Christ, because we are unable to produce it ourselves. The helmet of salvation.
We come now to the second word, soterios. In the Greek, it means delivering. It means saving, or it means bringing to salvation. And I want us to read through Luke 3, 4, 6. And we have to have this understanding that salvation is something that God does for us.
But we have to see here in the verse that salvation is Jesus Christ. He is salvation. A voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be made low. The crooked will become straight, the rough way smooth, and everyone will see the salvation or the sotere of God.
Luke is quoting from the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament, and he’s saying that verse was pointing, pointing to this day. And John the Baptist is this one who is crying out in the wilderness. And what’s amazing is in verse six, that people are not just going to hear about salvation. They’re not just going to sense it, but it says that they’re literally going to what they’re going to see the salvation of God because God had been the Savior in the Old Testament, but people didn’t see him, but praise him, that Jesus Christ, God came here in the flesh so that we could literally lay our eyes on Him. Salvation is in Jesus.
Jesus is salvation, and he provides that for us. Now, the opposite of this word, soterios, or the antonyms, it means destruction, loss, ruin, judgment, condemnation and corruption. Anyone who doesn’t have the helmet of salvation, this is what their life is. It’s destruction and loss, ruin, judgment, condemnation and corruption. All things that we would associate with Satan instead of associating with our Lord Jesus Christ.
The helmet of salvation. So what does it mean? We look here in the yellow up here as we get to the definition on the screen.
The main words are to take the Savior is to have the helmet of salvation. But to just say that a little bit more, to take the Word. In other words, to receive by your ear, to admit with your mind and your heart, to approve, to embrace and follow the Savior who is Jesus Christ. When you do that, that is to have the helmet of salvation. In John 1:12 we read, but to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God.
To those who believe in his name, receiving. We have the idea here intellectually and in our heart. But more so, even with the believing word, it’s more than just a mental assent that he’s the Savior. It’s taking him into your life. It’s approving of him, embracing him and choosing to follow Him.
I’d like you to turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 59. And when we go back to Isaiah 59, I’m going to be reading from the whole chapter. It won’t be up there for you. But before I do that, I want to read verses 15 through 17. And you’ll see how it kind of dovetails in with our Ephesians passage.
The Lord saw that there was no justice, and he was offended.
He saw that there was no man, and he was amazed that there was no one interceding. So his own arm, the arm of God, brought salvation, and his own righteousness supported him. He put on righteousness as body armor, remember the breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and he wrapped Himself in zeal as in a cloak. I’m about to read through the passage, and we could preach several sermons on it, but you’re going to have to be listening.
And this is what I want you to hear. That God was looking across the people of Israel, and he was seeing that there was no justice there, and he was offended. And we’re going to read through all the sins that they were committing. And then we’re going to see that they tried to weave spiders webs, but those webs could not make clothes to cover them. And there were just a few that they were looking for the light, but it was dark.
And there were a few that they said that they were stumbling around as in the dark because they didn’t know what to do to make their situation better. And what this verse here in 1517 says, When God looked around, he was offended, and he saw that there was no man that could take care of the problems of their sin in covering them, and there was no one there that could intercede for them. So God is promising here that one day he’s going to send a Savior who will be able to do for the people what they could not do for themselves. And that Savior, Jesus Christ, with his own arm would bring salvation, righteousness and salvation. So if you’re now there in Isaiah 59, read along with me, remembering what to look for.
Indeed. The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save, and his ear is not too deaf to hear. But your iniquities are separating you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he does not listen. And here we have the list of how people were in their hearts and collectively. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity.
Your lips have spoken lies and your tongues mutter injustice. No one makes claims justly, no one pleads honestly. They trust in empty and worthless words. They conceal trouble and give birth to iniquity. They hatch vipers eggs and weave spiders webs, and whoever eats their eggs will die.
Crack one open and a viper is hatched. Their webs cannot become clothing, and they cannot cover themselves with their works, because their works are sinful works and violent acts are in their hands. Their feet run after evil and they rush to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are sinful thoughts. Ruin and wretchedness are in their paths.
They have not known the path of peace, and there is no justice in their ways. They have made their roads crooked, so no one who walks on them will know peace. This describes the condition that no matter how good you think you are, this is the awful condition that you are in without Jesus Christ and why God had to send a Savior for us. But there were some in that day. And verse 9 says, Therefore some said, justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us.
