The Armor of God: Sword of the Spirit

I'm so thankful that we get to gather together like this. It's a gift that I think we all take for granted to have this opportunity. And if you're a guest today, my name is Josh. I have the deep pleasure of being the senior minister here at Whitewater. And I still drive up on campus and I still walk into this room and I still think, is this really.

This is really real. This is really real. I'm just past the six month mark here, so if you're new, I'm new, too. Thank you.

I believe that God has something in mind for all of us today. I've said that before. I really do believe it. I really believe that he has a connection, a relational connection, an encouragement, a word of truth, a challenge, something to convict us with whatever it is. My constant prayer is that you would be open to whatever that is that you'd be willing to receive or to do or to challenge yourself with what God has in mind today.

It's just so important, and it's a beautiful thing that we get together as the body of Christ and some of us trying to figure this out, maybe not even believing yet, but it's a beautiful place to be. So I'm so thankful for that. I want to take a minute to just say thank you. Whether you know it or not, we have a massive team of volunteers who are serving here at Whitewater. Every person up here playing music this morning.

None of them are on staff. They're all volunteers. They're amazing too, by the way. They're amazing. But it.

That's what you see. That's what you see. What you don't see is another half dozen people in the back in a booth up there on the second floor that you didn't even know existed, sitting behind a computer, clicking buttons, turning knobs back there, making the lights work and the sound work. And it goes beyond that. It goes to volunteers who are serving at our front desk every week.

To people who are holding your babies and caring for them, and people who are speaking life and teaching our children and our students about Jesus Christ and preaching the word to them. They're studying the armor of God right now, too. To people who are at the doors greeting, and they're the smile that people receive on their way in. To people serving coffee. Praise the Lord for those people making coffee.

Right? All throughout this building and all throughout the week, there are people cleaning and putting toilet paper on the toilet paper thing, and they are taking care of so many things. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. We literally and absolutely could not do this without you. And one of the ways that we want to say thank you is a volunteer lunch after the Service on the 29th.

If you serve in any capacity here, if you like food and you're not serving yet, you can join a team and you can catch up and you can join us for lunch, okay? But if you serve in any capacity, we would love for you to go to our website, whitewatercrossing.org events, and just register your family and let us know that you're coming. It'll be right after the Service on the 29th. Just please let us know that you're coming. We have somewhere between five and 700 volunteers, which is crazy.

And, like, 30 of you are signed up. So come on. Come on. And now, if you are not serving here, hear me out. We need you.

We need you, but maybe not in the way that you're thinking. We don't need you to fill the slot. We don't need you to check a box. We don't need you to push a button. The Bible says that all of us have been given gifts for a very specific reason.

To pour into the body here as an encouragement, as a help, as a challenge. Because each of you has a unique giftedness, a unique perspective, and unique abilities to come and build up the body. That's what it's for. And so I want to encourage you, if you don't already know where the Holy Spirit has equipped you to serve in the church, then ask him. Ask him this week.

I think he'll be faithful to tell you. But I think a lot of us that aren't serving, we already know. We already know because our husband's elbowing us right now to tell us that. Yeah, this is you. This is for you.

Right? Our friends have seen these gifts in us. We've known that these gifts are in us. And it is truly an act of worship to participate in serving in the church. We need you because God says that we need you.

So I hope that you'll join us. If you would like to become a volunteer in any area today, don't let these people that are filling the slots fool you. We always need help from front to back and everywhere in between. You can stop at the information desk and just tell them you're ready. So let's go.

Let's go. Let's do this. Now, let's see. Gotta catch up in my notes here. Week seven of the Armor of God series.

Week seven. I almost can't even believe it. It's been a great run. So far, so many people. I had a guy contact me from Knoxville this week and say, hey, we've been watching this series online and doing it as a Bible study and in Knoxville, like, how cool is that?

