Standing Strong in the Lord's Power for Battle

A little over 100 years after the resurrection of Christ, in 177 AD, persecution arose in Lugdunum (Lyon) and Vienne, France. Believers were banned from appearing in public, attacked, looted, arrested, slandered, and unjustly sentenced to death.

The Christians did not just see this as merely a human conflict between flesh and blood.

Church Historian, Eusebius, described the Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne in modern day France saying…

“Our adversary the Devil, giving us a foretaste of his final appearance, which is surely very close, fell upon us with all his might. He used every trick available to prepare and train his followers to attack God’s servants. Eventually we weren’t just banned from homes, baths, and the market square; we were ordered not to appear publicly in any way whatsoever…” – Eusebius, Church History, 5.1.1–63.

Eusebius (260–339 AD) lived through the persecutions that Emperor Diocletian brought by his edicts which began in 303 AD. As Christians were martyred in provinces throughout the Roman Empire. Eusebius writes what enabled Christians to endure such trials…

“I myself was present when those events were happening. In that hour I could see the ever-present divine power from the One to whom they testified–our Savior Jesus Christ himself” –Eusebius, Church History, 8.5–7.

He saw that martyr’s strength to stand in affliction was because they were Standing Strong in the Lord's Power for Battle. With that in mind, please turn in your bibles to Ephesians 6:10–13. That’s on page 1173 in the NT in the Bible under the chair in front of you.

We have been working through the book Ephesians verse by verse this year as part of our annual theme of Building on Our Heritage.

Over the last few months we have worked our way through Ephesians 5 and part of Ephesians 6 focusing on how we live out our new identity in Christ in various relationships. We have considered what it looks like to live worthy of the calling we have received in Christ and how to live in love, the light, and wisdom with one another in our marriages, with our children and as parents, and in the workplace.

Then Paul focuses on the most extended section of focused teaching in the New Testament out of any of his letters about spiritual warfare.

In Paul’s mind, this is not unrelated to our relationships in the home or in the church. As you listen to God’s Word this morning, consider how God might want us to consider the spiritual warfare in our marriage, with our children, in our workplace, and in the local church.

[Read Ephesians 6:10–13]

Standing Strong in the Lord's Power for Battle.

2 actions we must take to stand strong when we face spiritual battles.

I. Depend on the strength in the Lord. (v.10)

The Christian life is described as a battle…we fight the good fight (1 Tim 6). Yet the source of strength for victory against evil and temptation is never our own.

We are commanded to appropriate the power of God.

“be strong in the Lord” is passive…so we cannot just empower ourselves. We must look to someone outside of ourselves. We need divine resources. Power that is supplied by the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because our identity is “in the Lord”

Through Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection for salvation from our sins, God has brought us into union with Jesus. We now live under the loving care of Jesus’s headship, no longer slaves to sin, and under the tyranny of Satan, the Devil. This union with Jesus blesses us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Jesus supplies us all the resources we need for the spiritual battle.

We are saved by Jesus and our identity is now created “in Christ Jesus”

• For good works, that we would walk in them…

Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Jesus wants me to see my identity in him as a soldier in his army for good works. We are enemies of the devil and demons. We war against sin and temptation. Some of the good works that he saved me for today are the specific temptations I fight against today from within and without…That’s why God wants me to put to death the sinful deeds of the body daily in my life. The famous phrase…be killing sin or it will be killing you.

Part of believing and embracing my new identity in Christ is coming to terms to this reality and purpose for my life in this world…I am a soldier in a battle that needs to daily to depend on Jesus’s strength.

Here are some common cries we make when experience spiritual warfare…

• “Why does it have to be such a struggle for me?”
• “Why doesn’t God just take this away?”
• “Why do I have to fight this like every day?”
• “This just seems too hard…I can’t continue like this”

It’s such a struggle for us…because God is trying to show us how much we need his strength and to look to him and not ourselves.

Why doesn’t God just take temptation away, because he wants to display his power in your weakness…he wants to manifest his power in the midst of the battle to give you victory and so you see he is sufficient to help “in the battle” and not just in the times of peace. As the Lord wants us to pray “deliver us from evil” by his strength.

