All week we have
been encouraging the children to stand strong in their faith by trusting in
God’s love and God’s word and by leaning on God through prayer and leaning on
the people God places in our lives. As
you can see, it has been an awesome week and I know the children have learned a
lot, but let me say this as clearly as I can, our children and youth will not
be able to stand strong in their faith unless we are standing strong in ours. Children cannot stand strong in their faith
unless their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers and mentors,
friends and neighbors as well as leaders and members of their church are
standing strong in our faith. So people,
we need to stand strong because again, let me also say this as clearly as I can
- there are forces working to pull our children, and all of us, away from God
and the life God has for us.
There are
cultural influences in music, movies, advertising, television, social media and
the internet that are working to destroy the integrity, honor and value of our
children and our children and youth cannot stand strong in their faith against
these forces unless we are standing strong in ours, so today what we are going
to hear isn’t a message for the children – they got their message this week,
this is for us. This is a message for
parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, leaders and members of God’s
church, for the benefit of our children, for the future of the church, for the
salvation and restoration of the world and for the sake of Jesus Christ and
God’s Kingdom, we need to learn how to
stand strong in the Lord and in the strength of God’s power, and we learn
how to do this from the Apostle Paul.
Paul was being
held as a prisoner in Rome when he wrote letters of encouragement to the followers
of Jesus in churches throughout the region.
These Christians were going through very difficult times. The church was young and small and the
cultural and political forces working against them were strong. In many ways, the people in those churches
weren’t any different from us today as we fight the forces working against
God’s kingdom, and like us, they needed to learn how to stand strong in their
faith so Paul told them how to do this in his letters to the church in
Ephesus.
As we read from
Paul’s letter, it’s helpful to know that when Paul was led to Rome as a
prisoner there would have been times he was actually chained to a roman
soldier. Even as a prisoner in Rome
there were times when Paul would have been chained to a guard, so Paul spent a
lot of time looking at soldiers dressed in armor and as he looked at that armor
and how it not only protected them but helped them strong in their fight, Paul
began to think about all the things the followers of Jesus needed if they were
going to stand strong and be faithful in their own fight. So Paul tells us to put on the armor of God
in Ephesians 6:10-17.
Paul begins by
making clear that the battles we are fighting are not with people, we are
fighting spiritual battles – look at 6:12. We are fighting forces of darkness and
evil. We are fighting cultural battles against
forces that want to cheapen life and relationships and over-sexualize our
children and youth. That we are in a
real battle became really clear to me when I served a church in Altoona. Most of the children who came to our
after-school program came from the neighborhood around the church which was a
rapidly declining and troubled area. The
children who attended had little or no parental support or supervision and the
behaviors we saw were really troubling.
One of the most disturbing events for me was one day when a group of
little girls no more than 7 or 8 started yelling at me from across the street
and telling me how sexy I was. Their
suggestive language and actions were clearly inappropriate and then I started
thinking about the places where they were picking up these messages, it was
from music, TV and the culture around them.
We are fighting
spiritual battles. We are fighting
powers of darkness that have taken over so much of our culture that we don’t
even notice it anymore but our children and youth are absorbing it all and it
is shaping who they are. It is against
these kinds of forces that we need to stand strong and to do this we need some
armor. We can’t stand unprotected; we
are not strong enough on our own: we need this armor of God.
The first three
pieces of armor Paul mentions are things that he would have seen the soldiers
wear all the time, which means they are things we need to make part of our
daily lives. The first is the belt of
truth. We are living in a world where
people want to say that there is no truth or that truth is what you want it to
be and while we can agree to disagree on many issues, and we can hold many
different social, political and economic views, if we are going to stand strong
in the Lord and help our children stand strong then there are some truths we
need to see as absolute and I want to share just two that I think are the most
important.
The first is
that there is a God who created us in
His image – which means that each and every adult, child and youth has
value and worth and dignity. Every
child, from the ones gathered in this building today to the ones on the streets
of Altoona to the ones who struggle to survive in Sierra Leone and Syria, every
child is created in the image of God which means they have value, dignity and they
are worthy of love, respect and belonging.
In a world that wants to cheapen the value of life, we need to share
this truth with our children daily and let them know just how valuable and
precious they are and how important they are to us.
