The Call to Stand and Fight

6 · The pastor exposits Ephesians 6:12, arguing that Paul's multiple terms for spiritual enemies (rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, spiritual forces of evil) are not meant to construct a demonological hierarchy but to paint an intimidating picture of a dark, pervasive, and powerful spiritual opposition

So second question then, who do we fight? It's important to know. Well, Paul lays out this very intimidating picture. He says, "We're going to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Now, some people will take this and try to then construct some sort of demonology chain of command, you know, and they'll ask like, are you fighting an authority or are you fighting a cosmic power?

Because you've got to use different weapons for each one and then this one reports to this one and this one. No, that's not what Paul's doing. He's not laying out a chain of command. Instead, what he's doing is he's painting a picture. He's using all these terms to paint a picture.

And the picture is this: it is dark, it is scary, it is intimidating. These are spiritual forces that you may not see it right physically in front of you, but they are all over the place. And they are dark and they are powerful. Like, that's the picture. Paul wants us to know what we are up against.

7 · The pastor builds a theological claim about the nature and motivation of the devil's opposition: the devil hates God and therefore hates humanity (made in God's image), especially redeemed humanity

The reality is this. This is the spiritual reality that surrounds us and surrounds every Christian whether they check yes or no for spiritual warfare in their life. The reality is this. The devil hates God. The devil and his forces hate God.

They hate God's rule. They hate God's justice. And from the beginning, after their choice to rebel against God, they have opposed the Lord and his good and just rule with everything in them. And as a result, as you see from the very beginning of Genesis, they hate you. Humanity.

Now, why does the devil hate humanity so much? Because humanity was made in the image of God. So they hate His image because they hate Him. And they especially hate— the devil especially hates the redeemed. He hates the Christian, whether you be male or female, young or old.

He hates that God has set His love on you and saved you and is sanctifying you and changing you and has given you a beautiful future and a hope. He hates that. He hates the work of the church. He hates that every person, regardless of where their background is or who they are, what they've done, can be welcomed into the family of God and then added to the body of Christ and given a purpose and a hope and a future. He hates that.

And he hates the cause of the church, to preach the gospel to every tribe, tongue, language, people that more might be gathered in and more might be made more beautifully into the image of God. He just hates all of it. So know this, there's no aspect, there's no ability to check yes or no. Even if you're like, I'm gonna be a Christian, but I don't wanna be a spiritual warfare Christian, it doesn't matter, he still hates you. He's still coming for you.

That's the reality. And you need to recognize it.

8 · The pastor uses Company E's training exercises in identifying enemy uniforms to illustrate the principle that Christians must correctly identify their true enemy in spiritual warfare—not fighting the wrong battles or the wrong people

When Company E, went for exercises. They were actually sent from El Paso to— I think it was, if I remember, Brownwood, Texas. I don't even know where that is, somewhere in East Texas.

And they were doing these exercises. And one of the most important exercises they did was they had to learn to identify the enemy. Because when you're on the battlefield, you're going to need to identify from a distance, is that an American soldier? Is that a Nazi soldier? Is that an Italian soldier?

Is that a French soldier? What do they wear? What do I look for? Right? Otherwise, you're totally useless.

Like, either you're not fighting anybody or you're just fighting everybody, neither of which are helpful. And in the same way, Christians must be careful to identify the right enemy.

9 · The pastor recounts a racial discrimination incident during Company E's training where a diner owner refused service to Mexican-American soldiers

But so, I think this— if I can just push on this a minute— understanding that there are deep spiritual forces that are opposed to God that really do affect culture, they do draw in and tempt our hearts, understanding that changes who we see as the real enemy in the world around us. One of the most tragic stories out of that training season for Company E was when a bunch of these Mexican-American soldiers went to a diner after finishing exercises for the day. And a waitress came over and informed them, informed some of the light-skinned soldiers, listen, you guys are fine, but the dark-skinned soldiers, they can't eat here.

Of course, the light-skinned guys were like, You understand we're Mexican American too. And they're like, oh, really? Then in fact, then you can't eat here either. And then the owner came out and they tried to talk to him and he was like, no, this is it. You're going to leave.