We can wake up each day with the goal that I want to be able to go through my whole day without a desperate dependence and alertness for why I need to live by faith in Christ and depend on his strength. Such a view of life is contrary to the message of the gospel. We need a Savior. We need a powerful King Jesus working in and through us daily to do his will.

So, receiving Christ involves receiving my new identity in the Lord. This new identity means a new master, and my Master Jesus’s will is now opposed to my former master, Satan. Therefore, as an implication of my new identity is that I am now a soldier in a new army and part of bigger battle that has been going on for longer than you or I have been alive. We are born again, but born in wartime.

On those days when you feel spent, like giving up, and quitting. Maybe you feel defeated after losing a battle against temptation…Know that your King Jesus has not ran out of strength. His kindness is still available. It will never run out. His mercies are new each morning. His faithfulness and power is great. Therefore, we remember its not in us but…

Ephesians 3:12 – “in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.”

Go to him for the grace to help in your time of need. Depend on him…

Because of “the strength of His might”

It’s the strength of his might that gives the victory. The strong arm of the Lord is fighting…He is for us…and we are on his side. His side will win the war.

How great is the strength of His might? Your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power!

• Consider the strength of his might, whose voice created the universe!

• The strength of his might upholds all things by the word of His power!

• His might separates seas and rivers and by a wind of his breath makes them dry enough for his people to walk on!

• His power prepares a banquet for his people in barren land.

• His strength shattered the fortifications walls of Jericho at a mere shout of his people and sound of a trumpets.

• His authority raised up kings and turned back armies and nations.

• His control commands the winds and waves to obey.

• His hand healed the lame, deaf, and blind.

• And In his strength he has guided each of our lives through many dangers to worship him this morning!

• That’s why Paul prays that our hearts would know the empowerment we experience because of our relationship with the resurrected and ascended Jesus.

Ephesians 1:19–20 – “and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places”

Ephesians 3:16 – “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man”

So our strength is not…‘Not by our might nor by our power, but by the power of God’s Spirit working in and through us. We need to remind ourselves of his mighty strength daily so that we turn to him first in dependance in times of temptation and trials.

How are we supposed to be strong in the Lord? What’s our responsibility for how we gain spiritual strength for the battle?

It’s by putting on the full armor of God…

II. Put on God's Powerful Resources Like Complete Weaponry (v.11-13)

“Put on the full armor of God” (v. 11)

“Therefore put on the full armor of God” (v. 13)

There are several important parts to this command that are important…

First, it’s a command. We have a responsibility to get-dressed for battle and put on.

This involves active preparation.

We know that God is actively working in us to strengthen us, while we are living by faith to prepare for the battle and put on the resources for the battle.

We can think that we overcome sin and temptation in the battle as a passive spectator. “Let Go, and Let God…” That’s not what this passage teaches.

We can be more like clueless civilians in a battle rather than trained and prepared soldiers for Christ.

Have you ever experienced when the temptation came and that spiritual shot was fired at you and you were being attacked you thought….what do I do? You freeze, you panic, you just cower and give in.

• It’s not like we don’t have our General’s instructions. We must follow God’s orders for defending ourselves from spiritual attacks according to the Word.

So we must actively obey the Lord and put on.

Notice the second important aspect… “Full” or complete.

I am only going to be able to be strengthened to stand if I am availing myself to the full armor. I am not going to get by with just a few pieces or resources…I need ever piece that the Lord gives me. Next week we will unpack more of the specific pieces illustrated in 14-17. The idea is a fully equipped soldier.

• There are battles when some soldiers don’t have enough guns so a soldier just carries ammo hoping to come across a gun from a casualty of war.

• Battles where the arrows run out while the enemies are still breaching the walls.

• Fights where soldiers still need to march further into enemy territory, but their boots are too worn for the severe temperatures.

-So its not like there is needed resources for the battle that the Lord does not give.

Do you remember the scene in the Lord of the Rings when the fellowship is formed before they set out to destroy the ring and they offer up their weapons to defend them…Aragorn says “you have my sword,” and Legolas the Elf says “and my bow” and then Gimli the dwarf says, “and my axe.” It’s not like you only have to choose one.

