©2005 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

08-21-05

The Breastplate Of Righteousness Pt. 2

8/14/05 The Breastplate of Righteousness Pt. 2

EPH 6:13-17 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

This is the passage

that has provided us with the basis

for the studies we’ve been involved in during the past several months.

It is found in the final chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians,

given to us by Paul

to help answer that one question

that always comes to the mind of the Christian

whenever we read honestly

what Paul has given us in the first five chapters,

the question, “So just exactly how do I go about doing what You’ve called me to do?”

In the first five chapters

Paul reveals to us

what it means for us to be the inheritance of God -

not what it means to receive the inheritance of God,

but what it means for us to BE the inheritance of God.

We invest so much of our thinking

and our talking in the Christian world

in trying to understand the receiving part of this arrangement

that God has established between us and Himself through Christ.

And it is time well spent.

What we have received through Christ,

in fact what we have become through Christ

is so far beyond what we could ever have anticipated or imagined on our own.

Illustrations on a human level always fail us here,

but we are not unlike beggars on the street

pleading with those passing buy for just enough to cover the cost of a small meal,

only to discover

that what we have received in response to our cry for help

is not just a meal,

but an entire kingdom

and all of the credentials and resources necessary to rule it.

When we first come to our King

we are just like that blind beggar outside of Jericho

who heard Jesus passing by.

Listen to this.

LUK 18:35-43 And it came about that as He was approaching Jericho, a certain blind man was sitting by the road, begging. Now hearing a multitude going by, he began to inquire what this might be. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he called out, saying, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" And those who led the way were sternly telling him to be quiet; but he kept crying out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" And Jesus stopped and commanded that he be brought to Him; and when he had come near, He questioned him, "What do you want Me to do for you?" And he said, "Lord, I want to regain my sight!" And Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well." And immediately he regained his sight, and began following Him, glorifying God; and when all the people saw it, they gave praise to God.

Now certainly that’s a great account

of our Lord forever listening for

and then responding to the cries of those who reach out to Him for help.

But, when I came across that passage once again this past week,

I saw something there I’d never seen before.

Here is this blind beggar

who suddenly finds himself

being granted a personal, one-to-one audience with God Himself.

And when Jesus comes up to him,

the first thing He does

is to ask the man a question.

"What do you want Me to do for you?"

Now, we hear that question

and there is a part of us

that wonders why Jesus asked it.

Here He is,

standing before this blind beggar,

asking the man what he wants.

Isn’t it obvious?

He wants his sight!

But when I saw that question this past week

I suddenly realized

that it wasn’t Jesus who was unclear about what was happening,

it was the beggar.

Here he is with God Himself standing before Him

extending to him an invitation

to ask for whatever he wants

and all he asks for is his sight!

Why didn’t he think big?

Why didn’t he say,

“Well Lord, I’d like my sight,

and I’d like all of my sins forgiven,

and I’d like wisdom like you gave Solomon,

and I’d like to share in Your Kingdom,

and I’d like an eternal life in your presence,

and I’d like a whole new life here, now on this earth,

a life that really makes a powerful impact for good.”

He didn’t because he,

just like us when we first come to our God,

could think only at the point of his greatest pain.

For him

that point was his blindness.

For us

it is whatever our Lord used in our lives

to bring us to the point of crying out to him.

And because our pain at that one point is so intense when we first come to Him,

at first we don’t hear what our God is saying to us

beyond the fact that we really are going to receive from Him some relief.

But if we keep listening,

and listening,

and listening,

eventually we begin to discover

that what we asked for

is not the only thing we have received.

In fact it really is

just the tip of the iceberg.

Our God has not just forgiven our sins against Him,

but He then ... raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.

He made us His ambassadors here on this earth,

and made us a chosen race,

and a royal priesthood,

and a holy nation,

a people for God's own possession,

so that we may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

We have been strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might,

and He has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light,

and He delivered us from the domain of darkness,

and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.

And there is so much more we receive as well.

We have literally been given His Spirit within us,

and the ability to understand His Word,

and we have each been given special gifts that equip us for the work He has for us here and now.

It’s no wonder we spend so much of our thinking

focused on those things we have received from God as a result of Christ’s death.

But when Paul wrote the book of Ephesians

one of his chief purposes in writing the letter

was to reveal to us

not just what we have received through the death of Christ,

but what God Himself received through the death of His Son.

God wants us to see through His eyes,

to understand at least at some level

why it was worth it to both the Father and the Son

to go through what they went through on our behalf.

In fact, early in this letter

Paul prays that EPH 1:18 “... the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know ... what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints...”.

