The Armor of God: Feet Fitted with the Gospel of Peace

Well, I'm glad to be here with you today. There's something rich and good about the body of Christ coming together to encourage one another to be a source of hope and help and challenge to one another. And my hope and desire is that the church functions like the Green Zone in a war. Have you heard this phrase, the Green Zone? The Green Zone is that heavily fortified zone just back from the enemy lines where all of those who are fighting can come and they can rest and eat and train and resupply.

It's also a command center where battle plans are drawn up. It's a strategic position, an outpost for the army. Now, especially if you are here for the first time today, you might be thinking, this is a bit much. This is a bit militaristic in the description here. But we've been in this series on spiritual warfare.

We've been in this series on the armor of God. And something that I've forgotten to mention in this, that I've been meaning to mention is our Next Gen team has done a really good job. We've worked together to align our teaching. So our kids and students are also talking about the armor of God right now. And we did this on purpose.

And our hope is that you'll be having conversations at your dinner table, in the car and on your couch asking them what they've learned. If you need a little bit of help with that, especially for the little guys, our Next Gen team has put together a discussion guide. It's on the front page of our website. If you scroll down a little bit, you can find that discussion guide to have these conversations with the little ones. But whether you ask those questions or you just say, hey, what did you talk about?

Or do you say, hey, we talked about the shoes today. Talk about that. We think that these are pivotal and important conversations for us to be having multi generationally. So we're in this series on the armor of God. Quick recap of the series.

Week one, we talked about how movie and TV and books have given us this super dramatic, over the top picture of spiritual things, demonic powers and all kinds of crazy stuff, right? We also talked about some crazy stuff that's in the Bible. Some of it doesn't get full descriptions. We don't know what to do with some of it. So it draws us to either be obsessed over these things or to write them off as fairy tales.

But we said that the aim of this series is to gain understanding, a solid understanding of what practical things the Bible does have to say about spiritual warfare. And look at what Paul describes to us as the armor of God that he says we need to put on in order to be made ready for this spiritual war. We said that this war is being fought for one really important reason. We're fighting to reconcile all things back to God, just like it was when God's kingdom was in full, perfect condition at the end of Genesis 2. The word on repeat in this series is the Hebrew word shalom, Wholeness, completeness, everything just as it should be, as God created it to be, and as he intends for it to be again in eternity.

Now, week two, we looked at the belt of truth, and we said that God's truth should be our anchor in this chaos of life and the moving truth of this culture. And we also said that it's around us as our truth, us being truthful people. The next week, we looked at the breastplate of righteousness and talked about the reality that those of us who are in Christ have been made righteous. Not we're being made righteous, we have been made righteous. This is an incredible reality.

And then today we look at her feet, we look at her feet and Paul says that they are to be fitted with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of peace. Paul tells us the part that as part of the whole armor that we're commanded to put on, we should put on these shoes and they should be fitted properly. The imagery of this whole armor for the whole series is the imagery of a Roman soldier. And the Roman soldiers wore shoes that were called caligae. They were strappy leather sandals.

The bottom of them had a very thick leather sole and long straps that would come up the foot and the ankle and even onto the shin to really attach that shoe to the soldier. They would also drive hobnails down through the soles and they would act like cleats, like spikes, metal spikes, that would give them traction over all kinds of terrain. Now, all these characteristics gave the Roman foot soldiers stability and mobility. Stability and mobility gave them firm footing so that they could stand firm in the battle. And it made it so that they could quickly cover ground.

In fact, the Romans were known for having fast moving foot armies. They could cover 20 miles in a day to intercept an enemy and quickly get where they needed to. It's these two characteristics, I'll call them grip and go, grip and go, that I think Paul has in mind for us when he says to make sure our feet are fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. So with these two words in mind, grip and go, what can we learn from, from this text. Well, first I have no doubt in my mind that the position that Paul wants us to hold here and what's told to us over and over is for us to stand, to stand firm.

This grip, verses 10 and 11 tell us that we are to be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power so that we, we can, quote, take our stand. Verse 13 says that we are to put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, we may be able to stand our ground. And after we have put on the full armor, after we've done everything to stand firm, then, then verse 14 opens with stand firm. Then other than the verb put on, this is the thing that's on repeat the most. This, this is the instruction to stand.

And I have to conclude that Paul's pointing out that these special shoes give us a sure footedness, a grip in this spiritual battle. But what is the spiritual reality of this grip, of these cleats, so to speak? It's the gospel of peace. We keep Talking about Genesis 2 and how God is finished creating the world. And he says that everything is good, right, whole, just as it should be.

And hopefully we use this Hebrew word so many times that you're sick and tired of hearing it. The Hebrew word is shalom. Well done. The Hebrew word shalom actually has a Greek equivalent in the New Testament. The Old Testament is written in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek.

