THE ARMOR OF GOD AND THE LIES OF THE ENEMY
The Breastplate of Righteousness: Compassion Over Truth
Ephesians 6:10-18
#armorofGod
INTRODUCTION 1
Last week Kristian did a fantastic job of introducing us to the breastplate of righteousness and the scheme of the Devil that encourages us to “follow our heart.” He started his sermon with a great story about wrestling in High School and winning a key match and he brought his letter jacket kind of like “show-and-tell.” I brought mine this week. Mine fits way less on me than his did on him.
I got my letter jacket for 3 reasons. #1 was for playing varsity football on offense and defense. I did that for two years. #2 I got an ‘activity’ letter for extracurricular activities like being the yearbook editor. #3 I got an ‘academic letter’ for good grades and I ended up graduating as the class valedictorian. Kristian mentioned that he sweat a lot in his because he grew up in Florida and he wore his jacket proudly no matter what. That makes sense. The difference with my letter jacket and his is that I never really got the opportunity to sweat in mine because a girl always was wearing it.
Let’s get into the Scriptures this morning.
RESPONSIVE READING [have them stand, read underlined parts]
READ EPHESIANS 6:10-18 (ESV)
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints…”
INTRODUCTION 2
This week we are on week 2 of the breastplate of righteousness. Our plan as we take a deep look in Ephesians 6 is to look at each item in Paul’s description for two weeks and to unpack why we need such spiritual armor in our lives. Verses 10-13 make it very clear that we have an enemy that wars against us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and that we need to stand firm against all his schemes which often come to us as lies, deception, false beliefs, worldly philosophies, and even beliefs from other religions.
We must put on the breastplate of righteousness because:
#1 We want to stand against the schemes of the Devil that war against our thoughts
#2 We want to walk in victory when it comes to our feelings
#3 We want to wrestle with beliefs and come out faithful to God
#4 We want to stand firm with God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit
THE BREASTPLATE
The breastplate is a vital piece of a soldier’s armor covering the whole torso… chest and back. I would say that was true in the ancient world. I would say it is true now as well because many police officers and soldiers wear body armor in the same way. A breastplate protects arteries, lungs, the heart, stomach, the spleen, the liver, kidneys, and anything else in the torso area. The breastplate protects all the inside squishy parts of our bodies that like to bleed or stop working when punctured or pierced or cut. In the Apostle Paul’s day, a blow through the ancient breastplate usually proved fatal; having a breastplate meant survival.
I believe the reason the Apostle Paul includes the breastplate in his list of armor is because it was a core piece of armor that protects one of the most important organs in the body… the heart. The name of the piece of armor even suggests that its primary function is to protect the chest and what’s inside the chest. The heart is important. The heart must be protected.
The Apostle Paul relates in his spiritual metaphor that there is a breastplate of righteousness that protects our heart. We must put on our spiritual armor to protect our heart from the poisonous darts of the enemy that would seek to corrupt our heart. Our ‘heart’ in the way Paul is thinking of it is our thoughts and emotions and beliefs all rolled into one. Our heart is vulnerable to attack by the enemy and if Satan can get ahold of our heart, he can steer our lives away from God.
The Bible talks about the heart 687x in the Old Testament and the New Testament so we know it is important. The heart physically is important, but so is the ‘heart’ when we speak about it mentally, emotionally or spiritually. So many areas of life are impacted by our heart:
For example: our heart is important when we are children. What molds our thoughts and feelings and beliefs as children often impacts us as adults. That is why parents, it is very important that you teach your children the love of the Bible and worship and why a relationship with Jesus is important and a priority. As parents, our children follow our model and model their hearts after ours… for good or ill. Our love for the Lord starts at home in the hearts of parents and we teach that to our children. If we do not teach our children a love for Christ, this is a weakness the enemy can exploit and scheme against to make church boring or not even a priority.
For example: our heart is important when we think about politics. There are so many thoughts and opinions and political speeches that can sway our hearts one way or another on important issues. If our heart is not anchored in the Word of God and influenced primarily by God, our heart can waver and drift and then we are voting for candidates or laws that we should not be voting for as believers in Jesus. A proper view of politics starts with proper believing-loyalty to God in our heart. If we do not get out heart right about politics, this is a weakness the enemy can exploit and scheme against as we confuse Jesus and politics to our detriment.
For example: our heart is important when we think about money. It is important to tithe and give back to the Lord as a regular part of worshipping God. Tithing from your income is a normal part of being a Christian. Normal. Weekly. Monthly. Commanded. Obedience. Our obedience to this command of God is directly related to how our heart thinks and feels about money. If we love money more than God, we will struggle to give and tithe. A proper view of money begins with our proper love and thankfulness for God. If we do not get our heart right about money, this is a weakness the enemy can exploit and scheme against to make material things more influential in our lives than they should be.
These are just three examples among so much in our lives where our heart is important. I was reading and praying over the Scriptures about the ‘heart’ and I was struck by the Book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament and the emphasis God makes about the importance of our hearts. Just in the Book of Deuteronomy alone… ‘heart’ is used 44x and teaches us the importance of our mental, emotional, and spiritual ‘heart.’
