We've all been hurt.
We all carry scars.
We can all overcome these things and be healed through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Let's build that relationship together right here.
Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
Hey everybody, welcome to the sanctuary.
So good to have you with us as always.
And if this is your first time joining us, let me just take a moment to say welcome.
Now, of course, we've been going through the book of Ephesians for a number of weeks now.
The first part, the foundation was laid, and then we started to get into the practical
application in our lives.
And today, we're actually going to finish it all off.
So really, we could spend several weeks going through each individual section, more so than
what we have so far.
This is really a more condensed, kind of compressed version of that.
Because there's just so much here that we can unravel, go through, cross-reference with
other scripture, the whole bit.
But I mean, for time's sake, we're not going to do that.
I don't want to bore you guys to death either.
Of course, if there's something that you'd like me to go into more depth on, let me know.
I'd be more than happy to do so.
But as we get started today, I would like to remind you that the word, it's not just
about hearing.
As we've been learning, it is also about doing.
So after we finish today, or even as we go through this section, I want you to take some
time to pray and meditate on how you can apply everything that we've been going over into
your life starting today.
So we're actually going to be looking at the armor of God, which is exciting.
Everybody likes, ooh, the armor of God.
Well, we're going to break that down some more.
Like I said, this is something that we could spend a whole lot of time on as well, but
we're not.
I'm going to continue to try to keep this compressed just like I have the rest of the
book for time's sakes.
Before we get into it though, there's something... Let me just say, there's other clothing
that goes on first.
A lot of people like to talk about, oh, there's the armor, but you notice there's not this.
They make it sound like we're going out, which is not the case.
So let me start with a question.
What's the first thing that most of us put on when we start getting dressed?
I hope you said underwear, and if you did, you would be 100% correct.
Yay.
Even in boot camp, it's one of the very first things that you get on day one.
You're given a bag or a little net bag or a laundry bag, but it's a bag of sorts.
Then you shuffle through the line with the rest of the recruits, and you get your underwear,
your undershirts, toothbrush, your toothpaste, et cetera.
Then you go and you put all your personal belongings that you showed up with into a
box, which goes into storage, and you don't see it again until you graduate and leave
the depot, or at least that's how it was in my day.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear it's a little bit different from one generation to the next,
but I'm sure it's not that much different.
Before you even put on your very first uniform in the military, you start with that base
layer.
Did you know that God told someone to go out and buy some underwear once?
Seriously, I haven't fallen off my rocker yet.
I'm sure that day is coming, but it's not today.
In Jeremiah 13, the Bible says, this is what the Lord said to me, go and buy yourself a
linen undergarment and put it on.
Now, depending on the translation you have, it may well say something along the lines
of a linen sash, a girdle, a loin cloth, a belt, or something along those lines.
However, when you think about it, it's all underwear.
It's important.
It has been for quite some time.
We like to think of people back in the day walking around commando style in togas, yet
the reality is underwear is and has been an essential piece of clothing for a long, long
time.
I bring this up because much like each of us starts our clothing foundation with underwear,
we all have different styles these days as well.
There were different styles back then, not quite the same as we have today, but much
like that, we should all have our own relationship with Jesus at the foundation of our lives
and then build up from there, put on those extra layers as he guides us in life, which
is the same as improving and growing in our relationship with him.
Nobody should be showing their butts.
No one should be showing their backside, that fourth point of contact.
We're not talking about kilts here.
Lord knows I have no problem with that.
Those of you who have seen my wedding pictures know.
All right, so let's get to building as we look at the armor of God and we start looking
at these layers that we're going to be putting on.
So those of you with your apps, your Bibles, or even if you're just taking notes, please
join me now in Ephesians 6 and we'll be starting in verses 10 and 12.
So that's Ephesians 6 verses 10 through 12.
All right, the Bible says, finally, be strong in the Lord and 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.
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood.
Yes, now depending on your vocation, you may well be called to have to fight another man,
but make no mistake about it.
The influence that's there comes from the devil himself and his influence on this world.
His evil desire to separate each and every single one of us from Jesus.
