Stand: The Sword of the Spirit
Ephesians 6:18-20
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
6-2–2024
F-16 Fighting Falcon
This is a picture of an F-16 Fighting Falcon. Its wingspan is 32 feet and it measures 49 feet long. The top speed is 1,500 mph (Mach 2 at altitude). Its range is more than 2,000 miles and it can climb over 50,000 feet.
It carries a payload of two 2,000-pound bombs, two AIM-9s, two AIM-120s, and two 2400-pound external fuel tanks. It’s armed with one M-61A1 20mm multibarrel cannon with 500 rounds; external stations can carry up to six air-to-air missiles, conventional air-to-air and air-to-surface munitions, and electronic countermeasure pods.
Each plane costs 15 million dollars and is one of the most dangerous weapons in our arsenal.
And yet, if the electrical systems were to short out on this fighter plane, it would become useless and as harmless as a paper airplane.
Without power, the plane is not a threat and is an easy target for enemy missiles.
Over these past weeks, we’ve been studying the armor of God and this morning we will learn that there is a power source that makes the armor effective in our battle to stand against evil.
Please turn to Ephesians 6 with me one last time during this series.
Prayer
Review
We are learning that we are all in a spiritual battle that we cannot see. The Christian life is not a cruise ship but a battle ship.
Max Lucado writes:
“God has enlisted us in his navy and placed us on his ship. The boat has one purpose – to carry us safely to the other shore. This is no cruise ship; it’s a battleship. We aren’t called to a life of leisure; we are called to a life of service. Each of us has a different task. Some, concerned with those who are drowning, are snatching people from the water. Others are occupied with the enemy, so they man the cannons of prayer and worship. Still others devote themselves to the crew, feeding and training the crew members. Though different, we are the same. Each can tell of a personal encounter with the captain, for each has received a personal call. We each followed him across the gangplank of his grace onto the same boat. There is one captain and one destination. Though the battle is fierce, the boat is safe, for our captain is God. The ship will not sink. For that, there is no concern.”
Paul is finishing his letter to the Ephesian church and wants to warn them to be armed and ready for attacks of the evil one.
He was chained to an elite Roman guard day and night. I can imagine him staring at the guard’s armor and thinking.“That would make a perfect word picture for what I’m trying to communicate!”
“Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, 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.” (Eph 6:14-17)
He ends this section by continuing verse 17 with these words:
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.
This verse shows us how to “take up” the armor of God. We do that through the power of prayer.
Prayer is part of every major religion. Muslims pray toward Mecca. Jewish people pray at the Wailing Wall. For Buddhists, prayer is the act of emptying the mind.
Many of us still need to improve in the area of prayer.
Richard Halverson lists four reasons that we shy away from prayer:
1. Unbelief – we simply doubt that God is listening or that He cares
2. Indifference – if God already knows, then why pray?
3. Priorities – we are too caught up in this world.
4. It’s difficult – prayer is hard work and takes discipline. Maxine’s mom and stepdad would pray all night. I have trouble praying for 20 mins!
We don’t pray to inform God of any new information. We pray as children to a Father. Prayer keeps our hearts in touch with God.
Prayer changes us and aligns us with His will. And God has conditioned our receiving things from Him through prayer.
Prayer is the expression of our total dependence on God for everything.
We can trust that God hears us (Psalm 16). We can rely on the Holy Spirit to help us pray when we are at a loss for words (Romans 8:26).
The writer of Hebrews encourages us to:
“…approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)
At the cross, our sins were paid for and the righteousness of Christ was applied to our account. He opened the door to the Throne room for you and is praying for you right now!
“He [Jesus] can save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25)
"Prayer is the energy that enables the Christian soldier to wear the armor and wield the sword. We cannot fight the battle in our own power, no matter how strong or talented we may think we are. Prayer is the power for victory, but not just any kind of prayer. Paul tells how to pray if we would defeat Satan.” - Warren Wiersbe
Let’s go back to our text:
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.
Spirit-guided
“And pray in the Spirit…”
Paul is not writing about speaking in tongues or repeating aardvark again and again.