We hope for light, but there is darkness for brightness, but we live in the night. We grope along a wall like the blind, and we grope like those without eyes. We stumble at noon as though it were twilight. We are like the dead among those who are healthy. We all growl like bears and moan like doves.
We hope for justice, but there is none for salvation. But it is far from us, for our transgressions have multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities, transgression and deception against the Lord, turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lying words from the heart. Justice is turned back and righteousness stands far off. For truth has stumbled in the public square and honesty cannot enter.
Truth is missing, and whoever turns from evil is plundered. This was the condition of the Israelites. It’s the condition of us individually in our spirit. It’s also the condition of our day. What we see, the world is like, but no man can do anything.
That’s why God said that it will be his own own arm that will bring salvation. And that comes in Jesus Christ. What is salvation? What does it mean? There are three parts to it that we’re going to look at today.
There’s justification, there’s sanctification, and there’s glorification. Justification means to be removed from the penalty of sin. It’s the event whereby persons are set or declared to be right in their relation to God. We’re going to look a little more fully at each of these. Sanctification means to be removed from the power of sin, set apart for God’s service with gradual purification from sin and progressive spiritual growth.
And then glorification means to be removed from the presence of sin, transformed into the likeness of Christ. So what we’re talking about is a past happening, a present happening, and a future. This entails all of our salvation. And we find them all mentioned here in Romans 5:1 2. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith in the past, we now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And we now, presently also have obtained access through him by faith into this grace that we now stand in. That’s the sanctification. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. We look forward to our future glorification. Let’s just look a little bit closer at each one of these justification beings.
To be removed from the penalty of sin. The event whereby persons are set or declared to be in right relation to God. It’s a legal term. It means that you’ve come into court and you’ve been found guilty. But the judge says, we’re wiping away everything that you’ve done.
You don’t have to pay any penalty for what you’ve done wrong. And not only are we not going to make you pay the penalty today, but we’re going to take this piece of paper with your record on it, and we’re going to destroy that. We’re going to expunge anything that says that you ever did anything wrong. That’s what happens in justification. Not only is the penalty of sin removed from us because Jesus Christ paid that penalty on the cross, but also our record is made clean.
And God says that our sins are as far as the east are from the West. Romans 5:1 2. Again it says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we now have peace with God. We no longer have to fear the wrath of God. We no longer have to fear eternal punishment or God’s vengeance.
Because as long as there was sin in our life, God cannot associate with sin. That sin had to be removed from us. It had to be eradicated and expunged so that in God’s sight we are now perfect and justified. And when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, now we have peace with God. And Scripture tells us we can walk right into his presence and talk to him because he is our Father.
That’s because we’ve been justified in the past. And I want you to picture in your mind there’s a swimming pool and there is a child that is drowning in that pool. Now, hopefully, who’s going to be there watching a lifeguard parent someone. So that lifeguard comes down and pulls that child out of the water and saves him. That is justification.
But now that lifeguard is going to continue to do what with that child? While they’re at the pool, the rest of the day, they’re going to continue to watch that child because they know that if they go in the water, this might happen again. So when we talk about salvation, past, present and future, that’s what Jesus Christ does for us. He saves us from drowning and justification. But then he doesn’t just turn his back and leave us to ourself.
He continues to what, Watch us like that lifeguard did. And that is what sanctification is. Let’s look again at the definition for sanctification. It means removed from the power of sin and set apart for God’s Service, gradual purification from sin, and progressive spiritual growth. We go to Romans, chapter 12, verses 1 through 2, where we read, therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
This is your true worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God. Paul’s saying, therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, in other words, because he has justified you, now I’m urging you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Now, this would have conjured up a lot of thoughts in their mind because they still had the temple. And at that temple, every time people sinned, they were bringing what animals, goats, sheep, bulls, doves, pigeons.
And they were offering those sacrifices to the priest, and he was placing them on the altar. But what Paul is saying here now, I want you to take your body and. And present it. I just wonder if they immediately thought, oh, are we supposed to go and sacrifice our bodies on the altar? Paul said, no, that’s not what we’re talking about here.
