“Combat Training” 7 – Eph. 6:10-18

I have been looking forward to this day for a long time. I love Sundays and Easter Sunday is the best of all. Are you looking forward to anything coming up in your life any time soon? Maybe you are going on vacation or you expect to get a raise or a different job. Maybe the statute of limitations is about to run out on some of the stuff you did.  😊 Tell me what you are looking forward to.

Looking forward to something makes you feel good, doesn’t it? It makes you realize that there is something better, or at least different ahead and it has always been that way. Did you know that even God has looked forward to something? Do you know what it was? He looked forward to creating you. In Genesis chapter one, it says that God created the heavens and the earth. He created time and space and the water and the air and the animals but in verse 26 it says that God said, “Let us make man in our own image.” Then He made man and said this creation was very good. The earth and the critters were “good” but man was “very good”.

It didn’t take long, though, and mankind started wanting something new and different. It’s part of how we are made. We are meant for more and better than this earth can give but Satan came along and deceived Adam and Eve into thinking they could have everything they wanted here in this life and what happened? Sin happened and with it came pain, heartache, disease, reality TV and all the other problems we have in this life. So, it wasn’t long after sin came into the world that mankind started looking forward to something better again. In Isaiah chapter 9, Isaiah prophesies about Jesus, the Messiah, being born. He says in verse six, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Do you know when that was written? It was written about 700 years before it happened. Can you imagine waiting 700 years for what you were looking forward to? You know. Like when the lady at Dos Chiles doesn’t bring the basket of chips for two whole minutes after you get there. It’s excruciating.

But now, we celebrate Christmas every year to honor the baby Jesus being born. Do you know who else was looking forward to baby Jesus being born? Simeon was waiting and when he saw baby Jesus in the temple that day, he said, “Lord, you can take me home now for my eyes have seen your salvation.” (Luke 2:30) Just like when Isaiah said “For unto us a child is born” like it had already happened and yet Jesus wouldn’t be born for 700 years, Simeon claimed he had seen God’s salvation but he was just looking at a little baby who hadn’t really done anything at this point. But both believed on faith.

Both had on their shields of faith as we talked about last week and because they had their shields of faith they could now put on their helmets of salvation. Now, for the last few months we have been talking a lot about preparing for battle. Our enemy is Satan and the worst thing he can do to us is cause us to sin. Sin is the worst thing that can happen to us, right? So, we have gone through spiritual Boot Camp and learned the basics and now we are going through Combat Training in Ephesians 6:10-18 where we are talking about the armor and weapons that we have at our disposal to fight this battle. We have come to the helmet of salvation and I just love this piece of armor. It’s not hard to put on. It’s not complicated. In fact, I think it’s quite enjoyable, and yet so many of us are deceived into not putting it on and we suffer for it and because we suffer, those around us suffer as well. Let’s look at Ephesians 6:10-18.

Finally, be strong in the LORD and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For 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. 13Therefore 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, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the LORD's people.

What does it mean to put on the helmet of salvation? Some people think this is referring to the day we are saved; the day that we accept Jesus into our lives to be Lord and Savior; but that’s not really what Paul is talking about. For us today in our battle against Satan, what does it mean to put on the helmet of salvation?  I think we can get a little better view of what Paul was talking about by reading another of his references to the helmet of salvation in I Thessalonians 5:8 where he says, “But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.”  You see here he says it is the hope of salvation but he is not talking about hoping that we are saved.  It is what is alluded to in Romans 13:11, when he says, "now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed." It is, says 1 Peter 1:5, "a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Note that this salvation is a hope. Paul says in Romans 8:24-25, "if we see what we hope for, then it is not really hope. For who of us hopes for something we see?" In other words, hope looks to something we do not see or have rather than for something we already see and have. This is not the same kind of hope as hoping that it doesn’t rain or hoping something good will come on TV.  This is a confident, I know that I know-hope.

So, the helmet of salvation is something yet future, something as yet not possessed or not fully entered into. It is referring to a salvation that is to be ours when Christ comes again. Hebrews 9:28, "Christ…shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him." In short, we can say that the salvation that we hope to receive at Christ’s second coming is, as it is stated in Titus 1:2, "the hope of eternal life, which God, Who cannot lie, promised long ages ago."

Here on this Easter Sunday, we love to read those passages that talk about Jesus rising from the dead. But what happened right after Jesus died? Every single disciple or loved one mentioned was in shock and in agony. They were in deep despair and depression because of the situation they felt they were in. They had heard Jesus predict this was all going to happen and even heard Him say that in three days He would rise again but they saw Him die and now all their hopes and dreams were dead with Him. Except that they weren’t! See, that’s right where Satan wants you to be. He first wants you to believe that this life is all there is. When you learn that Heaven is waiting in the next life, Satan wants to deceive you into thinking that you can have everything you want in this life. When that turns out to not be true, he wants you to be depressed and angry about your situation and your circumstances and that is easy to do. If this life were all we had to look forward to, who wouldn’t be depressed?

But we have hope. We have something else to look forward to and that is what sets us apart from non-believers. We have basically the same problems that everybody else does but because I know this life is a wisp of smoke compared to eternity, I can consider it all pure joy when I face trials of many kinds, as James says. (James 1:2) Because I know that Jesus is coming again and He has my rewards with Him (Rev. 22:12) I have something to look forward to as my body gets older, fatter and uglier. It’s okay that I don’t have everything I want. What does that stuff have to do with eternity?  But Satan wants you to focus on yourself and your situation and your circumstances because when you turn your focus inward, it’s easy to start feeling like everything is wrong but that is why we have to put on our helmets of salvation. The helmet protects our head, our mind and what we think and feel.