You know, so. So many people have picked this up and so many people are resonating with it. And it's so important for us to understand that we are at war and know how to engage in this fight. We've done all of this primarily by looking at what Paul describes as the armor of God. And we need to put this on, he says, the whole armor of God to be ready for this spiritual war.

We said that this war is being fought for one really important reason, and it's the Hebrew word. What's the Hebrew word? Shalom. Shalom is this word. It is the Genesis 2 world where God is done creating and everything is just as it's supposed to be, just as God intended it to be, and how God intends for it to be again for eternity.

Shalom is what we're fighting for. Wholeness, completeness. Now continue to encourage all of you, if you've not watched any of these messages, if you've missed any of them, please go back and watch them, because they all intersect and they're all intertwined with each other. We have to put on the whole armor of God. Not our favorite parts, but the whole armor of God.

Today we're going to look at the final piece of the armor that Paul talks about in Ephesians 6. It is the sword of the spirit. Now, not to be outdone with a pile of helmets from last week. I have a sword. I have a sword.

This is way cooler than that other guy. Okay.

I don't remember his name. David, maybe. Thank you, Mark Kremer, for providing a sword. Who has this stuff? Mark Kremer.

Thank you. Thank you. I have a sword. We'll talk about this more here in just a minute. But the sword of the spirit is the word of God.

Paul says, And I think before we get into how specifically to deploy this sword in the fight, we need to understand what the Bible is. A lot of us view the Bible as a giant rule book that we could never make our way through. You might have heard the acronym B I B L E. Basic instructions before leaving Earth. That's fine. For many of us, we think it's too hard to understand.

Many of us, we think that we couldn't make our way through it because it's just dull and boring. You haven't read it yet. It's pretty exciting. Jerry Springer has nothing on the book of Genesis, but the Bible is tremendously more than that. It's tremendously more than that.

I found this description of the Bible. Apparently it is in the front pages of the Gideon Bible. The Gideon Bibles that are in all the hotel rooms. They're not sure who wrote this, but it's a beautiful description of the Bible. Here's what it says.

The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword and the Christian's charter.

Here paradise is restored, heaven opened, and the gates of hell disclosed. Christ is its grand subject, our good, the design and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure.

It is given you in life, will be opened at the judgment and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents. Man. What a great description of the Bible. Here at Whitewater, we believe that the Bible is the very word of God.

It is also the single highest authority on this earth. It trumps all other revelation, all wisdom and all understanding. And while it does not explain all things, we believe that it is completely sufficient. It is sufficient in that it is everything that God has chosen to reveal to us about himself and everything that we know for Christian living now and for an eternal life with him in heaven. The Bible makes some of these claims itself.

We read in 2 Timothy, chapter 3. All scripture is God breathed and is useful for this is interesting if you've not thought of this. It's useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped with for every good work. The Bible is the standard of truth. It is the measuring stick for our lives and God's very word that was accurately recorded by his people.

2 Peter 1:20. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in human will. But prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. This is why I will die on this hill.

And this is why it is so significant for us to be a people of the Word, especially in a world that has no anchor other than tolerance and affirmation. At all costs, we must be in the Word and the Word must be in us. Otherwise we are our own gods. And I don't know if you noticed, but we stink at that job. For those of you who see yourselves as too intellectual maybe to believe in the Bible, I don't have all the time to get into all this, but do some homework.

Do a little homework. You will find that archeology has only ever confirmed what the Bible says is true about history. There are multiple occasions back through history where archeologists and historians have said, well, the Bible can't be true because this doesn't line up with what we found so far. Only later for a city to be dug up or an object to be dug up, and they go, oh gosh, we realize now that we were wrong and, and suddenly history comes into alignment with the Bible. The other main argument I've heard against Scripture, aside from the simple throwing it all away because they don't believe in miraculous things or supernatural things at all, is that the Bible can't possibly be integral or accurate because it's been translated and retranslated into so many languages over so much time by so many different people, and it could only be a muddled shadow of what it was originally intended to be.