We don't allow people like this in our diner. And so eventually led to a fight. And here's what happened. They got kicked out. Then the US military basically said, okay, this diner, which is close to where all these soldiers are, is off limits, nobody can eat there.

Led to a pretty quiet World War II for that diner, I'm sure. And they find the diner. And here's what's so tragic about it. You think about that situation where this is World War II, the world is at war, like fascism is on the rise, democracy is at stake. Like in many ways, America is the next target if everything goes well in Europe and in the Pacific.

And yet this diner owner is picking the wrong battle to fight. He's fighting his own countrymen who are being trained to get equipped to save and preserve his own life. A tragic example of fighting the wrong enemy.

10 · The pastor applies the principle of correctly identifying the enemy to contemporary Christian life, warning against treating political opponents, educational choices, COVID-response differences, or secondary theological disagreements as the primary enemy

And Christians, we must be careful to see who the real enemy is. Let me just say this, the real enemy in our world today is not a particular political group.

When I say capital our real, capital E, enemy is not a political group. It is not people who educate their children different from us. It is not people who responded to the COVID pandemic different from us. I mean, I was talking to somebody the other day that is still trying to relitigate the COVID fight and pick their friends based on what they did 2 years ago or didn't do 2 years ago. It's not— the real enemy is not somebody with a secondary theological difference from us, like we need to go spend all of our time just attacking and demolishing them.

No, there will be times— let me just say this— there will be times for real and substantive disagreements between Christians. There will be times where political engagement is important, but there is a difference in eternal value between opposing a particular law in 21st century United States of America, which there is a place for, but there is a difference between opposing some law and building the church that it might advance the gospel of Jesus Christ and change the eternal destinies of millions of people. There's just a difference. So we must know who the real enemy is and who we are fighting.

11 · The pastor exposits Ephesians 6:10, refuting a common misreading of the passage as a call to spiritual self-improvement or personal strength-building

And third, where then do we find the strength to fight?

Because if you're kind of looking at this as a— I've heard this preached as a sort of, you know, okay, the armor of God and this is— you're going to go to the gym of the Lord and you're going to do— spiritual exercises, which are your deadlifts, and you're going to get so spiritually buffed that— I've heard a dude say this— you're going to get so spiritually fit that when you come walking, the devil himself trembles at you. You know? And that appeals to a certain group of guys that are like, yeah, they're flexing their, like, pecs right now, like, mm, mm, right? You know who you are.

That is not what this passage is saying. In fact, this passage is trying to paint such a stark and dangerous picture of the enemy that we don't do that. We're to look at the enemy and go, "Nope, I'm not going to out-arm wrestle the devil. That's not going to go well." So then what are we to do? What is Paul calling us to do?

Look at the language. Paul does not say here, "Ricky, be strong." 'in your own spiritual strength and trust the strength of your might.' No, no, no. He says, in fact, the opposite. The verse says, 'Brothers and sisters, be strong,' where? 'In the Lord.' And in the strength of whose might?

That's right. 'And put on the whole armor of,' who? 'Of God.' Right? It's not your armor. It's not your might.

It's not your strength.

12 · The pastor establishes the theological foundation for fighting in God's strength: union with Christ

Well, Paul can say this. He can call us to this because the entire book of Ephesians has been filled with the truth of the doctrine of our union with Christ, that we are in Christ. Therefore, our might is not our might. It is the might of Christ as we have been united to him.

Our power and strength are not our power and strength, whatever we can come up with. No. They are the Lord's power and strength with which we have been united to because of the work of Jesus. Right? This is what Paul is calling us to do.

He's calling us to see how stark, how dangerous, how deadly the opposition is against us. And then go, listen, I got nothing, but in Christ, I am strong. In Christ, I have might. In Christ, I have armor to protect me.

13 · The pastor steps outside the expositional flow to directly shepherd discouraged Christians, personally applying the truth of fighting in God's strength to areas of their lives where they feel defeated

Do you listen?