Dr. Brene Brown,
who will be speaking at the global leadership summit in a few weeks, talks
about how important it is for everyone to understand that we are all worthy of
love and belonging. Dr. Brown says all
of her research on relationships leads her to one conclusion, we are hardwired
to connect with others – I’d say we were created this way because we are
created in the image of God who wants to be connected to us. God wants to be in a relationship with us and
there is just one thing that can explain this and it is our second absolute
truth - God loves us.
Sometimes this
is more difficult for us to comprehend than children because I hear more adults
say, I don’t know how God can love me.
Over time we take on the baggage of disappointments, brokenness and
shame and we have believed the world tell us we aren’t good enough, strong
enough, rich enough, pretty enough and smart enough and as we focus on all our
imperfections we begin to be filled with shame which makes us wonder if God can
or does love us. Here is where some
absolute truth is needed. God does love
us. We are imperfect (sinners) but that
doesn’t keep God from loving us. God’s
love for us is unconditional and eternal and Paul shared this truth to the
church in Ephesus in Ephesians
3:18-19. The love of God for his
imperfect children is seen most clearly in the person of Jesus and the absolute
truth of God’s love is made clear to us in John
3:16-17.
It is this belt
of truth that needs to be the foundation of our lives. We need to write these out and put them where
we can read them every day and allow them to shape our hearts and minds and
then we need to share these truths with our children. And since it is a battle where the world
speaks lies over and over and over again, we have to be just as strong and
persistent is sharing these truths over and over again. This truth needs to be the foundation on
which we build. If it is not, then no
other truth will matter or make any sense.
On top of the
belt is a breastplate which covers and protects all the vital organs and Paul
says that this breastplate is righteousness, but let’s be clear it’s not our
righteousness – but God’s. If we try to
live a righteous and Godly life on our own, we will fail. It is the righteousness of Jesus that stands
strong and brings us life which means that we need to trust not our ability but
God’s ability and God’s desire to help us live the right way. The key to all of this is humility. Soldiers wore armor because they knew their
own skin wasn’t strong enough. They
humbled themselves and trusted in the breastplate. We need to humble ourselves and trust the
righteousness of God. In James 4:10 it says, Humble
yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. I like how it is translated in the Message: get
down on your knees before the Master, it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet”. In our VBS language we might say that kneeling
before the King is the only way to Stand Strong.
To go with our
belt and breastplate we need boots for our feet and Paul calls these boots our
willingness to proclaim the gospel of peace.
Of all the pieces of armor we are lacking, I think it is these boots. Too often we are afraid to talk about our faith
and share the truth of God’s love with others because we don’t feel like we
know enough or are good enough to say anything.
It is this attitude that is undermining the faith of our children and
youth because if our children and youth don’t hear us talk about our faith in
God they will never learn how important faith in God is.
Children learn
what is important by watching and listening to the totality of our lives. They learn sports are important because we
talk about sports all the time and we sign them up to participate in sports
several times a week and we spend lots of time and money enjoy sports, so for
many of us the way we live our lives communicates the importance of
sports. So let me ask, from the totality
of how we live our lives – what are we teaching our children about God? Do they hear us talking about God, praying to
God and getting involved in serving God, worshiping God, learning about God
and giving to God on a regular basis? If
we are not able to talk about our faith to our children, then they will never
see it as something important to their lives, so we need to work on having
strong boots. We need to be bold and
talk about our faith and this gospel of peace with our children and youth so
they understand it is something which can help them stand strong.
Now the last
three pieces of armor Paul talks about are items that would only be used in
battle, a shield, a sword and a helmet.
The kind of shield Paul is talking about is not a small personal shield
but a much larger shield that would be able to protect a soldier from all the
arrows and even flaming arrows that would come at him and what Paul says
protects us is our faith. It is our
faith in God and trusting in the name and power of Jesus that helps us overcome
all things in this world. Because our
faith is important in the battle, it needs to be as strong as possible. This is why we encourage people to be
involved in some kind of small group study because it is through small group
discussion, study and the prayer and encouragement we get from others that our
faith get’s stronger. Remember, we were
created for connection, so spiritual growth will take place in relationship and
connection not only with God but others.
If you are not part of a study, we would invite you to be part of one
and you can stop at the connection table to learn about opportunities to deepen
and develop your faith.