Again, go do some homework and you'll find that the integrity of the words in the Bible that you and I have today is impossibly consistent with the oldest copies in the original language. No other historical writing in the world has more copies, literally by thousands of copies or more internal consistency than the Bible. Again, don't take my word for it. Go look it up. Go do a simple Google search.

All that information is readily available. The Bible is the perfect, true, complete revelation of God to this world. It is without error and it is without parallel. To the extent that it does not align with what we see or what we believe. We, we are the problem, not the Bible.

But even beyond truth and right, living and getting to know God. Paul says that this word is our sword in the spiritual fight. Until I studied it, I had no idea that there are more than two dozen different types of swords. Who knew? I've also come to find out in my study there's this whole world of swordsmanship and what's called sword play.

I don't know. If you know this, you can get a degree in swordsmanship online in just five weeks.

It's real by attending the University of the Sword. No, I'm not kidding, and no, I don't intend to get this degree. But there are over two dozen different types of swords. Some of them were seven to eight feet. That's like swinging a two by four around in battle.

Some of them were short, some of them were long, some of them were thick and heavy, Some of them were light and thin. Some of them had one cutting edge. Some of them didn't have a cutting edge at all. They were just a long toothpick looking thing made out of metal. Some of them were for piercing armor, some of them were for wielding while riding on a horse.

But just like we have with all the other pieces of armor, the context that we're using is the same context that Paul used. It's the armor of the first century Roman soldier. And the type of sword that they used was like this. And it's called a gladius. Gladius was unique in a few ways.

It's a short sword that could be used with one hand in close combat. And Roman soldiers were trained to get very close to the enemy. They used to large shields, often in group formations to protect themselves. We talked about that a couple weeks ago. It's weird to preach with a sword in my hand.

And they use the gladius to deliver quick thrust. The gladius was not actually used in this like swinging and slashing motion near as much as it was used as a quick thrust into the enemy. The gladius was unique as a sword in its form and its function. And Paul says that the sword we've been given is also distinct and unique in its form and function as well. First, he says that the sword is the sword of the spirit.

This means it's a sword that is a spiritual weapon, which makes it appropriate for a spiritual problem or a spiritual enemy. We keep talking about the fact that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. This is Satan himself and the angels that fell with him, his demons. So it's a spiritual weapon for a spiritual enemy, but it's also the sword of the capital S spirit. This is the sword of the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity.

A significant implication here is that one of the many roles of the Holy Spirit in our lives is the work of unveiling or explaining scripture to us. A Word that theologians have used for a very long time is the word illumination. That this is part of the Holy Spirit's work in us is to illuminate the the Word so that it's like a flashlight being shown in the dark on these words that are on the page. It's an unveiling, a supernatural unveiling of realities in Scripture. So I'd encourage you, as you read the Word, to be asking the Holy Spirit to help you understand it.

And he would say, great, I would love to do that. That's part of my job. The sword then is provided, empowered and made useful through or by the Holy Spirit. And this spiritual sword is provided by. That's provided by the Spirit is what Paul says, the word of God.

Now, in the New Testament, there are three different words for the word Word. In other words, the word word in God's Word can be different words, unlike our word for word, which is really only one word for the word Word. Got it? Now, the first of these words is the word graphe. It's where we get our word graffiti.

It's just marks on a page. It's symbols that mean something. The second is the word logos. And logos is the meaning of the marks on the page, the deeper meaning that's under the written word. This is also the word that John uses in John 1:1 when it says in the beginning was the Word and the wor with God, and the Word was God.

This is talking about Jesus as the Word, because Jesus is the deeper meaning, the main character, the main subject of the Word. But this is a third word, and it's the word rhema. And rhema has two specific implications. First, it's spoken. It's the spoken word.

It's literally an utterance. But it's more than that. It's the exact right spoken word at the exact right moment for the exact right situation. This is what rhema is. And just like the Roman gladius is this short, wieldy sword used with a quick thrust to take out the enemy.