If you're discouraged today in your spiritual walk, I really hope you get this truth. I hope you take this truth home, that you fight not with your own strength, not even most fundamentally just with your own willpower, but rather you fight in the strength of the Lord. And so that area in your life that you think, "I'm never going to win. I'm never going to advance. I'm never going to be able to stand," you can, because it is the Lord's strength.

It is his might. It is his armor.

14 · The pastor exposits the strategic posture of Christian warfare: withstanding rather than advancing

So then how do we do this? Well, we must fight. The fourth question then is, how do we fight?

Well, we— our goal is to withstand the enemy's opposition. Now, that's a very intentionally chosen picture, because if you notice, if you read the book of Ephesians, the one doing the advancing is not us, it's Jesus Christ. Right? God doesn't come to humanity and goes, "I mean, you guys are going to have to figure out, you know, how to save yourselves. I'll give you a few ideas, but get to it." No, no, no.

We're dead. We're lifeless. We're following the devil. And yet the Lord himself, our captain Jesus Christ, comes to us. Rescues us, saves us, and then basically we're to stand and withstand the assaults of the enemy as Christ advances his gospel in his church.

That's the picture there.

15 · The pastor uses Company E's assault on Italy as a vivid picture of withstanding punishing enemy assaults to hold ground

A vivid picture could be the assault on Italy that Company E participated in. So, this unit was sent from El Paso to training, from there to North Africa, and then from North Africa they were part of the invasion of Italy. You may have forgotten that we invaded Italy, but it was actually brilliant. It was a brilliant move because it drew German forces out of France and out of the Russian lines and made them open up a third front.

And so part of it was they knew that probably we're not going to get from Italy to Berlin, but by landing in Italy, we're going to draw tons of forces in the Nazi army down. And it was supposed to be a surprise attack very early in the morning. And so they go in, and they've told— they basically land a bunch of infantry. These guys are just infantry. This is not armor.

And they land a bunch of infantry, and they're like, don't worry. They're not going to see you coming. And you're going to kind of establish a beachhead, and then we're going to land all of these things. Because it was a very slow process because of all the mines and stuff that the Nazis had set up. And so they're like, don't worry.

You'll get to the beach, secure it, and just kind of hold on. They knew something had gone awry when, as they're in boats about to land, they start to see tracer rounds come from German machine gun nests. And as soon as they hit the beach, mortar shells and artillery shells start landing on them. And they're like, this is bad. No, wasn't even bad yet.

Then the tanks showed up. Like a whole squad of tanks shows up. And these guys are looking around and thinking, okay, If we do not hold this beachhead, no one else is going to be able to land. So it is essentially up to us to secure this few hundred yards and hold it long enough so that the army can come in behind us. And so here, that's what they did.

A spoiler, that's what they did. That's why Company E is famous. That's why those guys from El Paso held it down and why there's a giant— well, one of the reasons there's a giant statue to them downtown. We, El Paso, guys, we invaded Italy successfully. It was awesome.

16 · The pastor transitions from the Italy illustration to the text, asserting that Christians are called to withstand constant enemy assaults but are not sent defenseless—Paul provides armor

And in the same way, we as Christians are called to withstand the punishing, constant, intense assaults of the enemy. But the good news is this. Paul gives us armor so that we can withstand. He doesn't send us out there helpless. Look at what enables us to withstand, or maybe another way to say it is, look at what we stand in so that we can stand.

This is the picture of the armor of God. It would have been very familiar to many of the retired Roman soldiers that lived in Ephesus and had retired there. And notice as we walk through how these function in the Christian life.

17 · The pastor exposits each piece of the armor of God (belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of the Spirit), explaining the function of each in Roman military equipment and then applying each to the Christian life

First, we stand in truth. The belt of truth.

So in the ancient soldiers' clothing, the belt was what brought everything together and held everything together, right? So your sword hung off of your belt, your armor was tied into your belt, it basically kept everything on you. If you didn't have a good belt, if it broke, your armor's falling off, your sword's falling away. And so Paul is saying, you know what that is for the Christian? That is truth with a capital T, knowing what is true and right and good and just, knowing truth itself, that is what keeps everything in your Christian life together.

