Double Duty Equipment
Ephesians 6:10-15, Isaiah 53:7, Romans 10:8-15, 2 Corinthians 5:18-21
March 21, 2004
I. There was an airline pilot who was concerned about his wife’s safety so he went to buy her a dog for protection. When he got to the pet store he told the owner that he wanted a dog to protect his wife while he was gone. The store owner went in the back and came out with a little Pekinese. The pilot said you’ve got to be kidding that scrawny little dog couldn’t hurt a flea. The Store owner said you don’t understand this dog knows Karate, do you see that box over their, the pilot said yes. The store owner looked at the dog and said "Karate Box", and the little dog shredded it. Then he said "Karate Chair" and the dog turned an oak chair into tooth picks. The pilot was impressed, and bought the dog. When he got home he told his wife he had bought a dog to protect her. She said that little dog can’t protect anything. He said but you don’t understand he knows karate, she said" Ha, karate my foot"
A. Feet are important, but some times we take them for granted and, I’m sure they feel walked on all the time.
B. The Scripture that we are going to focus on this morning talks about feet, but the real important thing is what they are to be protected with.
C. Feet are our foundation, and it is important that we protect them. If any of you have gotten up in the middle of the night and stepped on a grass burr stuck in the carpet you know what I mean.
D. Feet have two main purposes, to get us where we are going and to keep us standing where we are.
E. If you think feet aren’t important in life then you might want to talk to Mona about the time that she fell through the ashes in a burned brush pile and stuck her foot into the coals. We notice the importance of feet more when there is a problem with them.
F. Paul has been talking about the armor of a soldier in the verses that we have been reading. When a soldier was in battle if he lost his footing it could mean death.
G. In hand to hand combat if you got knocked off your feet you were in trouble, because it’s hard to defend yourself laying on the ground. The ability to stand was and is vital. That’s why a soldier’s shoes were an important part of his equipment.
H. The shoes that a soldier wore in those days looked a lot like the cleats that athletes wear today. PUT UP SLIDE.
I. They had knobs of some kind on the bottom that allowed them to dig in so they could stand their ground.
J. In battle a soldier had to have sure footing. Slipping could mean the end of his life.
K. It was also important that when a soldier started to advance that he had good traction so he could get moving when he needed to. One of the things that made the Roman army effective was their ability to cover a lot of ground in a little time.
L. Living in Louisiana can help you understand this better. Just about every truck you see has mud grip tires on it. That’s because just about everything that’s not on a paved road is mud. Mud grips have deep groves cut in them and knobs on the sides that allow them to get traction on muddy surfaces. I have seen vehicles that don’t have mud grips on them sit in one place with the tires spinning 30 mph and go no where.
M. And, being stuck can be a frustrating thing. It can also be harmful. One time me and my brother-in-law were riding in the woods behind Donna’s mother’s, and we got in a muddy place and got stuck. I was driving and I would back up and pull forward trying to get enough momentum to get out. My brother in law got frustrated and got in the back of the truck to put a little more weight over the tires for more traction. I told him to hold on, and I took off backward, well he didn’t hold on and he took about three steps toward the front of the truck and lost his balance, so when I quickly put the truck in first gear and started forward again he was running toward the back of the truck, backwards. This time I heard him and looked up in the rear view mirror about the time the tailgate hit him just below the back of the knee. And I watched as his head and feet switched places as he went over the tailgate and into the mud. I got out and ran back to where he was and saw that he was ok, but my not being able to quit laughing didn’t help his frustration any. Needless to say he wasn’t very happy with me.
N. The thing that isn’t funny is that there are a lot of people who are just plain stuck in life.
O. They’re all bogged down in circumstances. They don’t seem to be able to go forward or backward, and they just stay in the same place fighting to keep their footing.
P. They get frustrated with life and they want to move forward.
Q. They want to change things, and improve their lives, but they just can’t seem to get moving in the right direction.
R. The more frustrated they get, the more they start to worry, and their peace in life is lost, and it starts to create problems.
