Ephesians 6:10-18 July 20, 2008
The Whole Armor of God, Part 4
“The Breastplate of Righteousness – Saved for Sure!”
Rev. Meagan Boozer
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness…”
Last week, we started learning together what all of the different pieces of armor mean. We learned that the belt of truth is the most important piece of armor we wear – without the belt of truth fastened firmly on us, all of the other pieces of armor will not stay in place. The belt of truth is made up of two things: The written word of God – the Bible; and the “in the flesh” word of God – Jesus! In order to take our stand against the wiles of the devil, we need to get into the Bible and we need to get into Jesus! We need to know the truths revealed in the Bible and taught in Jesus’ life, or we are not going to be able to tell when the devil is lying to us (which remember, is his primary tactic against us). I hope this past week, every single one of you picked up your Bible and found daily reinforcement for the battle.
Today, we move on to the breastplate of righteousness. For the Roman soldier, the breastplate was the most extensive piece he wore. These metal breastplates could weigh anywhere from 40 to 75 pounds – depending on the size of the soldier! A breastplate’s purpose was to cover the vital organs, especially the heart – warding off the deadly thrusts of the popular short sword. This is what the breastplate made of righteousness does – it protects the vitality of the Christian, by protecting the heart from fear caused by uncertainty!
Let us pray: O God, help us to understand your gift of righteousness to us. We want to walk in victory, not in defeat. Help us to hear your truth, to receive it, and to wear it securely for your sake, and for the sake of generations to come. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
God is holy. There is nothing but purity in God. God alone is righteous. To be righteous means to be in a right relationship with God. God alone is in a right relationship with himself (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). There is no strife, no dissension, no jealousy, no power games, no SIN within the fullness of God. God is holy. And God, because of his holiness, CANNOT be in the presence of unrighteousness without life-ending punishment.
Listen to these verses from Romans 3: “There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one.” [Now, let’s remember that we’re not comparing ourselves to other people, we are compared to Jesus – and compared to him, we are not even on the map] “Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of vipers is under their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
“Houston, we have a problem.”
God is completely holy and righteous.
We are completely unholy and unrighteous.
We need God in our lives. We need to be in a relationship with Him, but he can’t be in a relationship with us because of our unrighteousness.
There are a couple of common solutions:
We can try to get righteous. We can try to get into a right relationship with God by trying to be good. Listen to these verses from Isaiah 64: “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.” The problem with trying to become righteous by our own good deeds is that it is a complete waste of time and energy. The devil wants to convince us that this is the way to go. “Work hard to please God, and then work harder yet. Perhaps one day he might turn his face back to you. Perhaps one day you’ll make the cut,” the devil says.
The second solution is based on the belt of truth that we’re supposed to have fastened around our waists. Hear this from 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Now from Romans 3, starting in verse 21 (from The Message): Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.
This solution is hard to believe; this solution is hard to receive as a total gift. But this IS the solution – and in fact, by faith, I believe it is the ONLY solution. Here’s how it works:
We are sinners – unrighteous in all we do.
The Bible tells us the wages of sin is death. We deserve eternal death.
Jesus comes, and dies in our place, taking our sin (our unrighteousness) upon himself – opening up the gates to eternal life in Heaven for us.
But his sacrifice means nothing to us unless we believe it and receive it. A gift is only ours when we receive it! And once we do that, the robe of righteousness is placed on our lives, that makes it possible for God to look upon me, and look upon you and see the righteousness of Jesus looking back at him.
Listen to these amazing verses from the book of Revelation 22:14, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, for they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.” In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lost the right to the tree of life when they followed the lies of the devil instead of the truth of God. In Revelation, in the time of the new heaven and the new earth, our right to the tree of life will be restored if we have washed our robes. Now, please listen to Revelation 7:13-17, “Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
How do we get our robes washed and white? By washing them in the blood of the Lamb – by saying YES! to Jesus – by admitting we are sinners and helpless apart from God’s mercy and grace – and by receiving the GIFT of righteousness upon our lives.
And so, what is the
breastplate of righteousness?
