The Armor of God: Shield of Faith

Good to be with you today. I'm just thankful. I'm thankful I say this every week, but I'm thankful that we have a place to do this, that we have people to do it with, that we have the freedoms to come here and do it. If you're a guest here this morning, my name is Josh, one of the staff here at Whitewater. And I'm glad you're here today.

I'm glad you're here today. And if after the service, you want to connect at all with Whitewater, if you think that this might be a place that you would like to call home, we would love to invite you to go out to the information desk out in the foyer. We got a team there that would love to connect with you and get you connected. Here it is September 1st. I can't even believe it.

September 1st. And we are in week five of our armor of God series. I also can't believe that seems crazy. This has been so good. It's been so good.

If you have not listened to the sermons in this series, especially week one, please go back and listen. This stuff is pivotal to our understanding of what God has in mind for us living our lives, out, seeking his kingdom, first in this world. Last week, we looked at the gospel of peace shoes. And I encourage all of us to go home and write our story, our story of how our lives have been made different because of Jesus. Our stories from death to life.

A story that breaks our indifference of our own salvation and for the salvation of others. And so several of you did that. Several of you have wanted to share your story. And if you would like to share your story, we would love for you to share it. The best way that you can do that is to send an email to.

To communicationshitewatercrossing.org communicationswhitewatercrossing.org if you'd like to share your story, we would love to read it. Now. Last week, I also encouraged you to embrace the awkward, right? The 10 seconds of awkward, to offer to pray for your server when they bring you your food at a restaurant. And several of you told me that you did.

This one lady told me that, that she was sitting at her table and her table did it. And then they overheard another table at the same restaurant that did it. How many of you guys took part in that this week? All right, all right. Here's how it went for us.

Tuesday night, we went out to dinner. I completely forgot. And my wife was primed and pumped, ready to go. And so our server brings the food and sets it down. She.

She asked her her name and she said, hey, we're gonna pray for our food and thank God for it. Is there anything that we can pray for you for? And she kind of had that awkward 10 seconds that everyone's going to have when you try this. Okay. And she said, oh, well, no, I mean, thank you so much.

Thank you so much. But I don't know. I don't really have anything. And like a true rock star that my wife is, she says, well, are you in school right now? And she says, yes, actually, I'm in cosmetology school.

And she said, perfect, we can pray for that. And so she went on her way and we prayed for her and prayed for our food. And it was awkward. It was. And it was good.

It was really good. So I just want to encourage you to take that step, embrace this 10 seconds of uncomfortable awkwardness to just go stand on the gospel shoes somewhere else in our community. Now we are in week five and five weeks in. I just want to make sure that we haven't lost sight of what we're talking about. So I'm going to read through Ephesians 6, 10, 18.

Paul says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Not your power, his power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's stand schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood. It's against the rulers, the authorities, 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, after you've put all this on 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. In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. He says, with this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people.

Will you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for all of the wisdom and understanding that you gave to Paul so that he could share it with us in generations and generations of others. Thank you for teaching him these things. And I Pray today that you would help us to understand them in our context so that we can engage in this spiritual battle in a way that is effective, in a way that's confident and powerful. And we pray this in the mighty name of King Jesus.

Amen. So today, the piece of armor is the shield of faith. And right out of the gate, I recognize something different about this piece of the armor from all the other pieces of the armor. This is the only piece of armor, if you notice that Paul, immediately after mentioning it, says, this is what it does. Put on the shield, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the Evil One.

Now, just like we've done with all the other pieces of armor, I'm going to bring this into the context of the first century Roman soldier, because this is Paul's context for this armor. Roman soldiers would carry a shield that's probably a lot bigger than the shields we think of. Not Captain America, that little circle shield, but a large rectangular shield called the scutum. The scutum was roughly 4ft tall and 2ft wide, and it was constructed of layers of wood and bound on the edges with iron. And the shield was big enough that a soldier could get behind it or completely under it to protect himself.

You may have seen this depicted in movies. And they weren't just individual, they were also used collectively that they would put them together. They'd use a formation called the testudo, which was the word for tortoise. And so they would get together in a whole group and surround themselves, the whole group of them, with a shell, like a turtle shell, all around them, so that all the angles of their group were covered up so that when the barrage of projectiles or weapons would come at them, they would cover up in this formation, protect each other. And then when that barrage would finish, or even with the barrage, they would put their swords through that and they would move forward as a unit or open up and fight.