But it’s a spiritual sacrifice. And when you do this now, you are holy and pleasing to God because of what Jesus has done for you. We’re supposed to present ourselves. It means to set ourself apart. We bring ourselves to the altar of service to God.
And. And he says, this is your true worship, offering all the animals. Throughout all the ages, the Israelites had done this. But God is saying, I don’t really want the animal sacrifice. I want you to offer yourself to me.
And do not be conformed to this age, but instead be transformed. That’s that progressive spiritual growth whereby we become more and more like Jesus Christ. And we do this by the renewing of our minds. It’s the gradual purification as we grow in Christ. God shows us more and more things in his word that really are sin in our life.
A child gets saved at age 6, and they may not realize all the sins that they’re going to be tempted with. But as they grow older, they’re confronted with, well, I can’t do this because it’s wrong, and I can’t do that because it’s wrong. But even with adults that come to salvation, sometimes there are thought patterns you might not even realize are sin. But then one day you’re reading the scripture and God says, you need to deal with that. And all of a sudden a light comes on.
That’s this gradual purification, that we become more and more like His Son, renewing our mind so that in the end you may discern what. What is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God. So we have Jesus. He’s like the lifeguard. He saves us initially, and then he continues to watch over us so that we don’t find ourself drowning again.
But at the end of the day, that lifeguard’s going to go home and those kids are going to go back to their house, and that lifeguard probably won’t give another thought to, well, what if they drown somewhere tomorrow? But Jesus doesn’t do that for us. He doesn’t just save us and watch us now, but he promises us that in eternity that he will continue to save us. So that would be like the lifeguard following that child around for the rest of his life and into eternity to make sure that he never falls in the water again. Justification, sanctification.
Glorification is this promise of future and continual salvation. And at that point, the definition tells us that we will be removed from the presence of sin and transformed into the likeness of Christ. As Christians now, we still have sin in our life, and we suffer from the consequences of our sin, and we displease God. And we have to continually come back and confess that sin. We have sin all around us.
We have sin in this world, and we suffer from that sin. But praise the Lord, when we are one day glorified, we’re going to be taken out of the presence of sin completely. Romans 8:30 gives us this promise. And those he predestined, he also called. And those he called, he also justified.
And those he justified, he also glorified. Now we have to stop and think, well, those are all in the present tense. It sounds like he already justified us. And it sounds like he already glorified us. Well, it’s mentioned here in the past tense because it is already completely settled in God’s mind.
God isn’t waiting until eternity to find out whether he can save you or not. He already knows what the end story is. He knows that you are going to be glorified. Therefore, we can take great confidence in that. In the same way Scripture says that Jesus Christ was crucified from the foundation of the world.
He wasn’t literally crucified then, but in God’s mind He was, because it was done, it was over, and it was settled. So what this passage is telling us that we know for certain God has no doubt that we will be glorified someday. He’s not going to change his mind. It’s not going to be able to be undone of any other power. Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 15:51, 53, and we want to see a little bit, what does glorification look like?
Paul says, listen, I am telling you a mystery. Meaning this is something that’s really hard to understand. But what we do know is we will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed. You’re going to be different someday when Jesus Christ returns. And it’s going to happen in a moment, it’s going to happen in the twinkling of of an eye, and there’s going to be the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound and those that are dead will be raised incorruptible. Their spirits are already in heaven, but their body is going to be raised from this earthly place and made new and incorruptible. You have to think what a body would be like in the grave. After three days or four days or five years, it’s all going to be changed and made new, and we will be changed, for this corruptible body now will be clothed with incorruptibility, meaning that no longer any sickness, no longer any death, because we’re going to have immortality, there won’t be this birth. And then from that point, you’re gradually dying all the way to the end.
You’re going to be perfect as God initially intended for all of us. Glorification removed from the presence of sin what is the Apostle John tell us? In First John 3. 2, he says, Dear friends, we are God’s children now. That’s this period of sanctification.
And what we will be has not yet been revealed. But we do know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is. In other words, the. The apostles and others, up to 500 at one time, they saw Jesus in his glorified body, and they didn’t understand what that all meant, but they said, one day we are going to be like him. Ephesians 5 tells us the perfection that we will have.