So, for example, when your marriage is tested as a husband and you're tempted to walk away from it, you remember the truth of Ephesians 5, which calls you to love your wife as Christ loved the church and laid his own life down for her, that marriage is precious to the Lord, and that truth enables you to fight. We stand in righteousness, the breastplate of righteousness. Now, in the ancient world, the danger was often not getting cut. A lot of times the danger was blunt force damage to your internal organs, right? And so the breastplate basically protected you.

So instead of taking one good blow and you're dead because your kidneys fail or whatever, you can withstand a bunch before your kidneys fail, which is great news, right? Happy Mother's Day. Aren't you so blessed, moms? You're like, "I did not expect this coming to church today." Well, it's going to help you. I'll get to that later.

"If you had a strong breastplate, you can withstand many blows. And in a similar way, the righteousness of God is what enables us to withstand many blows of the enemy." And notice this, the righteousness that he's referring to is not your righteousness. It's not how good you are. You, as a Christian, do not stand and, "Here's all the good I've done," Here I go. Do you know what that is?

That's like a little— that's a paper with Crayola on it breastplate for the Christian life if you're standing in your own righteousness. Rather, what he's referring to is the righteousness of Christ. All the righteousness of Christ has been transferred to you. As he bore your sins, you then wear his righteousness and you are secure not on the basis of how good you are, but on the basis of how good Christ is. And that allows you to stand.

When you fail and fall and you think, I'm a terrible Christian, God doesn't want me, no, you stand in the righteousness of Christ. Third, the shoes of peace. Now look, there's a lot more you could say about this particular illustration, but let me just say this. Your shoes are your readiness to meet whatever life throws at you with peace rather than anxiety or fear or panic. This is so often the case for us.

We remember we have peace through the gospel with God, that God doesn't look down on us grumpy and angry and vengeful. Rather, God looks down on us as a Father, and that brings peace. We are secure in Him. That peace allows us to function in the Christian life no matter what life throws at us. Next, the shield of faith.

I love this image of the shield because the Roman shield is not like a puny shield. This is a small door-sized shield that you could set it and get behind it, press yourself behind it. In fact, often they would soak— if they knew the enemy was going to be using flaming arrows, because there's nothing worse than getting hit with an arrow other than getting hit with a flaming arrow that's covered in tar, that burns the insides of your body while it's hurting you. Like, that's no good. So they would dunk their shields in water if there was a river or something, and then bring them up, and as the arrows came in, boom, boom, boom, they'd just be extinguished.

And then the enemy's going, okay, I don't know what we have left. We got nothing. Right, that is the shield of faith for the Christian. And the shield of faith, again, is not— the strength of the shield is not based in how strong your faith is most fundamentally. The strength of the shield is based in the object of your faith.

Meaning that as you set your hope in God, as you put your faith in God, all the darts of the enemy are extinguished. As you turn to the Lord as your refuge, as your strength, as your fortress, as your protector, as your Savior. Again and again, puts out arrows. And next, the helmet, the helmet of salvation, right? Here's the reality.

You take one good blow to your head and you are done. One good blow. That helmet was your life in many ways. And in the same way, we are perhaps most vulnerable as Christians on the issue, at the issue of salvation. One blow to our belief that God has saved us and everything else in our Christian life shatters.

If we begin to believe, "Oh, God didn't really," He doesn't really love you. He doesn't really care about you. As the devil begins to work to undermine you at the level of salvation, he wouldn't want you, he doesn't care about you, he has left you. No, no, no, you, with the helmet of salvation, he who did not spare his son but freely gave him for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things, right? That is that helmet on you in that moment.

And then the sword, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Now, for the army, if you were marching, if you were sleeping, sometimes they would remove parts of their armor, but they never were far from their sword. Their sword was life. It meant protection. It meant defense.