That’s the amazing part we are putting on the full armor of God.

This is not the armor of some mere mortal.

No, you get to grab God’s battle garments!

That’s really good news. Because if it’s not God’s garments we got problems. Remember David before Goliath…the human armor was not what was needed.

1 Sam 17:38–39– “Then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with armor. David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.” And David took them off.”

The armor that we put on is battle-tested. It’s the armor of God, it fits the needs of everyone in every circumstance and never fails.

God is described as the Lord of hosts the Commander of angelic armies. And like a mighty warrior going into battle…

Isaiah 59:17 – “He put on righteousness like a breastplate,
And a helmet of salvation on His head;
And He put on garments of vengeance for clothing
And wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle.”

Not only is God’s armor described this way, but the Messiah’s, the armor of Jesus is also described in the same terms as God’s armor.

Isaiah 11:5 – “Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins,
And faithfulness the belt about His waist.”

Put notice that this weaponry imagery is really describing the character and virtues of God like righteousness and zeal and faithfulness. It’s also describing the works that God does…like salvation and vengeance.

This helps us then understand that practically what God is telling us to put on. We saw this earlier in Ephesians 4.

Ephesians 4:24 – “and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”

As one commentator helpfully summarizes the point…

“Essentially, then, to "put on the new self" is the same as donning the armour of God.” – Peter T. O'Brien, PNTC

So we aren’t grabbing physical guns and swords…put putting on…

"In other words, knowing the truth of who we are in union with Christ, cultivating the virtues of this new identity, and using the resources available through this new relationship are at the heart of what it means to put on the armor of God." – Clinton E. Arnold, ECNT

Paul makes this clear connection in other places of the Scriptures…

Romans 13:12 - “Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

Again, this armor language mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 in connection with the virtue of being sober or self-controlled.

1 Thessalonians 5:8 – ^“But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.”

Putting on the armor of light involves putting aside evil deeds and knowing our salvation in Christ, cultivating virtue in Christ using the resources that Jesus gives for our spiritual growth.

Part of the heritage of our Church, is growing in Christlikeness to be strong spiritually in the Lord to handle whatever temptations and trials come our way.

Do you put the same intentionality and priority to preparation for growing in Christ like you would if you were preparing for a health battle?

• Illustration of health battle/challenge. [diet, exercise, priorities]

As we put on the armor of God, it also spurs other brothers and sisters to continue to fight and turn to the Lord and his resources in their suffering.

One of the Christians eventually martyred in Lyon was the woman, Blandina…

“As for Blandina, she was hung on a pole [Click Picture] so wild animals could be turned loose to eat her as food…In this was she could spur on her brothers–even she, who was petite and weak and despised. For Blandina had clothed herself in Jesus Christ, her mighty and invincible champion.” – Eusebius, Church History, 5.1.1–63.

[insert picture of pole in amphitheater, Lyon, France]

A petite, weak, and despised Christian, Blandina, she clothed herself with the armor of her invincible Champion, Jesus Christ, and not only was she able to stand firm, but her faithful fighting spurred others.

Why must we put on the armor of God?

Because you are in a spiritual battle (v.11-12)

We need spiritual resources that only the power of God possesses in view of our enemy and the way that he battles. The battle is…

“against the devil’s schemes”

The devil is an evil angel. A created spiritual being that is not a human being that you or I can kill with a human manufactured gun or sword.

The Devil is…

Ephesians 2:2 – “the prince of the power of the air”

He is powerful…

1 John 5:19 – “We know . . . that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”

Knowing we are in a spiritual battle against such a formidable enemy, we are commanded to…

1 Peter 5:8 – “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Notice the Devil is described as actively scheming, he is an intelligent being carefully strategizing opposition to God and God’s church. We see various schemes that the devil employs throughout the Scriptures as part of the spiritual battle.

• Questioning the goodness of God and introducing doubt so we don’t listen to what God actually says.

• Deception and lies that are contrary to God’s Word in the Bible.

• Tempting us to follow sinful desires.

• Tricking us to enjoy created gifts of God in sinful ways.