There is no doubt that we are in a spiritual war, not a battle, as some people like to
say, but we are at war.
If it was just a battle, we'd go in, we'd duke it out, and we would be done.
Ding ding, ring the bell.
Instead, we go from one engagement to the next.
We are at war with the fallen angels, demons who have the devil leading them.
And it is a struggle that everyone in the body of Christ, the church, will have to endure
until Jesus returns.
Now to help us, we do have God's assistant, of course.
God's there to help us.
He's there to walk with us.
Not only that though, he has actually blessed us with this extra layer of protection, his
armor.
Now is the armor completely 100% bullproof?
No.
It's armor.
And anyone who knows anything about armor knows it has its weaknesses.
Each piece has its strengths, each piece has its weaknesses.
That's why there's multiple pieces here that come together.
And that's what offers the protection.
Now, excuse me, knowing that there are weaknesses, you know, those little chinks in the armor,
that is what the enemy is looking to exploit so that he can turn us all back to sin and
put us back into bondage.
So don't make the mistake of thinking you're safe simply because you have the armor of
God.
Many a fool has charged into a fight under the assumption that they'd be protected and
they'd be just fine because of the gear that they had with them.
The gear is part of our many tools.
All right.
All that gear, all this armor, this is all just things that we have in our tool chest.
So they are all tools, our equipment that we need to fight the enemy.
But we cannot be saved by it alone.
Matter of fact, while it protects us, it does not save us because Jesus is the only one
who can truly save us all.
The armor is just here to help protect us.
All right.
Think of it this way.
If someone's trying to hit you in the eye, the natural instinct is to raise a hand, raise
an arm to try to protect that eye.
It's quick, it's natural.
You flinch.
However, you're still going to take a hit.
Now where that hits going to land is going to vary.
Maybe that eye is protected.
Maybe you weren't quite fast enough.
Maybe it's just the hand that gets hit.
Regardless though, like I said, you're still going to take that hit.
There's still going to be some damage done somewhere.
However, you add a little something to the head, a little head gear, add a little something
to the arm, an arm guard, some kind of paddings, that armor.
You add something there, you have more protection.
And ideally, less damage is done.
So it's not that you're not going to take the hit.
It's just that it's not going to inflict as much damage and you're going to be able to
defend and strike back and attack that much better.
Now moving along, Ephesians 6 verses 13 through 15, the Bible says, 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 your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel
of peace.
Between your faith in Jesus and the armor, you'll be able to withstand the war.
As you lean into Jesus with each ensuing battle, after all, that is where our hope is and there
will be many battles.
You'll be able to focus more on what's coming and how you need to respond because you know
you're going to have your gear and it's going to do its job to help protect you.
This is part of how God protects us.
The belt of truth here, let's look at that first.
The belt of truth.
The devil uses lies as his cardinal tool right there and it's been there from the beginning.
He likes to take the truth and twist it and spin it and anything under the 100% unadulterated
truth is a lie, which is what we have.
We have God's truth, which is far superior.
The breastplate of righteousness.
The devil likes to attack our hearts.
He likes to toy with our emotions.
And there's not a single one of us that can say that we've never lost our temper.
Our emotions are an extremely delicate part of who we are.
The breastplate protects our hearts from the enemy's attempts to attack it, to attack our
emotions, our identity and our trust in Jesus.
And then feet, fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
Well, that's easy.
That's shoes, right?
That's shoes.
Or in modern terminology, since we're looking at going to war, combat boots.
Love a good pair of combat boots, tell you what.
You know, as the Marine Corps calls them, well really pretty much any kind of footwear
that you have, you're Cadillacs, because they're taking you everywhere, right?
It's a big one.
No military force out there today moves without using their feet at some point.
Feet are important.
And the devil, he doesn't want us to fulfill the great commission.
So he lies and he tells us that it's way too big of a mission to fulfill and that it's
useless.
As a matter of fact, since we're talking about war, we're talking about the military and
everything, let's look at some military analogies.
It is about as useless as working for a chem light, a box of batteries or a box of grid
squares or an A.S.H. receiver or blinker fluid, an A.I.R. sample, a pad eye remover.
There are so many things out there.