We pray to the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Barclay writes,
“Let the Spirit be the atmosphere in which you pray.”
Jesus said,
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matt 6:5-8)
We allow the Spirit to guide us, to enlighten us, and to give us wisdom as we pray.
As usual, Paul’s mind goes back to the Old Testament. In the temple, there was a small golden altar and priests would burn incense to God, representing the people’s prayers.
The Spirit is the fire that ignites our prayers, even when we don’t know what to pray:
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” (Rom 8:26-27)
Let me make one caveat. If you are not a Christian, then you can have no confidence that God hears your prayers. Because our sins separate us from God, in our unredeemed state, we have no right to approach Him.
* Life saturated
“On all occasions…”
?There are two words for time in Greek. One means “clock time.” The other means “a season or specific opportunity. “ This is the word Paul uses here.
As the early church began, they were “continually devoting themselves to prayer.” (Acts 1:14) Paul encourages the Thessalonian believers to “pray continually.”
?This doesn’t mean we walk around loudly praying 24/7.
When is a good time to pray? When things are going great. When things are going okay. When things are going terrible. When tragedy strikes. When we feel like conquerors. When we feel like failures. When God seems close and when you don’t know where He is or what he is doing.
This doesn’t mean you must kneel or close your eyes (especially not while driving!). Sometimes, we shoot short “arrow prayers” throughout the day.
For the little and for the big
"With all kinds of prayers and requests.”
Paul uses two words for praying here. “Prayers” means a “general request big picture kind of prayer.” The word “requests” (or petitions) means specific prayers for specific situations.
My friend Brian Bill writes,
“Prayer can be public or private; social or secret; solemn or sudden. Our prayers can be written out or they can be spontaneous. We can think them or we can shout them. We can weep in brokenness when we pray, or we can be exuberant with praise.”
As a new Christian, I was taught to use the acronym ACTS to pray.
Adoration - start by praising God’s goodness, grace, power, and love. You can sing worship songs to Him or sit quietly considering His majesty.
“Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds; rejoice before him—his name is the Lord.” (Psalm 68:4)
Confession - confession means to agree with God about our sins. He already knows so confession deals with the separation that sin causes in our relationship with Him.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)
Thanksgiving - express gratitude for all that God has done.
“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” (Psalm 107:1_
Supplication - this is praying for things you need or desire and praying for others.
“In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.” (Psalm 5:3)
Dr. Adrian Rogers wrote this:
“The greatest problem we face is not unanswered prayer but unoffered prayer. Tragically, many of our prayers are so vague that if God were to answer them, we wouldn’t even know it.”
With eyes wide open
“Be alert…”
The command “be alert” literally means “without sleep.” It conveys the idea of being wide awake, aware, and constantly vigilant.
It’s in the present tense which means keep on being alert.
“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (I Peter 5:8)
As a storm chaser, I know the danger of violent tornados. That’s why I am hyper-alert to the radar and the movement of the storm. Let down your guard as a chaser, and it could be fatal.
When Jesus asked the disciples to “watch and pray,” He found them sleeping. ??
We need to be aware that we are in a spiritual battle and the enemy is always trying to ambush with temptations and lies.
with diligence
“Always keep on praying…"
This word means to be steadfast, firm, devoted to the task at hand.
Jesus told a story about a persistent widow:
“In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 28:2-8)
Emily Chapman, then 16, came to her mom and dad, contemporary Christian artist Steven Curtis Chapman, and said, “I think God wants you to adopt a little girl from China.”
They smiled and said that was a sweet idea but that wasn’t going to happen.
She got fed up with them saying no and finally said, “I’m just going to pray until you figure this out!”
And the rest is history.
She was just following Matthew 7:
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matt 7:7)
The verbs are in a tense that means, “keep on asking…keep on seeking…keep on knocking.” Don’t give up.
Maxine prayed for her father for 30 years before he got saved.
?* outward focused.
“…For all the Lord’s people.”
Your translation may say “saints.” Remember, in the Bible “saints” are simply born-again Christians.