These schemes are illustrated well in C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, a fictional account of letters between demons that illustrate spiritual warfare…

“Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden.” ― C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

But sometimes the schemes involve false teaching…and behind such doctrines is demonic activity.

He uses schemes such as using other humans to inflict pain, like rulers and authorities that imprison Christians…like Rev 2:10 warns…

Revelation 2:10 – “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

Tertullian wrote to Christians that…

“The prison is undoubtedly the Devil’s house. His gang of household slaves lives there. But you have arrived in the prison so you can crush him underfoot in his own home. Of course, you have already stepped on him when you met him in spiritual warfare outside those walls. So don’t let him say, “Aha! Now that they’re in my domain, I’ll tempt them with petty quarrels, or their own weaknesses, or arguments between them!” Let the Devil flee from your sight [James 4:7]…Don’t let him prosper in his own kingdom by setting you against one another. Instead let him find you well protected and armed with harmony–for peace among yourselves makes war against him.” Tertullian, To the Martyrs

Notice, that Tertullian mentions that the schemes don’t just involve prison…the battle is also in the relationships between believers while the attack is occurring.

Please don’t miss that the battle front for the spiritual war is not just out there in the public arena…it’s in the private arena of our heart and mind toward others. Like how you think and respond to your spouse, your children, your co-worker…

Remember what Paul warned us earlier about…

Ephesians 4: 26–27 – Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.

Do we view not sinning in anger and solving problems biblically as standing firm in a spiritual battle?

The Devil’s schemes involve tempting human people in your life to encourage you to curse God in suffering like Job’s wife…or to take a census in pride like King David.

The Devil means accuser because he accuses Christians before the throne of God (Rev. 12:7–11). So part of the schemes involve accusing believers….bringing condemnation when there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus and tempting you to think that the person and work of Christ does not apply to you by faith…That you truly overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of our testimony about confessing our faith in Jesus.

The emphasis of the battle is not against flesh and blood…

• “our struggle is not against flesh and blood”

We are not wrestling a human opponent, but spiritual foes! This is a close, personal grueling type of hand to hand fight. It’s a struggle…

• “against the rulers”
• “against the powers”
• “against the world forces of this darkness”
• “against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places”

The devil is the leader of these rulers, powers, world forces, and spiritual forces…in this present evil age…but Christian…take heart, we have hope.

Because of Jesus Christ we have been rescued and transferred from the realm of Darkness, no longer a slave under the tyranny of Satan.

What do we know about these forces against us? Jesus is…

Ephesians 1:21–22 – ^“far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet…

Even these powers are subject to the strength of the Lord’s might!

God wants us to be so well equipped by his armor that we are able to resist in…

• “the evil day” (v. 13) (Eph 5:16)

In Ephesians 5:16, it mentions we are living in evil days. Elsewhere…this time of the church is living in the present evil age…I think that the sense of this verse is that there are particularly intense times of activity from spiritual forces of darkness during these present evil age…for example like in the story of Job 1:13– Now on the day…Satan attacked destroying his livelihood and killing members of his family. Then Job 2:1 – Again there was a day… and this time Satan inflict Job’s health and body.

And when we avail ourselves to the Lord’s strength and live by faith in him…putting on his armor…you can stand firm and resist the temptation to sin.

So that you can stand firm and resist (v.11, 13)

“so that you will be able to stand firm” (v.11)

“so that you will be able to resist” (v.13)

Jesus is able to keep us from stumbling and will present us pure and blameless with exceeding joy…Adam was tempted by the Devli’s schemes in a garden of delight, we have a better Adam, a better head for humanity. Jesus Christ the righteous one. Who was tempted by the devil in the desert wilderness and did not yield to the devil, and even to the point of death on the cross he resisted Satan’s devices as he hurled insults, mocking, and schemed to use wicked man. Our Savior had the power to resist Satan and command Satan… “Go, Satan!

So if we live by the Lord’s Word and…

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7

Let’s Pray

• Lord may we depend on the strength in in you remembering our identity in you and the strength of your might. (v.10)

• Lord help us put on your full armor (v.11)

• May we be alert and sober-minded because of the spiritual battle we are in (v.12)

• So that we will be able to stand form and resist the devil as we seek to obey you and do your will.