It meant the ability to take ground. It meant everything. An army without swords is not going to be very effective. You can push people with your shield all you want, but you need a sword to fend off the enemy. And in the same way, Christians must be fluent and ready to use the word of God to fend off the assaults of the enemy.

That is why the Bible, in a sense, functions as our sword. We sleep with this, it's never far from us, it's on our mind at all times. Why? Because this, most fundamentally, is how we defend ourselves, how we attack, how we advance. It is our life.

And there are going to be moments, Christian, where you need the Word of God hidden in your heart, the Word of God that you heard that week in a sermon or at a community group or in your discipleship group. You will need that word to fend off the assaults of the enemy. When the enemy begins to attack, you need to fight back. And the way you fight back is not just your own willpower, It's with the active and living Word of God.

18 · The pastor recounts specific heroic actions from Company E's Italian campaign—soldiers grabbing bazookas to attack tanks, capturing and operating a German tank despite not reading German—to illustrate the principle that withstanding the enemy's assault requires doing whatever it takes within the resources you've been given

Now, good news for us in El Paso is that Company E did withstand the assaults of the enemy and probably saved the world. I mean, I don't know if that's an overstatement, but I believe in my heart of hearts this unit from El Paso saved the world. There are all these heroic stories. I wish I could— I read a master's thesis on this this week from I think his name was Jorge Gonzalez, was a master's student at the University of Texas at El Paso, which remains the best university in the world and the Harvard of the borderlands. It was a great, great thing. You can look it up.

But he goes through all of these heroic deeds that it took to withstand the assault of the enemy. One soldier got scared. The bazooka guy— in one of the units, the bazooka guy got scared. And so another soldier just grabs the bazooka, and another dude— and starts attacking tanks. Now, here's the great thing.

That once they rallied and were like, all right, we're going to have to take the tanks out, the Germans were so confident that the machine gun nests and the armor— I mean, that the tanks and the shells would keep the American forces at bay, they didn't send any infantry with the tanks. Because they were like, well, once they see the tanks, they're just going to run. They're going to get back in the boats and go. They did not expect them to stand. And they certainly did not expect— them to go advance on the tanks.

So you got guys with small arms and bazookas and a handful of grenades going and taking on German tanks, and the German tanks are falling back. This one dude with the bazooka took out a tank and then just started running down the road, and then the other tank was like, uh-uh, this guy's nuts. And so the tank just withdraws. He's like, uh-uh. My other favorite story, I just have to give you this.

This is a happy Mother's Day story. So my favorite story of the whole thing is these guys, they come upon a tank that was undergoing maintenance or had some problem. They had one soldier left there. So they take the soldier out. And these dudes from El Paso, you gotta remember these guys are from El Paso, man.

They jump in the tank. And they in the tank are like, we're gonna use this tank. Only problem is everything's in German. Everything's in German. So these guys in El Paso are like, I don't know, bro.

I don't read German, man. And yet another tank comes around and they, figure out how to swivel the gun over, right? And they just start hitting buttons. They're like, "Hit the button, bro. Just that one and that one and that one." And it just— and they finally hit the right button, take the tank out, and they're like, "I think we're done." So they leave, right?

This is how they withstood the assault. The point is this: they did whatever it took to withstand the assault because that was what they were called to do.

19 · The pastor applies the armor of God specifically to mothers (given Mother's Day context), walking through each piece of armor and showing how it addresses specific spiritual assaults common to motherhood: condemnation (righteousness of Christ), anxiety and fear (peace of God), doubts about salvation (helmet of salvation), and lies from the devil (sword of the Word)

And in a similar way, as Christians, It may seem impossible at times. It may seem intimidating at times, but we are called in the armor of God to withstand the assaults of the enemy and not to flinch, not to give up ground, but to hold the line because we stand in the armor of God. We stand in the strength of God.

We stand in the might of God.

Look, this is so important because let me just give one example of what this could look like. I'm going to apply this to moms because it is Mother's Day. And I really have a heart to encourage moms today because motherhood is a fight. If you kind of, as a mom, your picture was just kind of quiet mornings as your baby coos softly next to you while you drink a cup of coffee and have found that not to be the case, you know that motherhood is a fight. And the reality is this.