We are to pray for one another as a church family. We lift our families and friends up in prayer. We pray for our missionaries.
We can also pray for people who don’t know Christ yet. I’ve prayed for Sammy Hagar, the Red Rocker, for years. He has family members that are Christians so he knows the truth but has yet to surrender his life to Christ.
What can we specifically pray for? Paul gives us a model prayer in Colossians:
“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.” (Col 1:9-12)
Let’s do that now. Prayer Time
Putting it Together
Each week, the sermon ends with an “armor of God prayer.”
You were handed the prayer as you walked in today.
We will spend the rest of our time together, asking God to empower our stand against the enemy of our souls.
Lord Jesus, I now follow your command to put on the full armor of God because I know that my battle is not against flesh and blood but against rulers, authorities, the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the unseen world. Thank you that you have made it possible for me to be strong in your mighty power and to stand against all that the evil one would throw against me this day.
Belt of Truth
Do you believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life?
Do you desire to live your life with integrity and honesty?
In Jesus Name, I put on the belt of truth and pray that I may be centered in and encircled by your truth today. By your power, enable me to walk in your truth and to give no place to deception or the lies of the enemy. Protect me by the truth of your Word.
[All Things}
Breastplate of Righteousness
Do you understand that you have no righteousness of your own and you can never be good enough to earn heaven?
Do you believe that Jesus’s righteousness is the only thing that get you into heaven?
I put on the breastplate of righteousness. I praise you, Lord Jesus, that I am covered with your righteousness today in my body, soul and spirit. I now pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit, my life would show forth the righteous fruit of Your presence. Guard my heart, for it is the wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23). Strengthen and protect the most vulnerable places in my life with that which is right, good and noble so I might not receive a fatal blow from the enemy.
Russell Brand is an English comedian, actor, presenter, writer, and activist. I’ve never found him funny and he mostly borders on the profane. But something has happened in the last year that has changed his life.
[Russell Brand video]
[Yet Not I]
Sandals of peace
Do you have peace with God?
Do you have the peace of God?
Are you, as far as it depends upon you, at peace with others?
I put on the shoes of peace. I choose to stand on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ and the good news of his amazing grace. In Jesus’ name, I claim over my heart and mind the peace of God that transcends all understanding (Philippians 4:7). I cast down every anxious thought today, and as I walk in the gospel of peace, I pray that you would make me ready to share your good news with others.
[It is Well with my Soul]
[Communion]
Shield of Faith
Is your faith in Jesus Christ alone to be your lover and leader of your life?
By faith, do you chose to trust God no matter the circumstances?
I take up the shield of faith this day and in your name, I extinguish every dart and arrow by which the enemy would seek to take me down spiritually, physically, mentally, or emotionally. I lift the shield of faith against every arrow directed at me, my family, my business, my possessions, or any part of my domain. I bind every fearful thought in Jesus’ name and choose rather to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).
[The Solid Rock]
Helmet of Salvation
Do you understand that your mind is where satan wants to mess with you?
Do you have full assurance that you are saved and already living eternal life?
I put on the helmet of salvation and pray that you would protect my mind from thoughts that could lead me astray. I choose to take every thought captive to Jesus Christ and to reject any thought that is not from You (2 Corinthians 10:5). Transform my mind by the power of your Word and grant me a hope-saturated mind so that I may truly overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13). This day, in the name of Jesus, I bind and refuse all depressed, despairing, and defeated thinking.
[I Believe]
Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
Do you believe the Bible is our foundation for living the Christian life?
Do you desire to read, study, and memorize the Bible so you can stand against the attacks of the enemy?
Finally, I take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Please give me the insight, wisdom, and revelation to wield your Word skillfully against every scheme of the enemy. Thank you that your Word on my lips has the power to defeat every attack of the enemy!
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for equipping me with everything I need to win my battles this day! I praise you that I am protected today by the armor of God. I now claim your promise that no weapon formed against me shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17). In Jesus’ mighty name, amen!
Ending Song: Battle Belongs