READ Deuteronomy 6:5 (ESV)
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
READ Deuteronomy 10:12 (ESV)
“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul…”
READ Deuteronomy 10:16 (ESV)
“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”
READ Deuteronomy 11:16 (ESV)
“Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them”
READ Deuteronomy 20:3-4 (ESV)
“Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the LORD your God is He who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.”
READ Deuteronomy 30:6 (ESV)
“And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”
I know I shared a lot of Scripture there, but God has much to say about our hearts and what shapes it and our perspectives. The heart is essential to protect and guard and get right. Again, our ‘heart’ as we speak about it metaphorically is the seat of our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and some would even say our personality. It is a catch-all metaphor for the core of who we are.
Paul says we must protect our hearts because:
#1 We want to stand against the schemes of the Devil that war against our thoughts
#2 We want to walk in victory when it comes to our feelings
#3 We want to wrestle with beliefs and come out faithful to God
#4 We want to stand firm with God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit
THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Paul calls the breastplate… the breastplate of righteousness. Kristian did a great job explaining the righteous part of that phrase last week, but I want to make sure we remember. This spiritual armor we are putting on is part of God’s character that we put on when we become believers in Jesus.
READ 2 CORINTHIANS 5:21 (ESV)
“For our sake, He made Him to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Yes, righteousness is ‘right action’ and ‘right belief’ and ‘right thoughts,’ but we cannot lose the truth that God gives us righteousness by the blood of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in us motivates us to follow after God. It a strange thought, but God becomes our heart motivation for following God. His righteousness given to us motivates us to right action and right belief and right thought. It also occurred to me that in verse 11, as Paul is commanding us about the armor of God, that he shares we are to ‘put [it] on.’ Armor is not put on us automatically, but we must decide to follow Jesus often: daily, in prayer, in all situations. We must choose for our heart to be motivated by God for God. I hope that makes sense. The righteousness that Paul speaks of is automatic in one sense because it is given to us by Christ, but we must also choose to follow Jesus and there is no turning back. It is both… and.
TRANSITION
The Apostle Paul makes it very clear that a believer in Jesus Christ has an enemy that schemes against what God is doing in us. We are to stand firm. We are to be ready. Stand firm against what? Ready for what? What schemes of the devil attack our heart? What might be a particular scheme that we deal with in our day that we must defend against? Last week we discussed the pervasive scheme of ‘follow your heart.’ This week, we must face the insidious scheme that in order to be a good moral person we must have ‘compassion over truth.’
SCHEME OF THE DEVIL: COMPASSION OVER TRUTH
There is a growing belief and emphasis in our world and our American culture and sometimes even in the Church that having compassion and understanding and empathy for people should always come before any kind of truth. We discussed in weeks past that what is true is often up for debate. When truth is relative in all situations and for all people, we need something to steer us. We need some kind of direction. When no truth is present, a hole is left and something must fill it. Compassion is often the word or feeling or action of choice when no truth is present.
At first glance, how can this be a bad thing? How can compassion be anything but Godly? How can compassion, a very positive loving thing, not be beneficial? What is the definition of compassion in our world? Our world says:
* Compassion means we accept everyone for who they are and we help them live out their truth.
* Compassion means inclusivity and tolerance.
* Compassion is non-discrimination and quick to affirm any identity that anyone claims to have.
* Compassion means we define issues and problems as sickness and remove all blame.
* Compassion motivates us to never judge another person, but celebrate them no matter what.
Again, at first glance, how can this be a bad thing? Compassion can be a bad thing when it is absent from thoughts of God because one can become an enabler of sin and focus on self. Compassion can be a negative thing when it is absent the will of God because the compassion will help and pity and empathize in the wrong way. The problem with the definitions and actions of compassion in our culture is that they are not all-the-way-wrong. Compassion is championed in the absence of truth, but this is hurtful at times.
Compassion should mean we accept everyone, but not someone’s sinfulness at the expense of their soul. We must have compassion for someone caught in sin or wracked by wrong thinking or beliefs and desire greatly to help them out of sin and into God’s will. You can love someone and have compassion for them and still share with them that God’s way is the best way for their soul.
Compassion should mean inclusivity and tolerance, but not enabling people we love or even people we dislike to sin. All sin is destructive. Jesus Christ came to seek and save the lost which means absolutely everyone and anyone can come to Christ. ‘Everyone and anyone’ is inclusive. Jesus accepts all sinners, but He doesn’t leave us that way. Jesus as the only way is exclusive. There is restoration and healing in the blood of Christ, but He does not tolerate us living in sin. He calls us to holiness and a narrow path and I would think that if Jesus is our Lord and Savior, we will not want to live a lifestyle of sin.
Compassion is quick to not discriminate, but that doesn’t mean we cannot discern God’s will. We talked a few weeks ago about the thin line between discernment and being judgmental. Most of the time the line has to do with hypocrisy and our own motivation. We must be able to discern who is hurting or who is lost so we can pray and help and guide. Here we see Jesus as our model because Jesus had compassion for anyone He came across and He did not discriminate.