And the Greek equivalent is the word irene. We translate that as peace. And this is the word that, that Paul uses with your feet, fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of shalom, Irene, peace. We keep saying that this war is all about restoring things back to created order, to shalom. And this word gospel, the gospel of peace gospel just means good news.

So our feet are fitted with the good news that comes from the gospel of reconciliation. That's what this is all about. This good news is our firm footing. And we need this firm footing for this great work of being Christ's ambassadors. This is another thing that we keep looking at.

Second Corinthians 5, Paul says, 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. So those of us who have put on Christ have been empowered and brought to life through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and are now ambassadors or ministers of reconciliation. You probably know ambassadors are just accredited representatives or for a country or a government.

An ambassador serves as a Physical, local representation of the one who sent them. We are ambassadors of Christ, ambassadors of the kingdom, ambassadors of reconciliation and peace. Have you ever heard of the term diplomatic immunity? Diplomatic immunity. It's basically the idea that when an official diplomat or ambassador of a government travels abroad, they are not bound by the laws of the country that they're visiting.

They're not bound by the laws of the country they're visiting. Think of it this way. Wherever an ambassador is standing, the ground under his or her feet, legally speaking, is the home soil of their home nation. And only the laws of his or her home nation can be applied to them as ambassadors who are tasked with the ministry of reconciling the world to God. Wherever we go, wherever we are standing, we are not bound by the laws and the ways of this world.

We are bound by the laws and the ways of the kingdom. This is how God's kingdom comes to the world. With our feet fitted and firmly planted, we are his ambassadors, and we are bringing heaven to earth right where we stand. So that when we step into our homes, we are working to reconcile our marriage, our parenting, our finances, our schedule with the ways and the laws of the kingdom. When we step into our workplaces, our schools, when we step onto our sports fields or out into the community, we are ministers of reconciliation who are bound not by the laws and the ways of this world, but bound by the laws and the ways of the kingdom.

This is why and how we can stand firm. Because when we have on these gospel shoes, wherever we are standing, we are firmly gripped in the good news that God has provided a way to reconcile all things to Himself through Jesus. We stand firm with the truth belted around our waist, that we are a new creation, that we are empowered with the resurrection power of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that we are clothed in righteousness, of the righteousness of King Jesus, and that we are more than conquerors. There is no surer footing than that. So that's the grip side of these special shoes.

Let's look at the go side. How do we even know that there is a go element that Paul is talking about here? It's actually at the end of this section. Paul tells us to pray. And he says after, he says, go on praying for all the Lord's people.

Just keep doing that. He says in Ephesians 6:19, mind you, he wrote these words from a Roman prison after getting arrested for proclaiming the gospel. Keep that in mind, he says, pray for all the Lord's people and pray also for me. Why because he's tired, because he wants some good food, because they want him to send. He wants him to send a loaf of bread with a saw inside of it.

Because he's got health issues. Because he wants to get out of jail. No, that's not what he asked for. He says, pray also for me that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the Gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. Paul's request is as selfless a request as you could come up with.

He says, pray for me to keep doing this even though I'm in chains. He personally exemplifies and personifies both the call and the cost of proclaiming the Gospel. It's no coincidence that after listing the whole armor and calling us to stand, that he connects this war with boldly proclaiming the gospel, boldly proclaiming the good News. This proclamation is an expected act of waging this war to reconcile all things to God. Now, this should be no surprise to you at all.

Anybody who's been around the church for any length of time has had. Has heard the Great Commission. This is what Jesus the instruction that Jesus gave to his disciples after he was resurrected but before he went up into heaven. This is one of the last things he said to them. He's realizing in this moment that the disciples are finally getting it because they now see a resurrected Jesus.

And he goes, you finally get it. Let's go. That's what he says to them, sort of Matthew 28, 18, 20, he said. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Go, make disciples. I have all the authority, and I will not stop, stop being with you. Now Paul gives us a beautiful description of what this can look like. In Second Corinthians, chapter two, he says, but thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession.

Triumphal procession is the parade that comes after winning a battle. Jesus has won the battle, and we are constantly in awe, always being led by Christ in a victory parade. We're not living like that. We're not living like that. And through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To one, a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Paul says we are the aroma of God. When we walk by, people get a whiff of Jesus. But he says that this aroma will smell like death to some and it will smell like life to others.

And this is a significant point that we can't lose sight of. We can't ignore it or be surprised by it. Some, when they meet Jesus, will smell death, some will smell life. But we are Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. And we must go and tell others this gospel message.

And we all might be nodding our heads and pumping our fists and going, yeah, somebody ought to do that.