I can go on with this list, my goodness.
However, God provides the motivation that we all need.
And let's face it, sometimes things get tough and we really have to look to him a little
bit more to get that motivation.
And that extra bit of energy, it pumps us up.
It gets us going.
Makes us feel good.
You know, it's like you watch a movie and you get that speech.
Just makes you feel good, right?
It's like a good cup of coffee in the morning.
And the good news, well, that's something that'll pump us all up.
Here's your shoes for you.
The gospel of peace.
The good news.
Let's continue on.
We're still in Ephesians 6.
We're looking at verses 16 through 17.
The Bible says, in addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, 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.
All right, so let's break these down now.
The shield.
Let's face it, you know, shields, they come in all shapes and sizes.
Some are pretty heavy.
Sometimes you've got to be pretty strong to pick some of them up, right?
You get stronger carrying it.
The shield is our faith.
It's our faith.
We could see the enemy's attacks.
In fact, we could see them daily.
Insults, name callings, other things that try to take away our identity or our self-worth,
you know, make us feel devalued.
Temptations galore.
Various setbacks.
Let's face it, especially when it comes to finances.
Financial setbacks, those hurt.
Those make everybody step back.
Oh man, what is going on, right?
The stronger your relationship with Jesus is, the stronger the attacks are.
It's just like when I was going to seminary.
I'd say, hey, congratulations, you're here.
Life's about to get a whole lot harder because as you draw closer to Jesus, the more the
enemy's going to attack you because he doesn't like that.
And it's true.
So all these various things, these various attacks, those are the flaming arrows.
Yet despite all these volleys that are coming from the enemy, you simply lift that shield
up and you know that you're going to be protected from that barrage of artillery that the enemy
has launched at you.
All the more reason none of us should ever let our faith waver.
Faith protects.
The helmet of salvation.
Now when it comes to helmets, if you've never worn one, let me tell you, you get used to
it, but it takes time.
They're never that comfortable.
No matter how well they fit or don't fit, no matter what you do to them to augment them,
they're just not.
They're not made to be comfortable.
They're there to protect your brain.
Sometimes they are fun to look at though.
Some of them can be quite intricate.
Just the other day we were watching Michigan play Washington in the National College Football
Championship and you could see all the various stickers each player had on their helmets.
Those stickers, it's much like being in the military.
In the military you go through and you have different accomplishments and different feats
and different things that you participate in and you have your ribbons and your medals.
Just like those ribbons and medals, each of those stickers stood for something that each
of those football players, each of those students had accomplished in their collegiate career.
In other cases, just looking at the decor, if you don't know what I'm talking about,
try looking at goalie helmets in hockey.
Year after year there is some mighty incredible artwork that is showcased there.
Absolutely tremendous.
I get blown away sometimes just seeing some of the stuff that they do to these helmets.
It's like, whoa, that is beautiful.
That's just playing awesome.
You've got to digress, a little rabbit trail there.
The helmet itself, the helmet is our very salvation.
It's our salvation.
Let that sink in for a second.
Jesus, Jesus paid it all for us.
Sometimes we get caught up in thinking about how to repay something that none of us will
ever be able to repay.
We just can't.
The devil likes to use that to cast doubt in our minds about God, his character, and
our salvation through Jesus.
However, the helmet protects us against just that.
So to protect our minds, right?
It's a lot like Magneto in the helmet that he wears in the comics and the X-Men movies
and all that, if you're familiar with him.
That helmet's there to protect his mind.
Well, our helmet does the same thing.
The helmet of salvation protects our minds from the enemy's attacks that cause these
doubts.
Now let's face it, protecting the head is key because without the head, everything else
falls apart.
In law enforcement, we're doing our training and everything.
Even certain parts, martial arts, the saying is, is where the head goes, the butt follows.
We use a more colorful term for that.
It's another name for donkey if you're curious what it is.
But where the head goes, the rest follows.
The body follows.
It is very true.
You push the head down, the body goes down.
You push it to the side, the body follows.
The head is central to everything.
So it's very important that we protect it.
And then we're armed with the sword of the spirit.
And the sword of the spirit is the word of God.