Now, let's zero in on the specific use, though, that Paul says that this shield has in this battle. He says it can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the Evil One. See, in first century warfare, archers would take a piece of fabric and tie it around the end of the arrow. They would dip that in some sort of pitch or tar or SAP that would catch on fire. They would light it on fire and they would send it into, into the air.

And while a regular arrow hits its target and causes one point of damage, a flaming arrow hits its target and has the capacity to exponentially affect things by catching them on fire. You can imagine how chaotic and destructive this could be. So if regular arrows are bad, then flaming arrows are really bad, extra bad. If flaming arrows hit the right thing, they can set a soldier's clothing on fire. They could set a whole field of dry grass on fire.

They could set a forest on fire. That could dramatically affect the outcome of the battle. And I think Paul is warning us here that Satan's tactics are not one dimensional, they are multidimensional in their effectiveness. And if we don't have the proper defense, then way beyond the primary impact of the arrows, we'll be dealing with fires that can easily spread into other things, causing chaos, causing us to break formation and to soften us up. Now, I want to point out something about arrows in warfare that I think when we think of this picture, we see it incorrectly in our heads.

See warfare using archers in warfare in the first century. It wasn't a bunch of Robin Hood types. It wasn't a bunch of Robin Hood types who could hit something the size of a dime at 100 yards. It was way less specific than that. In fact, the archers were nearly always back behind the front line of their foot soldiers.

And all they had to do is launch a bunch of arrows into the sky and send a volley of of arrows not to hit a specific point, but to hit anything that they might hit. This softens the enemy up, like I said, causes them to break up and now add fire to the mix and chaos is multiplied in this tactic. And I think we need to realize that while there certainly is, I think, a personal hand to hand type battle in this fight, this spiritual warfare, we're going to talk about that in a few weeks when we get to the sword of the spirit. But I think it's significant to note here that Satan is not just constantly individually pinpoint aiming at us like a highly trained Robin Hood. Instead he's just constantly launching flaming, fiery arrows into the sky, knowing that some of them will hit, some of them will catch things on fire and some of them will miss.

What does this look like in our modern times? It looks like this endless onslaught of Internet ads for pornography for local men and women that are looking for a relationship. It looks like a nonstop barrage of alcohol commercials and scenes of day drinking at work that are filled in our shows and movies. It looks like magazines with perfectly airbrushed women on the covers and the latest gossip lining the shelves of the grocery store checkout. It looks like an onslaught of media that normalizes Evil, sinful behavior that causes us to feel insecure, that makes us believe that the inner longings that we have can be fulfilled in unhealthy things and unhealthy relationships.

But it also looks a lot less like an obvious threat. It looks like a home equity loan offer that shows up in the mail, that offers us that thing that we've really been wanting, that upgrade in our house. All we have to do is go into more debt. It looks like a sale at the store where we suddenly feel like we need to buy something that we didn't know that we ever needed. It looks like a promotion being daggled out in front of us, making us consider doing something unethical to get it, or making us insecure if we don't, or making us hate the person who did it looks a lot like very common things.

And all of this is just this regular barrage of flaming arrows aimlessly flying through the air, haphazardly missing or, or hitting. This kind of warfare requires no tact, not much skill and no finesse. The barrage of arrows is the barrage of temptations that are constantly in the sky every day and everywhere. In another part of scripture, Paul describes this onslaught of temptations. But he points out something that should change the way that we view these flaming arrows.

First Corinthians, chapter 10, starting in verse 12, he says, so if you think you are standing firm, remember that's the one thing Paul says. Stand. Stand firm. If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you do not fall. No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.

And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. See, Satan knows that all he has to do is take most of us. To take most of us out is just send a volley of flaming arrows constantly in the sky.

Plain old normal temptations, lies, deceptions, insecurities and lusts that are common to all of mankind throughout all of history. He doesn't even have to be creative to come up with anything new. He also knows that only some of them have to hit because they're flaming arrows. And they will hit other things and begin to spread the fire. Maybe it looks something like this.