The sword, Paul
says, is the word of God. It’s important
for us to know what God’s word says and doesn’t say so we can stand strong and
help our children and youth stand strong.
For example, the Bible does not say, God helps those who help
themselves. In fact, the
opposite is true, God helps those who can’t help themselves. The Bible says when we are weak then God is
able to be strong in us, look at 2
Corinthians 12:9-10. So we need
to know God’s word and we can grow in our understanding of it through personal
devotions as well as small group discussions.
And then the
last piece of armor Paul talks about is the helmet of salvation. A helmet protects our head which is the most
vulnerable part of the body in battle so the helmet is vital to survival, but it
is also the helmet that gives a soldier confidence to go into battle. What gives us the confidence to stand strong
in our faith and to share our faith with others and to fight for our faith in
this generation is knowing that our salvation comes from Jesus Christ. We stand strong not because we are perfect
but because we are forgiven and redeemed.
We stand strong and talk about truth not because we are better than others
but because our lives have been changed by the truth of God’s love. We don’t stand in our own strength and
goodness, we stand in the shadow of the cross – the cross from which Jesus
said, Father forgive them, the cross
on which Jesus died so that we might be forgiven and able to enter into a new
relationship with God.
It is our
salvation through Jesus Christ alone that gives us confidence to stand strong
and it is this salvation through Jesus Christ that we need to talk about and
share with our children and grandchildren and the children of our church and
community. But we can’t talk about what
we don’t know. If you have never
accepted the salvation that God offers us through Jesus Christ, then we invite
you to accept it today. It’s a simple
process; we humble ourselves before God and confess our sins and imperfections
and all the ways our lives don’t reflect the life we know God wants for us, and
then we ask God to forgive us. We then
open our hands to receive the gift of God’s grace which not only forgive us,
but sets us free from the guilt and shame and burden of sin so we can live the
new life God has to give.
If you have
never accepted this gift of salvation – we invite you to accept it today, and
if you have accepted it but feel the need to put on the helmet once again, we
invite you to do that as well. Let us
all ask God to once again pour out on us his mercy and love so we can be
assured of his forgiveness and our salvation.
I can’t tell you how important this is for us today. There are serious battles going on in the
world and the lives of our children and youth hang in the balance. They need us to stand strong in the
Lord. They need us to put on the full
armor of God and more than anything they need us to be certain and sure of our
faith and trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. So let us make Jesus king in the kingdom of
our hearts and lives. Let us make Jesus
Christ our Savior and Lord. I invite you
to pray with me.
Almighty God, I confess that too often I try
to live my life without You. I try to do
things my way and survive on my own strength and power. Forgive my sin and selfishness. Today I accept Jesus as my Savior and Lord
and place my faith and trust in His work on the cross. Thank you for the forgiveness You offer me
through Christ. Send Your Spirit into my
life so that I can turn from this world and live for You. Help me stand strong in the truth of Your
love and the power of Your word. Finally,
give me the courage to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with my children and
the children and youth of this church and community so that together we might
be able to stand strong in our faith and experience the fullness of life You
offer. In Jesus name we pray. AMEN
Next Steps
The Armor of God
1. If you have never accepted Jesus Christ as
your Savior and King, or if you need to recommit your life to Jesus, take time
to reflect on and pray this prayer:
Almighty God, I confess that too often I try
to live my life without You. I try to do
things my way and survive on my own strength and power. Forgive my sin and selfishness. Today I accept Jesus as my Savior and Lord
and place my faith and trust in His work on the cross. Thank you for the forgiveness You offer me
through Christ. Send Your Spirit into my
life so that I can turn from this world and live for You. Help me stand strong in the truth of Your
love and the power of Your word. Finally,
give me the courage to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with my children and
the children and youth of this church and community so that together we might
be able to stand strong in our faith and experience the fullness of life You
offer. In Jesus name we pray. AMEN
2.
Place these two absolute truths where you can read them daily. Recall them when the thought “I’m not good enough” enters your
mind. Share them each week with one
other person.
·
There is a God who
created me in His image.
·
God loves me.
3. To
strengthen your faith and understanding of God’s word, join a Sunday School
class or Bible Study or make plans to join a Small Group this September. Information on all small groups can be found
at the connection table.
4. Pray for the opportunity to share your faith
with your children or grandchildren, or the children and youth of the
church. Then step out in confidence and
DO IT.