S. Is their battle with the world around them? It might seem that way but it’s not.
T. Is their battle with the people around them? A lot of the time the way they treat people around them makes it look like it is but its not.
II. The real battle is Spiritual!
A. The circumstances in life that get people stuck, really come from the spiritual battles that take place around us everyday.
B. We have to understand that to have the foundation in life that allows us to move forward, our feet have to be fitted with the gospel of peace!
Ephesians 6:10-15 (NIV) Finally, be strong in the Lord and in 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. 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 with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
C. If the Gospel of Peace is so important and so foundational, then we need to understand what it is.
D. Our English word Gospel comes from the Greek word Euaggelion which means "good news".
E. Folks, we are supposed to have peace in our lives, because the GOOD NEWS is that God has made it possible for us to be right with Him, because Jesus died on a Cross and made it possible for us to be forgiven!
F. And if we can be at peace with God then we can live in peace. It amazes me that there are so many church members that claim to be Christians who spend so much time beating other people down with things, and focusing on the negative.
G. People who are supposed to have the good news of God in them who go around spreading bad news.
H. It’s no wonder that some people have the ideas about being a Christian that they do.
I. We have to remember that the foundation of life is the good news, that Jesus made it possible for us to be right with God, and that should bring us peace!
1. Peace is the spirit of tranquility, it means not being disturbed.
2. Peace is to have freedom from disturbance from either the inside or the outside.
3. Peace comes in life from being secure.
4. Peace comes from the security that comes from hearing and trusting in the "Good News", that there is a way for us to be right with God.
J. Now you might be wondering why Christians have to put on the gospel of peace.
K. I mean if we have accepted Jesus as the only way that we can be right with God and we have put our trust in that, then we have the gospel of peace in our lives.
L. That’s all true, but if we don’t in our minds pick-up that peace every morning and strap it on, we go out into a spiritual battle field everyday with unstable footing.
M. If we don’t start our day secure and at peace with ourselves, at peace with who we are and what we are, because we know that we are at peace with God, then we step into a spiritual battlefield with no foundation and when the day to day battles start we struggle to even stand up, much less make progress.
1. When we go outside and the car won’t start. When the traffic is backed up and we’re late, because the car didn’t start.
2. When we get to work and the person or people who seem to get their greatest joy from making our life miserable, start to make our life miserable.
3. When the kids get up fighting, and then one of them spills cereal and milk all over the floor.
4. When the toilet stops up and over flows onto the floor before you are half awake.
5. When as we wake up to the sound of a three year old explaining that an orange won’t flush all the way down the toilet.
6. When all the money is gone and the week’s not.
7. When we don’t know how we’re are going to pay the bills.
N. What ever the problems are if you are a peace with yourself, because you know you are at peace with God, then you can cope with life.
III. In Spiritual warfare one of Satan’s greatest weapons is worry.
A. Satan uses the situations in life to get our eyes on the circumstances around us, and off the peace that we have with God.
B. That’s why the foundation of our lives has to be the "Good News of the Peace of the Gospel."
C. That peace is our foundation, it’s the thing that allows us to keep on moving forward, its what keeps us from slipping and sliding, and having to fight to stay balanced where we are.
D. If satan can use worry to eat away at our peace, which is the foundation of our lives, he will try to even make us doubt our salvation.
E. I have known good Christian people who have gone through turmoil about whether or not they were really saved, because they had let Satan eat away at the foundation of their lives with worry.
1. Worry can destroy your life with things that will probably never happen.
2. Worry and stress can cause health problems.
3. Worry and stress can cause Suicide.
4. Worry and stress can cause attitudes and reactions to people around you that can ruin relationships.
F. If you’re having problems in a relationship before you look at the other person ask yourself this question, are you at peace with yourself or are you happy with the condition of your relationship to God.
G. To cope with life we have to stand firm on the foundation of peace that comes from knowing that God is control, and WE ARE AT PEACE WITH HIM.