A couple falls in love, they get married and they have a baby. With this baby comes a lot of joy, but also comes a very new life and reality. Her attention is more and more on this baby. They're up night after night, exhausted, with a crying, needy little One in their tired and overextended state, they aren't connecting like they were emotionally or physically. One of the thousand flaming arrows of insecurity that are constantly flying through the sky hits their home, and the fire starts to spread.

She looks in the mirror and struggles with her new body. He finds more of his significance at work. The fire spreads. She finds more of her worth with the little one. He starts to think that at least at work, they appreciate him.

She starts to feel like he's purposely staying longer than he has to at the office. The fire spreads. Then, with a simple smile from that really nice work woman at work, one of a thousand flaming arrows of seduction and temptation hits its mark. And the fire spreads further and further and further until Satan is successful at deceiving and stealing and killing and destroying. And all that's left is the scorched remains of what once was good and whole and perfect.

And if you ask them what happened, they'll say, one day we turned around and the whole thing was on fire and it was too late. Tell me that this story and hundreds others are not on constant repeat in our world. Tell me that it's not predictable. Tell me that there's anything nuanced or individual about these flaming arrows. It is all.

All common pornography, substance abuse, insecurity, adultery, trying to fit in, narcissism, anger. It's all on repeat. And here's my point. We need to recognize that we are so predictable, but very often so is Satan, and we don't need to be afraid of him as some marine sniper that's highly trained that can take us out at 1,000 yards. Satan's most effective tactic is just to keep sending these flaming arrows through the sky, hitting whatever he can, causing as much fire to spread as he can.

And we can choose to be easy, cheap, chump targets, or we can open our eyes and we can see these flying flaming arrows in the sky overhead. And Paul says that these temptations are common, and while God isn't going to take them away, he will provide a way out. Remember, he said, but when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. Now, my whole life I've read this and I thought, that sounds great. I don't see it playing out in my life.

In fact, what more often happens for me is the. The flaming arrows are flying through the sky. And if I'm aware of them, I say, well, the Bible told me that I can stand firm and I can stand against this. And so I grip my teeth and Squeeze my fists and I clench and I. And I just squeeze harder and harder.

And before I know it, it hits and my clothes are on fire and I've already given into that same stupid thing over and over and over. Am I the only person, tell me I'm not the only one that this is true about, but there's something hidden in this verse that we can't miss. It's actually in the original Greek. There's something that just kind of unlocks this whole thing. The phrase in the Greek is literally this.

But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can bear it from underneath. From underneath what? I think he's talking about the shield of faith. Paul says that we have been given something to bear up underneath that will not only keep these arrows from hitting us, it will also extinguish the fire from spreading. Paul isn't saying that God won't allow us to be tempted by something that we by our own strength, can't take on.

I think he's saying that when we are tempted by these common temptations, God has provided us a shield that we can literally bear up under. This is the shield of faith. It was never about our strength. It was always about God's strength. It was never about our strength.

It was always about the strength of what he has provided for us to cover up with and bear up under the shield of faith. And when we do, we can withstand the barrage of flaming arrows. So how do we pick up or take up the shield of faith in our lives? Well, first we got to know what faith is. So what is faith?

Hebrews 11:1. Now, faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance of about what we do not see. Confidence and assurance. In the Greek, faith is literally the firm foundation or the guarantee in what we hope for and the promise or the proof or the evidence of what we do not see with our eyes. It is both what we stand on and simultaneously it is the act of standing on and it proving to us its strength.

This is how faith is different from belief. Belief is an intellectual assent to an idea. It is saying, I imagine that this is true. Faith, on the other hand, not only believes an idea, but acts on that idea. And that acting on that idea proves that it is true.

Imagine that you and I are on an edge of a cliff and I offer to lower you down with a rope that I have provided. I show you the paper that has all the specs, the technical specs for this rope that proves that it can hold your weight. I Tell you a story about how I lowered someone else down. I show you a YouTube video of how someone that weighs more than you do was on this rope and it lowered them down. But until you put your weight on this rope, you have not crossed over from belief to faith until you put your weight on it.

Faith must be embodied and enacted. Faith must be embodied and enacted. Otherwise it's nothing more than theoretical belief. Again, faith is both the belief in the firm foundation and simultaneously the standing on the foundation that proves its quality. James 2.