The sword of the Spirit is a specific word of God, but thrust quickly in a precise moment to take out the spiritual enemy. Now, the best example that we have of how to do this, how this works, is found in Matthew, chapter 4. Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the desert, where he is fasting to prepare for the ministry that's ahead. Satan comes to him in the desert and attempts to take him off course through testing and tempting. Chapter 4, verse 1.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, if you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread. Jesus answered, this is important. It is written.

It is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus knows that he is there to fast. And Satan is tempting him with food. And he says, nope, not going to do that, because the word says this. Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.

If you are the Son of God, he said, throw yourself down. And then he does something crafty. Satan quotes scripture. Satan quotes scripture against Jesus. He says, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

And Jesus answered, this is so significant. Jesus knew the greater understanding of the word. To combat how Satan was using the word, he says, as it is also written, do not put the Lord your God to the test again. The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give to you, he said, if you bow down and worship me.

Jesus said to him, away from me, Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Then the devil left him and angels came and attended him. Satan says, come on, you're hungry. Just give in. You don't want to have to do this the hard way.

Just give in. You really just want power, and I can give you power. Just give in. God will understand. He'll protect you.

Just give in. But Jesus doesn't give in. Now, there's a ton more in these words in this section of scripture, but I don't have time to get into it. And I want to hone in, hone in on this thing that we're talking about today. Jesus wielding the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

And how Jesus had the rhema. The rhema, the perfect spoken word of God as the exact counter attack to the enemy. Jesus could only do this because he was a student of the word. We cannot deploy a weapon that we do not have. We cannot deploy a weapon that we do not have.

Now, just as we've done with the other pieces of the armor, we've talked about what we need to take off in order to put it on or put down in order to pick it up. So what do we need to take off or Put down. I think the main thing that nearly all of us need to take off or put down is the plastic butter knife that's in our sheath. We have all experienced trying to use a plastic butter knife in place of a real knife. It is a miserable experience.

Half the time it breaks and it's a terrible, terrible use of a piece of plastic. It's horrible. So we've all used one in a pinch, right? And our butter knife, our plastic butter knife in this sense is the belief that a basic or general overall understanding of sort of what the Word talks about is adequate in this fight. It will never suffice.

It will never suffice. And we see this play out most significantly in significantly in Satan's second attempt to test Jesus. Notice Satan pulls out scripture and he tries to use it against Jesus. It's only because Jesus has a deep and wide understanding of God's word that he has the rhema, the counter attack to Satan's attack. And if you don't think this is happening in our day and age, then you are not awake.

This happens all the time. I found a post online in a forum. It was somebody looking for help. And he said this, he said, so I want to make a little card to carry in my wallet with 10 Bible verses I can whip out at any point. And at this point I'm like, this sounds like a great idea, right?

At any point to destroy a Christian at their own game. We all know most Christians haven't read the Bible, so I want to argue against them using their own holy book. You don't think this is happening? Wake up church. If atheists and anti Christians are better students of the Word than we are, then we have already lost.

Did you know there is just as much online explaining difficult verses that are being thrown at us and a better understanding of them? And as there are verses to throw at Christians in this day and age of information that's readily available at our fingertips, the only excuse is that you're lazy. We have no excuse other than being lazy to say, man, I just don't know what to do with this. They had such a great argument. It's readily available.

Let's be better students of the Word than those who don't even believe the Word. But let me caution you with this too. You've probably been told that the sword of the Spirit is the one offensive part of the armor. And while at first glance it seems to be true, and it probably is at some level, Jesus did not go into the desert to make an offensive attack against Satan, did you see that Jesus had his sword ready for a defensive move? In fact, I'd argue that the sword of the spirit as a strictly offensive tool is most often and most aptly used not against the enemy, but actually against our own minds, our own flesh, our own sinful desire.

And we definitely have to remember that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. I love how one preacher said it. He said, the word of God is not a sledgehammer to smash Kathy in the cubicle next to you. I have never met someone who looked at me and said, I was bludgeoned into faith. I have never seen a single person online in an argument who made a point and the other person said, oh my gosh.