The devil hates families. The devil hates moms and dads seeking to train their kids to know and honor the Lord. And so the devil will throw everything he has at you, but this passage will help. There will be times, for example, that you feel condemned, that you feel like a failure, that you feel going to bed like, "Man, I just— I'm just the worst." And yet this This passage is so helpful because it reminds you, no, no, no, you're protected, you're surrounded not by how many good mother deeds you did that day, but you are protected by the righteousness of Christ. That as you go to bed and offer your prayer to the Lord, you don't offer your prayer on the basis of your own merits as a mom that day, you offer your prayer to the Lord on the merits of Christ who died for you and opened the way to the Father.

You got to cling to that in those moments. Look, there's going to be in motherhood changes and ups and downs, and you will slip and fall, and fears and anxieties will creep in and be ready around the next corner, but the peace of God is what makes you ready to encounter anything. When you remember, "No, no, no, I'm at peace with the Lord. The Lord loves me. He is a Father, and through the Spirit I can have peace in any and every circumstance," and you and ask for that, you'll be ready for whatever life throws at you.

Look, there will be times when even your salvation, the devil will attack your salvation. Does God really love you? Has he really saved you? Are you really a Christian? And you then are called to place on that helmet of salvation and say, "No, he has saved me.

He set his love on me before the foundation of the earth," as Ephesians 1 says. He saved me by grace, according to Ephesians 2. And in light of that, I am secure in Jesus' promise that no one can snatch me out of my Father's hand.

And look, there will be times where you are just going to be in a sword fight with the devil, and you're going to have to have truths from Scripture to be able to fight back. There will be times where the devil will come and say, "No one loves you." And you have to answer with Ephesians 1, "No, God set his love on me." The devil will come and say, "You're never doing enough. You never do enough. You never will do enough." And you answer him with Ephesians 2, "No, no, no, by grace I've been saved through faith, and this is not of myself. It is the gift of God." And the devil will come and say, "This is too hard for you.

You will never make it. You'll never be able to get through this. You're not strong enough." And you will respond with Ephesians 4, "No, I have the power of the Spirit of the living God inside me." And I can do all things in Christ who gives me strength. Like, this, brothers, this, sisters, whatever situation you are in today, let me encourage you, take an aspect of your life, take a piece of your life, and apply these truths to that part of your life. Whether it's the trials of motherhood, whether it's even— we mentioned today not having children or struggling with infertility and all of these doubts and lies are coming at you from the enemy, whether you're not— this doesn't relate to you at all and you're like an older man, you're like, "Okay, I like the World War II.

I don't know about the motherhood stuff." This is for you as well. This is for every single Christian that we might withstand and having done all, to stand firm.

20 · The pastor exposits Ephesians 6:18, arguing that the passage's call to prayer for all the saints reveals that spiritual warfare is corporate, not individualistic

All right, last, and let me just wrap this up, I think, with an encouragement. Last question, who fights with us? Now look, I want you to feel up to this point, maybe you're thinking, okay, I get it, I see the enemy, I know that I have the power of Christ, but this still seems overwhelming, this still seems too hard.

That's where Scripture provides so much encouragement. Paul calls us in verse 18 to pray at all times in the Spirit, to keep alert, making supplication for the saints. And so what he's doing is he's saying, listen, he— remember, this is not a passage that's just given to one individual. So often this passage, I think, gets applied individually to Christians' lives. Like, hey, you versus the devil, one-on-one.

If you grew up my age, you remember like Carmen boxing the devil or whatever that was. I'm not even sure exactly what was going on there. Theologically suspect. Very cool as a kid that was like 12. But that is not the picture of the Christian life here.

It's not you versus the devil. It is the church with the Spirit of God and the power of Christ against the devil. Right? That's the picture here. And do you notice that the church support that Paul references here?