Now the option is to rely on what you think or feel which may well be corrupted by the great deceiver, Satan.  How many times have you felt something that turned out to be false?  Sometimes you may have a gut feeling that helps you but oftentimes our feelings get us into trouble.  Have the prophecies of your feelings come true since the beginning of time?  The Bible’s prophecies have.  Have your feelings proved themselves reliable in every way every time?  The Bible has. Satan loves for us to act based on our feelings. We’ve seen that the weapons that he aims at us are intended to attack our minds and our emotions and to try to get us to be discouraged and to doubt. And since our feelings are certainly impacted by the circumstances of life, they change all the time as our circumstances change.

But God’s Word never changes. So if we base our hope on His Word, our hope will be consistent and we won’t be tossed around by our feelings. In fact, one of the reasons God has given us His written Word is so that we can know without a doubt that our salvation is secure. 1 John 5:13 says, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”  John was writing to followers of Jesus so that they could know without any doubt whatsoever that they have eternal life.

If you’re like me, it might help to have some examples of people who have shown us in the past how to put on the helmet of salvation; how we actually do it and what it looks like.  If we are to take the helmet of salvation as Paul says with the expectant hope of our future salvation, I want to see how to do it.  Those are real pretty words but until we can apply them to our lives in action then that is all they are. First stop is Psalm 28.  Most of you know that David is one of my favorite biblical characters.  I love David because while he was king and a man after God’s own heart, he was also very human and had terrible heartbreaks in his life and we can all learn from his example how to survive difficult times.  He was going through one of those difficult times when he wrote Psalm 28.  Read 1-2 and 7-8.

To you, Lord, I call; you are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me.
For if you remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the pit.
2 Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands
toward your Most Holy Place.

In these first two verses he calls out to God and says “If you don’t answer and solve this problem, I will die.”  But then in verses 7-8 (before God answers his prayer) he says, 7.The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him. 8 The Lord is the strength of his people,
a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.

David had every reason to be depressed and discouraged.  And he doesn’t try to cover over his hurt with fake smiles and plastic platitudes but at the same time he knows that God and God alone is his salvation.  He doesn’t know when it will come.  He knows it may get darker yet, but ultimately he knows, because he has a relationship with the Lord, that he will be saved and that brings him joy and strength.

I have another example of how to put on the helmet of salvation and I think this one is pretty good as well.  It should be pretty good since it is shown to us by the words and actions of Jesus as recalled in Hebrews 12:2. “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  How is that possible?!  How could Jesus, being God but at the same time being all man, endure the outrageous, off the charts physical pain and the emotional distress of taking on all of our sins and endure it with joy?  Because He knew what salvation was like!  He knew what heaven was like.  He knew the rewards and the benefits of being obedient even when your feelings say otherwise.  He could look forward to His own salvation but He also knew that He was our salvation and that through Him we could spend eternity in Heaven.

That should bring joy and praise like it did for David instead of discouragement and doubt that Satan wants to deceive us with and that brings me to my last point.  What the helmet of salvation protects us from is that doubt and discouragement that Satan uses in our lives every day to keep us from having joy and peace; that keeps us from living an abundant life as it says in John 10:10. The thing that makes doubt and discouragement such powerful weapons for Satan is two-fold:  it keeps us out of the fight, sitting in our foxholes feeling sorry for ourselves instead of waging war but it is also similar to a virus in that whatever attitude we have is contagious.  When we feel down and discouraged because we have taken off the helmet of salvation and have relied on the view we have of our circumstances and how we feel about that then the other people around us tend to be dragged down into that as well.

The good news is that when people see us putting on our helmets and looking past our circumstances and feelings and looking forward to the salvation that is to come then they start buckling up their helmets as well and pretty soon we start to look like an army to be reckoned with.  People in the community will see us and see that we are going through difficult times but we don’t cave in.  We don’t start self-medicating.  We don’t start complaining and worrying.  Who wants to be around that?  There is enough of that in this world.  People don’t want to see it in the church.

Some of you may hear this sermon and think I am preaching a feel-good gospel where if we just believe then everything will be ok in this world.  You would be mistaken.  I wish I could preach something like that but I have to tell you that in all probability, as bad as it is in your life right now, things are probably going to get worse.  I promise you this world is not going to get any better.  As long as we live on this nasty, ugly, self-serving, every man for himself planet then things are going to get worse and worse.  There is not much to look forward to as far as the morality and standards of this world go.

But let me encourage you with one last thought from I Thessalonians 4:13-18:  13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

There is our salvation!  There is our helmet!  Put it on and don’t be deceived! We have all fallen for the lies of Satan before in our lives. Don’t you hate that? Don’t you hate being gullible and believing something that’s not true? Well, today I stand here and I give you truth and hope and a reason to get up in the morning and have joy and peace. We serve a risen Lord who is the King of kings and Lord of lords; the great I AM, the Redeemer, Sustainer, Deliverer and our Friend and He wants to give you eternal life with Him in Heaven as co-heir to all the good things Heaven has to offer if you will just believe, ask Him for forgiveness and to come into your life to change you and make you more like Him. Do that right now as the music plays.