I have never considered that before. I'm going to rewrite my thoughts on this. It's never happened. Church, don't forget our struggle is not against flesh and blood. It's against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

And the sword of the spirit is the weapon against those lies and accusations and deceptions. So what does it look like for us to take up this sword today? Let's get super practical. First. We've said all through this series, if you are not in the Word and the Word is not in you, then you have already lost the fight.

You've already lost the fight. Get in the Word. You can do that in lots of different ways. We talked about a couple weeks ago. We have Whitewater discovers at nine o' clock in the great room.

You can just show up. No registration, just bring a Bible. If you don't have a Bible, we got them at the exits. Grab one on your way out. You can use an app that has a scripture of the day or a devotional.

You can join a small group or a Bible study. You can watch sermons online or read the New Testament or just read a chapter a day. Whatever it is, get in the Word and let the Word be in you. But let's get even more practical. Answer this question.

I think this is so significant. Nobody knows the answer to this question probably better than you do. If you had to take you out, if you had to take you out, how would you do it? If you were the enemy against yourself, you know all your habits, you know all your thoughts, you know all your weaknesses, all your tendencies. If you had to take you out, how would you do it?

Because while Satan cannot read our minds and he cannot plant ideas into our heads, he has all the game film and he is a student of our weaknesses. He knows as well as we do the best Way to take us out. Does Satan most often come at you with the lie that you can do this on your own? Well then memorize and carry around. John 15:5 it says, I am the vine, you are the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. That's not very much. Does Satan most often tempt you to doubt God's goodness? Then memorize and carry around Psalm 84:11 for the Lord God is a sun and shield.

The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. Does Satan most often tempt you to worry and be filled with anxiety? Then memorize and carry around. Philippians 4, 6, 7 it says, do not be anxious about anything.

That includes a lot of stuff. But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. If you had to take you out, how would you do it? Carry that sword around.

Carry the sword around. That is the counteroffense to the way that you know Satan is already out to take you out anyway. Start there. There's always more, but start there so that we have instead of a plastic butter knife in our sheath, we've got a real sword at every exit today. On the tables is a piece of paper.

I borrowed this from another church. It's a great little tool and it just shares the most common lies from the enemy scripture as a sword against that lie. So I would love for you to pick one up on your way out today. Hopefully we run out, grab extras, share them, take that home. And if your thing is not on that page, do a quick Google search and find your sword.

Because there is scripture to combat every single lie and every single accusation of the enemy. We have to have our sword to deploy against this enemy. We've got to put down our plastic dull, useless knives and pick up a sword. The sword of the Spirit, empowered and enacted and given by the Holy Spirit, and which Hebrews tells us is sharper than any double edged sword. There is no better sword out there.

No better sword. Will you pray with me, God? Open our eyes. Open our eyes. We have been so easily blinded and confused and distracted by the enemy and we have so often convinced ourselves that we hardly stand a chance and that our best bet is to go hide in a hole somewhere and pray that the enemy won't throw things at us.

But I know, and your word tells us that that we have been given this great armor to put on and part of that is your word. So I pray shamelessly, Holy Spirit, that you lay heavy on us today. That you would wrench our hearts with a longing for your word. That you will make us parched and starving until we give into it.

I pray that we will be cut and bleeding everywhere until we give into it.

Because everything is at stake in this. Thank you for your word. Thank you. That it is living and breathing and active, that it is sharp, that it cuts through us, that it is cuts through the enemy. That it is powerful and mighty and that it is for us and it is ours already.

Thank you. That at any time in history we have more commentaries and more thoughts and more understanding and more access. It's in all of our pockets in 12 different versions. God, what a gift. What a gift.

Thank you. Thank you. That you are who you say you are, that you have done what you have said you have done, and that you are on our side in this fight. Thank you. In Jesus name, amen.