If you've noticed all the equipment that we have here, everything that the Lord has given
us, the sword is the only piece of this equipment, the only piece of this entire arsenal that
is actually offensive.
It can be used in defense, but it is an offensive tool.
It's a firm reminder that we need to be on guard at all times.
We need to mount a strong defense.
The more of his word that we memorize and we take to heart, the better we're going to
be.
However, there's going to be those times when we have to take the attack to the enemy.
Now whether it's attacking directly or if it's a counter attack, you know, lunch, cut,
thrust, parry, the sword, it's God's word.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, you are truly
my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
John 8, 32, the word is the truth and the truth will set you free.
When we are tempted by the devil, we counter with God's word.
God's word is freedom, freedom from sin, freedom from death.
In Matthew chapter four, the devil tempted Jesus.
What did Jesus do?
He fought back with the word of God.
Every time the devil would try to attack, Jesus rebuked him.
He countered with God's truth.
He mounted a strong defense and then counter attacked as needed.
And the devil left him, which is exactly what we're told in James 4, 7, in which the Bible
says, submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.
So, just like the devil fled Jesus, the devil and all of his minions will flee you as well
when you fight back with the word.
All the more reason why it's so important to read your Bible, to study your Bible, to
memorize scripture, to take it to heart and to learn it and know it.
Not just take someone's word for it, but to actually know the word.
The more you know, the stronger your sword is.
So going back to Ephesians 6 verses 18 through 20.
So Ephesians 6, 18 through 20, the Bible says, 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 Lord's people.
Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, 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.
So we're all geared up now.
We got it all on.
We got our underwear.
We built up those layers.
We got our armor on.
We're holding our sword.
We're prepared, right?
But what's happening here?
We're being told, pray on all occasions.
Now I'll remind you that prayer is simply communication with the Father.
It doesn't, and it shouldn't be this long wordy jargon that's trying to sound all important.
You just need to speak plainly and clearly.
And sometimes, especially when things are really getting busy, when things are really
heating up, you know, they're getting fast, they're getting furious, you're kind of limited
on time, right?
So a short or a quick prayer is exactly what fits the bill.
And remember, even though it's your relationship with Jesus, it's your relationship, you and
Him, right?
You will also need to remember to pray for others as well.
And there are a ton of needs that you can and should be praying for all the time.
Now sometimes it's hard.
Those are the times you need to pray the hardest, right?
Because we need to lift each other up.
We need to empower each other.
And sometimes the best way to do that is through prayer, right?
Because we need to take care of each other.
And part of doing that is through Christ.
It, you know, Paul was in jail and he was facing death.
It was a very, very real thing that he was facing at that time.
He didn't know where it was going to go.
He wasn't in a comfortable situation.
He was imprisoned, yet he was at peace.
He was encouraged and he was making sure that the church was empowered and properly equipped
to do the same, especially in those times when we face uncertainty, when we face hardship
and other attacks from the enemy.
So we're going to wrap, start wrapping it up here now.
All right.
In Ephesians 6 verses 21 through 24, the Bible says, Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful
servant in the Lord will tell you everything so that you also may know how I am and what
I am doing.
I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may
encourage you.
Peace to the brothers and sisters.
The Greek word here for brothers and sisters is Adelphoi and it refers to believers, both
men and women, so all believers as a part of God's family.
So peace to the brothers and sisters and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Peace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.
So that's quite the way to wrap it up there, right?
So what he's saying here is that while this letter is being written to the church of Ephesus,
however that's not where the buck stopped.
It was intended to be circulated among the church as a whole, regardless of where it
was located.
So the church as a whole, remember the entire body of Christ, we've all received many great
things from the Lord, many blessings, tools that unite us, equip us, protect us, and help
us to fight the enemy.
Jesus hasn't just given us support to get through a battle.
He has empowered us to get through the war and to get home to God's kingdom.
He's told us what we need in order to not just be friends, but to be family, God's family.
That's our time.
So remember, you are blessed, you are loved, you matter.
Now go and be the church.
Thank you all for joining us here today at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
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We look forward to hearing from you all.
God bless.