Husbands, love your wives. Just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the Word. He did this to present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that. But holy and blameless, our sanctification. Here he is continually cleansing us with the washing of the Word.
That means as you spend time in God’s Word, he’s making you more and more like Him. And one day we’re going to be like that bride that walks down the aisle that has done everything in her power to make everything perfect. Want any wrinkles in her dress, she doesn’t want any spots on it. That’s what Jesus is preparing for us, that one day when we’re glorified, we will be perfect without spot or wrinkle. Let’s just kind of put this all together in one written out definition again what the helmet of salvation means.
To take up the helmet of salvation is to hear with your ear, admit with your mind and heart, approve, embrace and follow the Savior who is Jesus Christ. And at that point of commitment, Jesus saves us from the penalty of sin. Then he sets you apart for service to God and He continues to save you from the power of sin. And he will one day save, save you from the presence of sin and make you like Himself. Those of us that are believers that have placed our faith in Jesus Christ, we’re looking forward to that period of glorification.
I hope that I have hair again in heaven. I mean, there’s certain things that I’m looking forward to. Not that it’s going to matter, but it’s just, you know, we’re going to be perfect however we were supposed to be.
Then there are those of us that we’ve placed our faith in Jesus Christ. And right now we’re going through this process of sanctification where God has set us apart and through His Word he’s making us more and more like His Son. If we have those two things true of us, then that means that at some point we made a commitment to Jesus Christ and we accepted his gift of salvation. And that happened. When we look back at the beginning, we heard with our ears the Gospel.
We heard that we’re sinful, that Jesus had to die on the cross to pay for the penalty of our sin. He was buried and he rose from the dead so that we can have life. We have to hear that intellectually, but then we have to admit, not only with intellectually, with our mind, but we have to admit with our heart that this thing is true and we believe it. And not only do we admit this, but we approve of it. We say, yes, this is awesome, and we embrace it to ourselves.
And in so doing, we follow the Savior who is Jesus Christ. So my plea with you today is figure out where you are. Are you justified living in sanctification and looking forward to your glorification one day? Praise the Lord if you are. But there may be someone here today and you’re not looking forward to glorification because you’re not even certain whether that’s going to happen to you.
You’re certainly not trying to be more Christlike, and you don’t remember any point in your life that you’ve been justified. So to you, I would say that all you have to do is pray in your heart or pray out loud to God and tell him, God, I’m a sinner, just like you said in Isaiah. I can’t weave anything to cover myself. Anything. Clothes to save myself would look like spider webs that I’m trying to cover myself with.
So I have to trust you that you’re providing salvation through your son, Jesus Christ. And I don’t only know it, God, with my head, but I’m accepting it with my heart. And I approve of this. I embraced it and I want to follow your Savior. It’s very much the picture of a bride and a groom where they say to each other, I take you to be my spouse.
You don’t just do that with your head. You do that with your heart so that you can embrace them. And you’re going to continually approve of them and follow after them. I’d like us all to bow our heads today, because what I want to do is I want to pray a prayer that if you’ve never come to the point of being justified by Jesus, this is what you would say to the Lord in your heart. Dear God, I’m a sinner, unable to save myself.
And I admit that the only way that I can be saved is for you to offer something to me that will take care of my need. And Father, I understand today that what you are offering to me is your son, Jesus Christ, to be my salvation. I believe that he died on the cross, that he was buried and he rose again so that I might have salvation. And Father, today I’m asking you to give it to me. I’m receiving it not just with my head, but with my heart.
I’m embracing it because I want to truly follow after you. Father, thank you for saving me today. Amen. If you prayed that prayer, God has now justified you. You’re going to be sanctified and you can look forward to just.
I mean, glorification. Scripture says that there needs to be one more step, though not only do you express that to God, but you also tell someone else. So if you prayed that prayer today, I encourage you to find somebody and just tell them, I prayed that prayer today. And I am following Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, the helmet of salvation. We all know that.
It protects our mind. It protects our head from the attacks of Satan. It keeps us alive. Without Jesus, we are in a path of destruction. Without Jesus, we are at loss.
We are ruined. We are facing judgment, condemnation and corruption. But when we place our faith in him instead, we have deliverance. We have salvation. We encourage you today to thank God for what he’s done for you or to make sure that you have that right in your heart.
Today we’re going to transition.