He says, "Keep alert, making supplication for all the saints." What he's saying is, you, you're supposed to pray for that sister. You, Eric, you're supposed to pray for that brother. You, you're supposed to pray for them. They're supposed to pray for you. We're going to be praying for and supporting one another because we stand not as a single soldier, but as the body of Christ.

21 · The pastor uses Company E's corporate stand on the Italian beach (no single soldier could hold the beachhead alone) to illustrate the necessity of the church standing together in spiritual warfare

Do you see how the images work together where Paul calls us the body of Christ and then he says, "Oh, by the way, you're dressed in armor. We're going to war." But that body of Christ, us being connected to them, is life or death. Look, I don't care how trained a single dude from Company E would be dropped off in the middle of Italy. I don't care if that guy's Chuck Norris, there is no way He's going to hold that beach. But those men stood together with one another, shoulder to shoulder.

22 · The pastor applies the corporate nature of spiritual warfare, challenging listeners to let others into their spiritual battles through discipleship relationships and community groups

In the same way, Christians and the church are called to stand together. Let me— my challenge for you today is this: are there people standing with you? Have you let people into the fights that you have? Do people around you in your community group or in a discipleship relationship know where you're getting attacked? Do they know the doubts you're struggling with?

Do they know the lies of the devil you're trying to fight? Are they praying for you, and do you know theirs, and are you praying for them? That's what we're called to do. We're called to stand with one another. And we're called to stand with one another in the Spirit of God, right?

Remember Ephesians 2 reminds us that we've been brought from death to life by the Spirit, and then Ephesians 4 says we make progress in the Christian life, we grow by the Spirit. And so Paul references that. It says, "Praying at all times," where? "In the Spirit." Meaning there'll be times that you're praying and you're like, "I don't even know what to pray." I feel weak even in my prayers. And the Spirit is there to meet you in that moment.

Praying at all times in the Spirit. The Spirit literally— the word paraclete, or the word for the Spirit is paraclete, which means helper. You have a helper even when you don't know what to pray, church. Even when you don't think you can do another day, you have a helper.

23 · The pastor makes a theological claim by connecting Ephesians 4's body-of-Christ imagery to Ephesians 6: Jesus is the head of the body, the captain and commander who leads the church forward

And last, well, to apply the the metaphor of Ephesians 4 back into Ephesians 6, that if we are the body of Christ, who's the head of the body?

Jesus. Jesus is the head of the body. Jesus is our captain, our commander, and he will lead us forward. He is the one who does the work. He has dealt a death blow to Satan.

He has defeated death itself. He stands with us. He will never leave us and forsake us, and he has a plan for the fulfillment and restoration of all things.

24 · The pastor recounts the tragic end of Company E, where a poor commander ignored intelligence and ordered a doomed assault that resulted in massive casualties

And the tragic thing about Company E, in the case of this unit from World War II, is that it was the failure of their commander that resulted in the destruction of the unit. There was a particularly pitched battle further into the Italian campaign where some men went across the river and scouted and found the enemy far more dug in than they expected.

Than they expected, and they came back and reported to a particular major and said, "Major, basically, this assault is going to be like running into a brick wall. None of our men are going to make it." And the major didn't want to hear it. He ordered the guy to go to the infirmary because he'd been wounded. He ordered the assault anyway, and as a result, nearly everyone in the unit was killed or captured or wounded. They were a great unit, but they were destroyed by a poor commander, but not so for the Christian.

25 · The pastor contrasts Christ our captain with the failed commander of Company E: Christ did not call us to do anything He did not do first

Church, we have a commander and a captain who does not call us to do things harder than he has to do. He does not call us to the front lines as he sits comfortably in an office on the back lines. No, Christ our captain dove headfirst into the world. He withstood He withstood the assaults of the devil with everything the devil could throw at him. He went to the cross with our names on his mind, laid his life down for us, and then rose in victory on the third day.

And then through the Spirit applies what he has done to the Christian, awakening their dead hearts and restoring and redeeming and washing and cleansing and healing us that we might be gathered into a gloriously happy army, taking the good news of what he has done through the world to every tribe, tongue, people, and language, that on the last day there might be a roar of praise to God from one corner of the globe and one end of history to the other. Right? That is who we follow. We do not follow a commander saying, "Okay, you go do that. I'll be over here." No, he's at the front line.