He says, what good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. In this sense, faith isn't owning a shield and regularly talking about how it would be powerful and helpful for those flaming arrows. Faith is actually running straight into the battle while the flaming arrows are flying and, and watching it do its work.

So how or where do we get one of these shields? Where does faith come from? Well, Romans 10:17, Paul says, so faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of Christ. Where do we get our shield of faith? We get it from the word of Christ.

We get it from the gospel message. This shows us how all these pieces of the armor of God work together, build on each other, and are interdependent on one another. We stand firm with the belt of truth buckled around our waist. And what does the belt of truth tell us? It tells us that those of us who are in Christ have been clothed in his righteousness, with his breastplate of.

Of righteousness because of the gospel of peace. And when we actually stand firm in those gospel of peace shoes, we transform our belief into actual faith that could shield us against the flaming arrows of the evil one. This is why Paul tells us to put on the full armor of God. It all works together. But in order to take up this shield of faith, we have to put something off.

We have to put off faith? Yes, I said we have to put off faith in order to take up faith. Because the truth is that every single person has faith in something. But most of us, even Christians, place more of our faith in ourselves, in our bank accounts, in our. In our health care system, in our ability to do things in our own intelligence, in our government, or in our own strength than we do in God.

But until our weight is off of the foundation of the world, we cannot put our weight onto the foundation of God's word. It's only when we place our weight on God that Faith truly becomes faith. Belief only turns into faith when our weight is placed on it. And the shield of belief is a really cheap paper mache fake version of this shield. And it is not effective in the battle.

We say we believe in God, Good for us. Even demons believe in God. Even demons believe that Jesus has all the power. Even demons believe that God created the earth. Demons believe that we are more than conquerors.

But demons also know that most of us aren't living like that. Most of us have not put our weight onto those beliefs to form a shield of faith over our lives. Faith must be embodied and enacted to be faith and to do its work. And if you're thinking that today you don't have faith or that your faith is too small, here's some really great news. Faith can grow.

Faith can grow. Our shield of faith can grow in size, larger and larger. Second, Thessalonians, Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica and he says this. He says, we ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more. How do we grow faith?

We keep reading the manual that tells us what faith can do. This is a hill that I will die on in my time here. Everything is rooted in the truth of God's Word. If we are not a people of the Word, if we are not in the Word and the Word is not in us, then however large our shield of faith is, it's constantly shrinking. Belief in the Word forms our faith.

But we also have to practice. We have to grow our faith shield by practicing faith, practicing putting our weight on God's Word, his promises, his truth, his ways. And as we do, our faith shield grows. And there's another thing about growing our faith. Just like the Roman soldiers, when we come together with other believers in community, not only can we all raise our shields up in faith over each other like that tortoise shell formation, when we take up our faith in community, it grows our faith exponentially.

When we are in community and we step out and put more and more of our weight on God and promises, the community watches our faith and it grows our faith and it grows their faith too. This is a beautiful and upside down and crazy reality about the kingdom and about this war. It's why spiritual war is a team sport church. Spiritual war is a team sport, man. There's so much more that we could talk about.

I could run this into three weeks, I think, but we got to draw this in. We got to land. So when we are a people of God's Word, our belief in him develops. And when we place our weight more and more on his promises, his truth revealed to us in His Word, our belief turns into faith, actually embodied, actually enacted. And this faith forms the shield in the spiritual war.

And when we come together in community as faith filled followers of Jesus, belted in truth, covered in his righteousness, standing firmly on the gospel of peace, not only do we shield ourselves, we can also help shield each other. We can help extinguish the impact of these arrows. We can keep the fire from, from spreading in a larger and larger and larger area. And all of this simultaneously causes our faith to grow and the faith of the community to grow larger and larger. And as it does, more ground is taken for the kingdom.

This is how this works. More and more things, more and more people, more and more of this earth reconciled to Jesus. Shalom. So what do we do about it today? How do we step into this today?

First, be in the Word. Be in the Word. Be in the Word. Be in the Word and get it in you too. Second, practice putting more and more of your weight onto the promises, the truth, and the ways and the power that you read about in God's Word.