H. When we are at peace with God we can move forward in life knowing where we are going.
I. The bible says that satan works in darkness, and if he can cloud our lives with the darkness of worry its hard to see where we are going, and we slip and slide through life unstable, and unsure of where we are going, and in danger of running into things that will hurt us.
J. Freddy was gracious enough to give me a good way to illustrate this one time. After the evening service when he was on the way to his truck, I was standing out back with Ben, looking at something. I could barely see Freddy in the dark, but I thought he’s awful close to that tree, about the time I thought that Freddy ran face first into that tree. Darkness makes it hard to see the real obstacles, and worry makes a lot of things dark that shouldn’t be.
K. That’s the way satan works in our lives, if he can put a cloud of worry around us that eats away at the peace of knowing that God is in control and we are at peace with Him, then he can create problems that get us so bogged down in life that we just get stuck.
L. And, moving on in life is important, because the gospel of peace that we carry with us, is an example to others who are living in real darkness separated from the love of God. The peace in our lives says to others there is a way out of the darkness. But, if we can’t move on in spite of satan’s attacks on our minds through worry, we can’t shoe the way out.
(Isa 52:7 NIV) How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"
Romans 10:8-15 (NIV) But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
M. If you are a Christian you are a preacher, because you preach every day, by the way you live. Your life is a sermon to the people around you, and your actions and lifestyle are the words in your sermon.
N. Is your life bringing the good news of the gospel to the people that you come into contact with? Does the peace in your own life model the good news of salvation to the people that you come into contact with?
O. Has there ever been a time that you found peace with God, by trusting what Jesus did to make you right with God, and not what you can do.
P. If you haven’t, put your faith and trust in Jesus, and do that today, and find the peace of being right with God.
Wayne Vanderpoel had become involved in trying to minister to the migrant farm workers and their families in Florida. Some of them had very little clothes or a place to stay. They had been able to help a lot of them, but on Christmas Day 1982 he got a call. The man on the other in end of the phone told him that there were 60 people that had just come in with no place to stay. They had found a building for them to stay in but there was no heat and they had no blankets. The temperature that night was going to go to 18 degrees, and the people would freeze, and Wayne had delivered all the supplies he had. So they Wayne and his wife prayed and he got the idea to call the local radio station and get them to announce the need. The disc Jockey told him that it was a crazy idea, no one was listening to the radio on Christmas day and they wouldn’t want to get out anyway, but he agreed to announce it. But, when the announcement was made cars began to line the street with people bringing blankets. But there was something that had to be done to the van before he could take them to where the people were, and he needed a eleven-sixteenths wrench to do it and he didn’t have one. All the stores were closed and his neighbors were out of town. So Wayne and his wife went in the house and prayed time passed but he kept believing that God would take care of the need. About five o’clock a lady drove up with a bag, she said I don’t have a blanket but here are some children’s clothes. As she handed Wayne the bag he felt something hard in it and when he looked there was and eleven-sixteenths wrench in it. He asked the woman why did you put this wrench in the bag? She said I really don’t know. My husband died a few months ago and as I started out of the house to get in the car I saw it there where he had left it and I thought some of those people might need it to work on their cars, so I threw it in the bag. When Wayne asked her when she left to come he found out it was the same time he and his wife prayed for a wrench. He has that wrench hanging over his desk to remind him that when things get hectic and needs seem impossible God is still there.
Q. I want to give you something to day to remind you, that if you’re a Christian, God is still there even when things are hard.
R. I want you to do something for me. Everyday when you get up and put on your shoes, let that remind you that your feet are to be fitted with the "Good News of Peace".
S. Let it remind you that you are right with God, because Jesus died on a cross.
T. Let it remind you that you are right with Him, that He’s in control, and that in spite of people and circumstances, you can live in peace.
2 Corinthians 5:18-21 (NIV) All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
U. If things between us and God have been made right forever, and we have the assurance that no matter what we are going to be with God in Heaven one day, then we can be at peace with the situations around us, and we can share that peace with the world around us.