The breastplate of righteousness is the CONFIDENT ASSURANCE, once you have received the righteousness of Jesus, that you have been saved from slavery to sin and eternity in hell - and saved for eternal life in heaven with the Lord. Confident assurance. Standing with your head high – not arrogantly – but confidently – knowing that no matter how much you’ve messed up, you are covered for eternity!
I can’t tell you the number of people I visit in the hospital whom I know are covered in the robe of righteousness, because I know they’ve trusted in the work of Jesus on the cross. But I’ll say something like, “You know the Lord is with you. You know he loves you, and that one day you’ll see him face to face.” And the patient will say, “I hope so.” No! No! No! When you merely say, “I hope so,” the breastplate of righteousness just FELL OFF of you because the belt of truth just broke loose – and that’s where the devil wants you, especially in times of trouble (ordeals)! The devil wants you to doubt that God is with you when you’re very sick, that God cares what you’re going through when you can’t see how you’re going to pay your bills, that God is still in control when you’ve lost your job, or your marriage is suffering, or someone dear to you dies. As those who trust in the work of Jesus on the cross for us, we must go beyond simply “hoping.” We must get to the place of CONFIDENT ASSURANCE!
So, let’s try again. Let’s say I come to visit you in the hospital. I say something like this: “You know the Lord is with you. You know he loves you, and that one day you’ll see him face to face.” And you, armed for spiritual victory respond, “I know. I know God is with me. He will never leave me, or forsake me. He never slumbers nor sleeps. I know he is watching over me. I know all of my days are in his hands, and I trust him to help me make it through this trial as a witness to his presence in my life.” Have you heard that old song, “I Know Whom I Have Believed?” The chorus goes like this: But I know whom I have believed, And am persuaded that He is able, To keep that which I've committed, Unto Him against that day! That’s the way to think!
I believe that often the reason we don’t walk in confidence in the righteousness of Christ that covers us, is that we know how filthy our rags are under that robe. All of a sudden, we become more aware than ever how sinful we really are – and we walk in self-condemnation instead of confidence in Christ. And so, to help us with this, as part of this sermon, I’d like to add a little bonus material from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
In Matthew 5, we read a list of “blessed are you…” phrases, called the Beatitudes. One of those is, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Now, we have just learned that we become righteous in the eyes of God the moment that we receive the robe of righteousness from Jesus. We receive that gift instantaneously and eternally. It cannot be taken from us. The devil wants to convince us that it can be taken from us if we do this, or don’t do that. Kent Hughes in his commentary on Ephesians writes, “If you do not have this righteousness, nothing can save you; but if you have it, you are safe for eternity.” (p. 227) So, here’s the question: Why would Jesus say, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” knowing that those who believe and receive, already have righteousness from him? Hungering & thirsting is an ongoing event. So, how do we marry what Jesus gives to us, with what he is saying here?
Listen, being saved for Heaven is one thing; being blessed on earth is another thing. Jesus is saying to us that wearing the robe of righteousness comes with responsibility (not a responsibility to pay something back to God, because we cannot repay him for what he has done, and we cannot improve our standing with him once we put on that robe!). The responsibility that comes from wearing the robe is a responsibility to the world – to fulfill our part in continuing Jesus’ work of seeking and saving the lost until he comes for us. And we cannot fulfill that responsibility very well if we aren’t living the life of truth, if we are not hungering & thirsting to make our inside match our outside on a regular basis – and not by the strength of our own will, but by his strength working in us. Remember that Isaiah 64 passage? “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.” Here’s the verse I didn’t read before: “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
The first week of this series, I read the verses from 2 Corinthians 2:15-17, “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.”
When our behavior, our attitudes, our words, our actions, the use of our time, and the use of our money begin to be a sincere match with God’s truth found in Scripture and revealed in the life of Jesus, then Jesus says that we will be filled with righteousness – and that we will be blessed. To be blessed is to be at peace in this world – to have hearts that are whole – to be living a life that God smiles upon!
Put on the whole armor of God so that you will be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteous. Celebrate your security in God’s family! Walk confidently in his grace! And the tactics of the devil against you, will be completely ineffective as you go on the offensive. “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” 1 Peter 2:21-25.