Maybe the simplest way we can practice this this week is by carrying this question with us as we go. If you take notes, write this down. How would I handle this if I actually believed that I could place all my weight on God? How would I handle this situation? How would I handle this argument?

How would I handle this temptation if I actually believed that I could put all of my weight on God?

Faith does not become faith until our weight is on it.

The last thing is get in Christian community. Get in Christian community that starts in our homes. So if you don't have Christian community in your home, you can, you can have Christian community in your home. Start by doing what I mentioned first. Be in the Word.

Be in the Word together. Your kids are not too small for that. There are children's Bibles. There are lots of ways that you can be in the Word as a family, with roommates, with your grandparents, whoever you live with. Your home can be a place of the Word in Christian community.

And if you're looking for more Christian community outside of your home, then we have one super simple way that you can do this. One way to step into this. Every Sunday morning at 9 o', clock, we have on the other side of this wall in the great room, something called Whitewater discovers. It's super simple. You just show up with your Bible and there are people there that are going to be reading the Word together, answering some simple questions and being in community together.

And from there we can help you get connected in a dozen other ways. You don't have to do any homework, you don't have to register. You don't have to let anybody know that you're coming to show up. Just show up at 9 o', clock right on the other side of the wall for Whitewater Discover step into Christian community. And last, if you just feel like you need some help taking more of your weight off of the world, the promises of the world, the ways of this world, if you feel like you are right now on fire from one of these flaming arrows and it's following you wherever you go, we would love to talk to you and, and help you and encourage you and pray for you.

We'd love to answer your questions. We are a people of prayer. And as a people of prayer, we have praying people. And they'll be right over here on this ramp. They're going to be praying whether you show up or not.

So you might as well go talk to them so they don't feel lonely, right? It's a favor to them that you would be going to ask them for prayer. We would love for you to go pray with them. If you got something to rejoice in this week, let us rejoice with you. If you've got a sorrow that you are grieving over, let us grieve with you.

If you like the sound of this, but you can't make sense of it, then just come and start a conversation. They can't wait for you to come.

Every week we share in communion together. If you haven't gotten one of these communion cups, our team will be available. Do you just raise your hand? Let them know.

The foundation, the foundation that we can stand on firmly proving our faith, turning our belief into right. Real faith is this gospel message. This is the simplest form of it. You and I were dead. We were dead in our sins and transgressions, separated from God.

But God, through Jesus Christ, sent his son Jesus to come and live a perfect life, die a sinner's death on, on a cross so that our sin was on him and his righteousness is placed on us. And this is all consummated in the resurrection of Jesus. This is what we celebrate every single week. When we remember this simple little wafer in this simple little cup of juice. This is the representation of Christ's body given for us, beaten and tortured and hung on a cross.

And he says, when you Come together every time you do do this, eat this. And when you eat of it, remember my body given for you.

And this cup represents his blood, what he called the blood of the new covenant, the new way of doing things, the resurrection covenant. And he says, when you come together, always remember through drinking this cup. And when you do, remember my righteousness being poured out over you as my blood was poured out for you.

Almighty God, We live in this gap between desire and obedience, between conviction and obedience. Lord, we're scared, quite frankly. Many of us are are scared to take our weight off of what we have been putting it on our whole lives and to put more of it on you. Some of us are in that place where some of our weight is on you. But more of our weight needs to go onto you.

And some of us just need to take that last little step and put all of our weight on you.

But I pray, I pray against the enemy's flaming arrows that we would step into that power in that promise and your word and your truth and we would step into that. And that you would form these shields of faith and that you would cause us to come together in community, to be a community of faith that is covering more and more and more. More of these people whose faith shields are small and more of us who need to hear the truth and more area and taking more and more ground for your kingdom. Not in some crazy fantasy movie world, but in the reality of this spiritual war that's raging around us. God, wake us up.

Wake us up out of this drunken stupor of the world's promises.

Extinguish these fires burning in our homes and in our hearts and in our workplaces and in our families. God, build out our shield of faith to go with us. Not so we can cower under this, but we can stand boldly up under this onslaught of temptation.

Help us to see Satan for the cheap lies that he is. Make us powerful and mighty and shielded for you. In Jesus name, amen.