Compassion means we help people when they are sick and hurting and down in the dumps. Compassion has elements of sympathy and empathy where we see those that are struggling and we should want to help because perhaps we have been there before. Even if we have not been there before, compassion should motivate us to live life with people and point them to God. God is the answer to what is missing in our lives. Jesus is the healing from sin in our lives. The Holy Spirit is the motivation we need to live for God in our lives.
Compassion without Godly wisdom or pointing to God’s will is fruitless in the end because it is empty compassion that allows destructive self-centered sin to remain as a stronghold. Our relationship with God or our thankfulness to Christ or the nudging of the Holy Spirit should be our motivator for our compassion. We should seek to live out compassion with truth… not compassion over truth… or even truth before compassion.
BIBLICAL EXAMPLE
What does Godly compassion look like? It looks like an episode in Jesus’ life in John 8.
READ JOHN 8:3-11 (ESV)
“The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do You say?” 6 This they said to test Him, that they might have some charge to bring against Him. Jesus bent down and wrote with His finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask Him, He stood up and said to them, “Let Him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more He bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before Him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
We see in this passage compassion with truth and… not compassion over truth… or even truth before compassion. The religious leaders devised a plan to trap Jesus. They brought a woman caught in the act of adultery, which somehow they knew about, and could jump in as it was happening. They press Him to judge her. If Jesus says she is guilty, they can go to the Roman officials and say He was advocating the death penalty which as unlawful to do. They also could point out how compassion-less and hard-hearted He was. If Jesus says she is not guilty, they can scream from the rooftops that Jesus doesn’t follow God’s Law.
How will Jesus handle this?
If Jesus acts with compassion over truth then He will rail against the people for hating this woman’s lifestyle choices and command them to accept her choices even if it is not what they would personally do. Compassion over truth ignores any moral issues because there is no moral truth. Compassion over truth allows people to follow a destructive path no matter what because compassion is inclusive and tolerant over everything else.
If Jesus acts with truth before compassion, Jesus picks up a stone and beats her to death with it. Jesus clearly says in verse 7 that the One without sin can stone her. Who in the crowd is without sin? Who is without sin?! Jesus! The punishment in that society and in the Old Testament for adultery was death. It was death because God takes sin seriously. Truth before compassion is a hard heart and for everyone except Jesus smacks of hypocrisy and self-righteous pride.
If Jesus acts compassionately with truth, He will do exactly what He did. He acknowledged the unfairness of the situation, the sinfulness of everyone around Him, and make no mistake… told her she was sinning. He corrected the sinfulness of the crowd and the self-righteous hypocrisy that was present. He offered grace and a way out and also told the woman to “go and sin no more.” He did not celebrate her sin, but pointed it out and also helped at the same time. He gave her the option to follow God and the free choice to walk away from sin.
PERSONAL EXAMPLE (p)
What does Godly compassion look like? It looks like an episode in my own life when I was 19. I was home for the summer right after my freshman year I college. I got 2 jobs that summer. I worked watering trees in the desert and I got a job at a convenience store. I saved and saved all my money that summer because I was saving for a car. That summer I drove my dad’s car to and from my jobs. He had a 1987 Toyota Camry which he purchased new. He loved that car because it was the first car he had ever purchased that was new. He washed and waxed that thing constantly. In the summer of 1996, that car was still in mint condition. One day after watering trees in the desert, I was driving footloose and fancy free on a gravel road and I came across a cattle guard.
A gravel road plus a cattle guard plus a nineteen-year-old foolishly driving too fast equals I crashed and rolled the car into the desert brush. The car was totaled. My dad’s pride and joy was wrecked beyond repair. I do not recall my dad yelling and I do not recall what he said actually. I remember compassion with truth. I recall three things. First, I said over and over (on the outside) it was not my fault and yet my dad impressed on me it indeed was my fault. Second, I knew inside without a doubt I was in the wrong and I had wrecked something that was not mine to wreck. I had been careless with something that was not mine and I learned a lesson that day about the truth of responsibility for myself and for another person’s property. Third, my dad allowed me to buy a car at the end of the summer even though I had totaled his which in my opinion was compete compassion.
APPLICATION
As we close today, I want you to realize that guarding your heart against the schemes of Satan is a full-time job. It is a full-time job because there are many influences in TV, movies, music, our families, school, the internet, politics, and amongst friends that would seek to move our heart away from God and towards something else other than God’s righteousness. If you are a believer, Satan is engaging a full-court press to lead you away from your relationship with God. We must be ready.
Our challenge and I happen to think it is a big one, is to have compassion with Godly truth that helps others and also points people to God. This is difficult because the scheme of the devil is to fill our society with compassion over truth which ultimately leads people away from God. Being an advocate for compassion with truth will make you stick out and also leads to uncomfortable conversations. May we be compassionate as Jesus was and is compassionate.
CONCLUSION
So, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Stand therefore, having put on the breastplate of righteousness which was infused with the righteousness of Jesus Christ and etched with His Name. Watch out for the flying dart of the evil one that would tell you to follow your heart in all things (last week). Watch out for the flying dart of the evil one that would tell you to have compassion and ignore God’s will and His truth. Put on the breastplate of righteousness.
PRAYER
INVITATION