But nearly all of us, myself included, have instead expected and funded others to do it instead of ourselves, haven't we? Nearly all of us are content to have accepted Jesus, to have received salvation, to come and worship here every week and every week we walk out and we never tell anyone about the hope that we have in Jesus. Of course, if our favorite sportsball team played a really great game last night, we can't wait to get to work to talk about it and talk about how we really did something last night. If we get to go on an amazing vacation to a beautiful place, we can't wait to upload our pictures onto social media so that everybody can ooh and ah and give us that petty little blue thumb. If we eat at a brand new restaurant and eat an incredible meal, we can't wait to be the one who, who tells other people about this amazing new place.

How is it that we are so easily ambassadors and evangelists for these things and not for King Jesus who died the death that we deserve to die so that we could walk in the newness of life? It is because there is a wide gap between conviction and obedience. I'm going to say that again. There is a wide gap between yes, I agree, conviction and yes, I will, obedience. So what do we do?

What do we do about this thing that we're all terrible at? Well, all through this series so far we've said that in order to put on a piece of armor, there's something that we need to take off. So what do we need to take off and in order to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace, I think it's two things, and I'm going to warn you, these two things are going to make us squirm today. The two things are we need to put off Our own comfort and our indifference. Our comfort and our indifference.

First, let's talk about comfort. You probably haven't even taken the time to consider how many things in your life are there to ensure that you never have to experience discomfort. All of us have enough resources around us to keep ourselves from most every discomfort that every other human in every other century in the world has ever had to experience experience on a daily basis in all of history. We are the softest, most pampered, most overprotected, most climate controlled, best fed, least capable of suffering people that have ever existed. Luxuries that were only for royalty and the wealthy elite are everywhere in our homes today.

We have Tylenol sunscreen, memory foam mattresses, Novocaine and laughing gas at the dentist. We have heated seats in our cars, medication for anxiety and depression. We have sunglasses, synthetic fabrics and takeout Chinese. We have air conditioning when it's hot, we have heat when it's cold. We can now order all our food, clothing, medicine, entertainment and services from our phone online while eating doordash, watching Netflix with no commercials, and sitting on our couch in our underwear.

We can even cancel subscriptions now by clicking a button instead of having to talk to a human being who might make us feel guilty or obligated. We have dual climate control in our cars so that the driver and the passenger never have to suffer through the preferred temperature of the other.

Even the least fortunate among us are the most comfortable people to have ever existed in the history of the world. Now don't get me wrong. I love this stuff. I love this stuff. I will not be asking the dentist to fill my next cavity without novocaine.

But because we have come to expect comfort in so many ways of our lives, areas of our lives, we are more averse to discomfort than any people who have ever existed. Now, it's no big deal when it comes to most things, but we have to recognize that all of this keeps us from sharing the Gospel of Jesus with others. Because we don't want to be uncomfortable, and because it is now a societal sin to make anyone else feel uncomfortable, we won't dare risk the discomfort to bring it up. But if we believe that what the Bible tells us about sin is true, about what death, what the Bible says about death is true, then we are trading temporary comfort of ourselves and others for something that is not at all worth it. And what keeps us unwilling to embrace this discomfort is the other thing.

It is that we have become indifferent. We've become indifferent to our own salvation, and we have become indifferent to the salvation of others. Most of us have completely lost sight of the reality that Paul shares with us all throughout the New Testament. Ephesians 2 lays this out. It says, as for you, that's you, that's you, that's you, this is me.

As for you, you were dead, dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live, when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit, who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh, following the desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved when you recognize that you were dead, but now you're not.

You will not be indifferent. Praise God that we're not indifferent about kids who don't have shoes. Lots of us, the last several weeks, gathered over 400 pairs of shoes to make sure that kids don't need to go without. Praise God. Praise God that we're not indifferent about hunger.

You'll take home blue bags to fill them with food so that we can give them out at the pantry. Yes. Praise God that we're not indifferent to the lack of education that's presenting in our culture and in our neighborhoods. Many of us have given our lives in work and volunteerism to these schools to give these kids a better life. Praise God that we're not indifferent to homelessness and that hundreds of us will come and fill bags, resource bags for the homeless.

But somehow we're indifferent to the death of our family, our co workers and our friends and our acquaintances who the Bible clearly says are currently dead, who the Bible says are perishing without Jesus. And we're indifferent because we've forgotten what it was like. Or maybe we never even actually grasped the reality that we were dead. The truth is, if we saw a toddler crawling toward a pool, we would swoop in as quickly as we could to save it from drown. If we knew that our friends were about to eat something that would kill them, something poisonous, we would immediately slap it out of their hands, whatever it took.

If this morning on the way to church, before you got in your car, a lion attacked you and you survived and you made it here, I would not have to beg you to tell that story. You would tell everyone about this Amazing heroine experience about how you were about to die, but you did not. But the Bible tells us that these things are all true. Sin is the poison that's killing us. It is the pool that we are drowning in.