Not our inheritance, HIS inheritance,

what HE received.

And as we have moved through this letter

we have seen that what He received was us -

His people, redeemed, recreated, restored to perfect union with Him,

a people through whom He could then reveal Himself, His true nature,

in a way that could never have been revealed before.

He describes us as the physical body of Jesus Christ here on this earth.

And Paul tells us that the manifold wisdom of God is now being made known through us

to the rulers and authorities in the spirit world.

Do you know what that means?

It means that,

when God wants His angels to know what He’s really like,

and when He wants Satan and his demons to know who He really is,

He points to us

and He says, “There! That will tell you who I am,

and how I love.

Look what I have done in the lives of my people.

I don’t just forgive,

I recreate in love.”

And as we read Paul’s words describing

both what God has done in us

and what He is seeking to do through us each day,

there is a part of us that responds by saying,

“That sounds great, Lord,

but how can I really live this out in a practical way each day?

How can I be in practical reality what you say I already am in spirit?”

Or, in the terms Paul uses here in Ephesians,

how can I walk in a manner worthy of my calling?

And a major part of the answer to that “how” question

is given to us in this passage we are studying right now.

“...take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm...”

And then, to make it easier for us to hang onto,

Paul gives it to us

in the form of an illustration,

an illustration of armor we clothe ourselves in,

armor that then equips us for the warfare we face each day.

We’ve looked at a few pieces of that armor so far.

We’ve looked at what it means for us to gird our loins with truth,

and what it means for us to place on our feet the preparation of the gospel of peace.

And then, two weeks ago,

we started talking about the breastplate of righteousness.

And we saw that when we come to Christ,

when we reach out to Him

with our hands full of our sin and our failure,

when God’s Spirit is finally able to bring us to the truth about ourselves,

the truth that we are created beings who enter this world with spirits in rebellion against our Creator

and our only hope is to reach out to Him for mercy and forgiveness,

that when we do that

He responds to our cry for help

by not only forgiving us,

but by then creating within us a new heart,

a heart that loves Him and longs to please Him.

He takes our sin

and replaces it with His righteousness.

We literally become the holy ones of God

at the spirit level of our being.

2CO 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

The sin is gone.

YOUR sin is gone forever,

taken from you by Christ Himself.

Your sin became His sin

and He paid the price for it in full.

And He never ever gives it back to you.

It is removed from you forever.

PSA 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Understanding this most basic truth

about the way things really are between us and our God

is our first great line of defense

against some of the most vicious attacks

Satan ever brings against the Christian.

Satan can do nothing about the recreative work

that Christ has accomplished within our spirits.

He can never ever remove us from the hand of God.

He can never undo what God has done.

He can never again defile what God has made holy.

But he can and he does bombard us with lies

about who we really are.

One of the titles given to Satan in the book of Revelation

is “the accuser of our brethren”.

And in every way possible

he will take sins from our past

and fling them up in our face,

perhaps even pointing out the damage we did to ourselves and to others in the process,

and then he’ll say, “Look at you! That’s who you really are. That’s who you were then, and that’s who you are now!”

Or he will take feelings and attitudes and actions from our present life

and he will hold them up before our face

and then ask us if we really think we have any basis on which to stand secure before our God,

or to call ourselves His child.

And when such accusations come at us

either through our own minds

or through the mouths of those around us

who are being used by him to attack us,

our defense,

our protection against those lies

comes through our holding up the truth against those attacks.

“Yes indeed, Satan, you’re right! That memory you’ve flung up in my face was sin. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless other sins you’ve failed to bring up. And you’re absolutely right - on the basis of my performance I have no right whatsoever to expect anything from my God other than rejection and condemnation. But here is the great wonder of the world - my God loves me. And from the foundation of the world He has been calling me to Himself. And my God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved me, even when I was dead in my transgressions, made me alive together with Christ and raised me up with Him, and seated me with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. I don’t know why He did that. I only know He did. So say what you will about me, Satan. I’ll agree with all of it because it only intensifies my awareness of the depth of my God’s love for me.”

Now, that’s where we ended two weeks ago.

But it is only half of what we need to understand

about this breastplate of righteousness.

You see, there is a second layer to this breastplate,

the layer of true righteous living brought about within us by the Spirit of God.

That sounds too theological.

Let me put it this way -

Christ doesn’t just recreate our hearts,

He recreates our lives.

And here’s the way this thing works.

When we come to Christ

every one of us brings with us

deeply rooted areas of unrighteousness -

sin patterns that are depriving us

of the freedom to live the kind and quality of life

that our Lord designed us to live.