Thanks be to God! Amen.
The Whole Armor of God, Part 4
“The Breastplate of Righteousness – Saved for Sure!”
Rev. Meagan Boozer
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness…”
Last week, we started learning together what all of the different pieces of armor mean. We learned that the belt of truth is the most important piece of armor we wear – without the belt of truth fastened firmly on us, all of the other pieces of armor will not stay in place. The belt of truth is made up of two things: The written word of God – the Bible; and the “in the flesh” word of God – Jesus! In order to take our stand against the wiles of the devil, we need to get into the Bible and we need to get into Jesus! We need to know the truths revealed in the Bible and taught in Jesus’ life, or we are not going to be able to tell when the devil is lying to us (which remember, is his primary tactic against us). I hope this past week, every single one of you picked up your Bible and found daily reinforcement for the battle.
Today, we move on to the breastplate of righteousness. For the Roman soldier, the breastplate was the most extensive piece he wore. These metal breastplates could weigh anywhere from 40 to 75 pounds – depending on the size of the soldier! A breastplate’s purpose was to cover the vital organs, especially the heart – warding off the deadly thrusts of the popular short sword. This is what the breastplate made of righteousness does – it protects the vitality of the Christian, by protecting the heart from fear caused by uncertainty!
Let us pray: O God, help us to understand your gift of righteousness to us. We want to walk in victory, not in defeat. Help us to hear your truth, to receive it, and to wear it securely for your sake, and for the sake of generations to come. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
God is holy. There is nothing but purity in God. God alone is righteous. To be righteous means to be in a right relationship with God. God alone is in a right relationship with himself (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). There is no strife, no dissension, no jealousy, no power games, no SIN within the fullness of God. God is holy. And God, because of his holiness, CANNOT be in the presence of unrighteousness without life-ending punishment.
Listen to these verses from Romans 3: “There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one.” [Now, let’s remember that we’re not comparing ourselves to other people, we are compared to Jesus – and compared to him, we are not even on the map] “Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of vipers is under their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
“Houston, we have a problem.”
God is completely holy and righteous.
We are completely unholy and unrighteous.
We need God in our lives. We need to be in a relationship with Him, but he can’t be in a relationship with us because of our unrighteousness.
There are a couple of common solutions:
We can try to get righteous. We can try to get into a right relationship with God by trying to be good. Listen to these verses from Isaiah 64: “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.” The problem with trying to become righteous by our own good deeds is that it is a complete waste of time and energy. The devil wants to convince us that this is the way to go. “Work hard to please God, and then work harder yet. Perhaps one day he might turn his face back to you. Perhaps one day you’ll make the cut,” the devil says.
The second solution is based on the belt of truth that we’re supposed to have fastened around our waists. Hear this from 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Now from Romans 3, starting in verse 21 (from The Message): Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.
This solution is hard to believe; this solution is hard to receive as a total gift. But this IS the solution – and in fact, by faith, I believe it is the ONLY solution. Here’s how it works:
We are sinners – unrighteous in all we do.
The Bible tells us the wages of sin is death. We deserve eternal death.
Jesus comes, and dies in our place, taking our sin (our unrighteousness) upon himself – opening up the gates to eternal life in Heaven for us.
But his sacrifice means nothing to us unless we believe it and receive it. A gift is only ours when we receive it! And once we do that, the robe of righteousness is placed on our lives, that makes it possible for God to look upon me, and look upon you and see the righteousness of Jesus looking back at him.
Listen to these amazing verses from the book of Revelation 22:14, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, for they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.” In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lost the right to the tree of life when they followed the lies of the devil instead of the truth of God. In Revelation, in the time of the new heaven and the new earth, our right to the tree of life will be restored if we have washed our robes. Now, please listen to Revelation 7:13-17, “Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
How do we get our robes washed and white? By washing them in the blood of the Lamb – by saying YES! to Jesus – by admitting we are sinners and helpless apart from God’s mercy and grace – and by receiving the GIFT of righteousness upon our lives.
And so, what is the
breastplate of righteousness?