He's laid down his life for us. He's dragged us through the mud, back, healed us, saved us, and then said, "Will you follow me?" And church, I hope with all my heart that our answer is a resounding "yes" in light of what he has done for us, a resounding "yes." I'll follow you to the end of the earth. I'll follow you to the gates of hell itself. My life is yours.

26 · The pastor issues a concrete application: take a specific area of life and apply Ephesians 6's truths, particularly in a discipleship relationship

So I want to encourage you again, take one of these particular areas in life and apply the truths of Ephesians 6 for it.

And I want to encourage you, especially in a discipleship relationship, that's where to work out the details of this, where you share with brothers and sisters, man, these are the lies of the enemy that I'm tempted to believe. These are the things that are getting thrown at me. These are the arrows coming at me. And maybe today, if you don't have that person that you can share that with, that's your resolution for the next in the next few weeks. Find somebody in your community group or talk to other people and say, "Man, is there any way we could just— we could meet and I could just open up what's going on in my life, where I'm fighting?" This is a church that wants to fight with you, friend.

27 · The pastor addresses non-Christians directly, correcting a potential misunderstanding of the sermon's warfare imagery

And if you're not in Christ, here's what I want you to hear. I don't want you to hear, listen, life is a war and you're going to get buff and fight it. That's the opposite of the gospel.

What I want you to hear today is this: Jesus, the captain of the church, seeks and saves sinners like you and me who are stuck dead in the mud following the wrong commander to the wrong place.

And he stops for us and he drags us back. Right? That is the gospel. The picture of the gospel for the Christian is not, "I'm, like, you know, a powerlifter and I'm going to bench press the devil." No. The picture of the Christian life is I'm dead, I'm in the mud, Jesus breathed life back into me, let's go.

28 · The pastor closes with a pastoral prayer applying the sermon's truths to mothers, weary Christians, and non-believers

So I would love to pray with that in mind as we end. So would you stand and let's pray together. Oh, Lord, today I specifically pray for our moms. Lord, as we talked about, motherhood is a fight. It is a fight.

In many ways, our culture doesn't often value motherhood as it should, or it makes an idol out of it, and there's no in-between. And so, Lord, I pray for our moms today. Lord, I pray that the truth of your word would be their armor this week. Lord, I pray that they would be secured with the belt of truth, of knowing what is true and what's not true. I pray that the helmet of salvation would be on them, that, Lord, when they question and wonder, those questions and doubts would be met by the— a reminder of the fact that they went from death to life by the grace of Jesus.

I pray that they would feel themselves not standing before you with their failures as a mom or successes as a mom, but rather dressed in the righteousness of Christ. I pray that the peace of God from the gospel that flows out of the gospel would guard their hearts and their minds in Christ Jesus. And I pray that the Word of God would always be close at hand to them. And I pray for anyone else, Lord, in the middle of a fight, whether that fight is something that's been mentioned or something totally different. Lord, I pray that the truth of Ephesians 6 would clothe them, that they may be able to withstand.

Lord, I pray for the weary Christian that's tired of fighting, maybe a particular area, a particular health issue, a particular sin, is tempted to give up and sit on the beach and wait for the end. Lord, I pray that hearing the call of Christ their captain and the Spirit of God at work in their hearts would cause them to stand again, cause them to have strength in their heart again. Now, Lord, I pray for anyone that does not know you. Lord, let no one leave here thinking they just need to be tough enough to fight life's strongest battles, but rather they would see the hope of the battle you have fought for for them, that in you, the captain who seeks and saves the lost, they can be saved, they can be restored, they can be redeemed, they can be cleansed, they can be given a future and a hope. And I pray that they would set their hope in you today.

And I pray, Lord, that we as a church would all stand faithfully with one another. Lord, this song we sing as we close, may it be a picture of the way we fight with one, alongside one another and for one another. In the name of Jesus, amen.