Those areas differ with each of us,

and there are a multitude of unique ingredients

that all contribute to the creation

of whatever sin patterns we possess.

There are frequently strong family heritage issues involved,

sin patterns that are passed on from generation to generation within family lines.

There are genetic issues involved.

There are temperament issues involved.

It sometimes helps me to picture those genetic and family areas of weakness

like this.

When we enter this world,

even though we all enter with spirits in rebellion against God,

He, in His love, places within each of us

a protective resistance against sin

in the form of our conscience - an inborn awareness of moral right and wrong.

He does this primarily so that we don’t destroy ourselves

before He has an opportunity

to draw us to Himself through Christ.

But the conscience is a fascinating thing.

I picture it like a three foot brick wall built around us.

But it is a brick wall built without any mortar.

The bricks are simply stacked up.

When we violate that moral conscience,

when we lunge out at something we see on the other side of the wall

and then decide we simply must have it in order to meet our needs,

when we climb over that wall

in the process we knock over a few of those bricks.

Then, the next time we lunge out in the same direction

we discover that the wall is a little lower,

and a little easier to get over.

And it doesn’t take long before,

where once there was a wall,

there is now a door.

But my point here is that,

because of our family history

and because of our genetic make up,

there are with each of us certain places in that wall

where some of the bricks are already missing,

places where we have inherited greater vulnerabilities to certain sin patterns.

Or, to put it differently,

we all enter this world

a few bricks short of a load.

Now, in our natural flesh responses,

what we typically do

is to build our external public image

around those areas where our wall is still strong.

We look with contempt at other people

whose walls are weak in those areas where ours is strong.

It keeps our eyes

and the eyes of others

off of those areas in our own lives where we are weak.

But from the time we come to Christ,

because of His great love for us,

our God begins a personalized program in each of our lives

in which He seeks to conform us more and more to the image of Christ.

And that program always begins with those missing bricks.

Do you remember those progressive steps of grow

outlined for us by Peter in 2 Peter 1:5-7?

What was the first step?

...in your faith supply moral excellence...

He doesn’t do it

because we need to clean up our act so that He can then love us.

He loved us when we were in open rebellion against Him.

He doesn’t do it

because our sin

is any threat to our relationship to Him.

Remember that first layer of our shield?

The sin - all of it - really is gone forever.

He does it for just one reason,

JOH 8:34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”

He fights sin in our lives

because sin always brings bondage,

and it always destroys relationships.

And if we turn this around

and look at it from the other side

what He does is to seek to create within us true righteous living.

If we listen,

if we stay open to Him,

if we do not allow our fears to conquer us,

we will move through that growth process

under the leadership of His Spirit

and find Him creating within us true righteousness

where once there was only sin slavery.

And that is the second layer

of this glorious breastplate of righteousness.

And as this process progresses,

those very areas that were once the great sink-holes and sewers of our lives

become the great platform upon which we can then proclaim the redemptive power of our God to those around us.

David put it this way.

PSA 40:2-3 He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay; And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear, And will trust in the Lord.

And when we put these two layers of our breastplate together,

look what happens.

Because of the first layer,

that righteousness of spirit given to us by our God,

we can proclaim to the world the love of our God.

And because of the second layer,

that true recreation of the way we live each day,

we can proclaim to the world the power of our God.

We proclaim His love

through His redemptive recreation of our spirits,

we proclaim His power

through His practical rebuilding of our lives.

And it is remarkable the way this practical rebuilding of our lives affects us.

Even if we never or rarely address the specific areas of healing

that God has accomplished in our lives,

the very fact that He has done what He has done

gives us a boldness and a confidence

in our whole presentation of our Lord

through every aspect of our lives.

You see,

when I know that my God has broken the power

of the greatest lies

and the sins they have produced in my life,

I know with certainty

that He can and will do the same for you,

even though the specifics of your struggles

may be completely different than mine.

And one other area of protection provided by this breastplate of righteousness that I’d mention

is the way in which it guards us

from so many of the false accusations

that so often come against us.

There simply is no greater defense

against accusations against our character

than knowing those accusations simply are not true.

And most of the time

the greatest tool we will ever have

in our efforts to proclaim our Lord to the world

is a changed life.

Our Lord said it perfectly.

MAT 7:16-20 "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit; but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.

Now, we’re not quite done with this yet

because, having talked about the way in which

our Lord works His practical rebuilding process in our lives,

I want to make just a few comments

about why there seem to be so many within the Church world

in whose lives this process just does not seem to be working.

But we’ll need to save that for next week.