The breastplate of righteousness is the CONFIDENT ASSURANCE, once you have received the righteousness of Jesus, that you have been saved from slavery to sin and eternity in hell - and saved for eternal life in heaven with the Lord. Confident assurance. Standing with your head high – not arrogantly – but confidently – knowing that no matter how much you’ve messed up, you are covered for eternity!
I can’t tell you the number of people I visit in the hospital whom I know are covered in the robe of righteousness, because I know they’ve trusted in the work of Jesus on the cross. But I’ll say something like, “You know the Lord is with you. You know he loves you, and that one day you’ll see him face to face.” And the patient will say, “I hope so.” No! No! No! When you merely say, “I hope so,” the breastplate of righteousness just FELL OFF of you because the belt of truth just broke loose – and that’s where the devil wants you, especially in times of trouble (ordeals)! The devil wants you to doubt that God is with you when you’re very sick, that God cares what you’re going through when you can’t see how you’re going to pay your bills, that God is still in control when you’ve lost your job, or your marriage is suffering, or someone dear to you dies. As those who trust in the work of Jesus on the cross for us, we must go beyond simply “hoping.” We must get to the place of CONFIDENT ASSURANCE!
So, let’s try again. Let’s say I come to visit you in the hospital. I say something like this: “You know the Lord is with you. You know he loves you, and that one day you’ll see him face to face.” And you, armed for spiritual victory respond, “I know. I know God is with me. He will never leave me, or forsake me. He never slumbers nor sleeps. I know he is watching over me. I know all of my days are in his hands, and I trust him to help me make it through this trial as a witness to his presence in my life.” Have you heard that old song, “I Know Whom I Have Believed?” The chorus goes like this: But I know whom I have believed, And am persuaded that He is able, To keep that which I've committed, Unto Him against that day! That’s the way to think!
I believe that often the reason we don’t walk in confidence in the righteousness of Christ that covers us, is that we know how filthy our rags are under that robe. All of a sudden, we become more aware than ever how sinful we really are – and we walk in self-condemnation instead of confidence in Christ. And so, to help us with this, as part of this sermon, I’d like to add a little bonus material from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
In Matthew 5, we read a list of “blessed are you…” phrases, called the Beatitudes. One of those is, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Now, we have just learned that we become righteous in the eyes of God the moment that we receive the robe of righteousness from Jesus. We receive that gift instantaneously and eternally. It cannot be taken from us. The devil wants to convince us that it can be taken from us if we do this, or don’t do that. Kent Hughes in his commentary on Ephesians writes, “If you do not have this righteousness, nothing can save you; but if you have it, you are safe for eternity.” (p. 227) So, here’s the question: Why would Jesus say, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” knowing that those who believe and receive, already have righteousness from him? Hungering & thirsting is an ongoing event. So, how do we marry what Jesus gives to us, with what he is saying here?
Listen, being saved for Heaven is one thing; being blessed on earth is another thing. Jesus is saying to us that wearing the robe of righteousness comes with responsibility (not a responsibility to pay something back to God, because we cannot repay him for what he has done, and we cannot improve our standing with him once we put on that robe!). The responsibility that comes from wearing the robe is a responsibility to the world – to fulfill our part in continuing Jesus’ work of seeking and saving the lost until he comes for us. And we cannot fulfill that responsibility very well if we aren’t living the life of truth, if we are not hungering & thirsting to make our inside match our outside on a regular basis – and not by the strength of our own will, but by his strength working in us. Remember that Isaiah 64 passage? “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.” Here’s the verse I didn’t read before: “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
The first week of this series, I read the verses from 2 Corinthians 2:15-17, “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.”
When our behavior, our attitudes, our words, our actions, the use of our time, and the use of our money begin to be a sincere match with God’s truth found in Scripture and revealed in the life of Jesus, then Jesus says that we will be filled with righteousness – and that we will be blessed. To be blessed is to be at peace in this world – to have hearts that are whole – to be living a life that God smiles upon!
Put on the whole armor of God so that you will be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteous. Celebrate your security in God’s family! Walk confidently in his grace! And the tactics of the devil against you, will be completely ineffective as you go on the offensive. “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” 1 Peter 2:21-25.
Thanks be to God! Amen.