It is the lion that was about to devour us. But God, the Bible tells us that we were dead.

We were dead, but we are resurrected. How can we continue to read the Bible, gather for worship week after week, and remain indifferent to these realities? The fear of discomfort and the paralyzing effect of indifference keep us from sharing the gospel of Jesus with others. And when we hold this back, we prove that either we do not love others enough to save them from this death, or that we don't actually believe in any of this at all. And you might be hearing this in the moment and feeling convicted, and that's fabulous, because I'm passionately pleading with you.

But there is a giant gap between being convicted and doing something about it. And I want you to know, man, I have struggled to finish this sermon, to land this sermon, maybe more than any I've written. And it's because I see that Satan has such a grasp on us in this area, he is so overwhelmingly ahead in this game, that I feel like no matter what I tell you today, we won't do anything about it.

I feel like we are swimming against this raging river that is sucking us downstream further and further from the truth. But I've seen God do too many impossible things to give in to that church. There is a way through our comfort, through our indifference, there is a way to turn this giant ship. And today, my hope is that. That I can change not all of us in every way so that everyone will suddenly be perfect at this.

Instead, I'm just wanting to lay one brick, one brick on the road that gets us here. Because I'm not asking you to grab a bullhorn and get out on the corner. In fact, please don't do that. But instead of that, I'm going to ask you to do just a few things. Just a few things.

Things that I know all of us can do. One brick first is this. Know your story. Know your story. You have a story.

If you are indifferent to your own salvation, then you have missed your story. First, Peter 3 tells us to be prepared to give a reason for the hope that we have in Jesus. Many, if not most of us, are not prepared to do this. Many, if not most of us, it's because we don't actually have a story of hope in Jesus because we've never taken the time to Write it down. So here's the challenge.

Know your story. Go home this week, grab a piece of paper, open up a new file on your phone, on the computer, whatever it is, and start to write your story. Write your story of death to life. Write your story of how Jesus has brought hope into your life in ways that are not possible without him.

It doesn't have to be dramatic. It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to have a bunch of gory details. It can be simple, but write it out. And if that does not break through your indifference, then you have the wrong story.

Write it again until that story breaks through your indifference. So know your story. Second, practice telling your story. Practice telling your story. Once you've got this story down, start easy.

Tell your spouse. Tell another Christian. Tell your small group. Tell somebody. Safe and simple.

I'm not even kidding when I say this. Tell your dog. Tell your dog your story. Stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself your story. Get it on your lips.

Get it on your tongue. And practice telling your story. Because if you don't know it, and if you haven't practiced it, you won't tell it. So know your story. Practice telling your story.

Embrace the discomfort. Embrace the discomfort. Lots of ways we could do that in our lives. Here's the very simple way. I'm gonna ask all of us to do this.

It's not easy, but it's very simple. All of us who are headed out to lunch today, we can do this. It's very simple. When you go to a restaurant and you sit down, you order, and they bring you your food. Whoever brings you your food, you look at them and you say, hey, we're about to thank God for this food.

Is there anything that we can pray for you for? So simple. Not easy. You got to embrace 10 seconds of awkward. But I can tell you from experience, here's what's going to happen.

One of two things. Either after that 10 seconds of awkwardness, that person is going to open up to you in ways that you cannot even imagine that a stranger would. One night, we were sitting at a restaurant, and this young man was there, and Heidi said, how can we pray for you? And he paused for a minute, he took it in, and he said, you know What? He's probably 20.

He said, you know what? I just found out that I have a daughter that I didn't know I had, and her mom doesn't want me in her life, but I'm not who I was then, and I want to be in my daughter's life. Will you pray for that?

All he did is bring us some food and we prayed for him and encouraged him and we checked in with him and it's just, what an incredible, easy thing. Can you imagine the impact, the ripple effect that this could have in our community if we would just do that? While if we would be bold enough to just say, how can I pray for you? Imagine the impact if all of us did that in our community. Embrace the 10 seconds of awkward and watch God work.

Know your story, Practice telling your story. Embrace the awkward and pray. I ask God to make you aware and willing. That simple aware and willing. God, make me aware of what you're doing, where you're leading, who you want me to talk to or pray with or check in with or connect with and make me willing help.

Make me willing to do whatever the Holy Spirit is leading me to do. That's all I'm gonna ask for today. I know we can do this. I know we can do this. This isn't hard.

It is just being intentional about turning conviction into reality. So it's time that we step out of our indifference. It's time that we step into a little discomfort. So will you join me? Will you join me in doing this?

If we want to put on the full armor of God and stand against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, then we need to recognize that we are his ambassadors. Where we are standing is kingdom soil. We gotta break through the comfort and break through the indifference. These are shoes that give us firm footing and they demand that we carry with us the gospel of peace.