Mark Medley: So we have spent eight months studying Paul's letter to the Ephesians together, and we're going to conclude it today with a passage that has both inspired people and it confused people.
Mark Medley: Probably since the very first time it was read by those young Ephesian believers.
Mark Medley: So hopefully we're going to the Holy Spirit's going to give us some light on this.
Mark Medley: But Paul, it may have confused him because Paul opened this letter.
Mark Medley: Do you remember in September?
Mark Medley: Do you remember?
Mark Medley: We opened the letter.
Mark Medley: Paul opens the letter with these words, grace and peace be to you.
Mark Medley: He closes the letter also with grace and peace.
Mark Medley: And he talks about unity and he talks about kindness to one another.
Mark Medley: But then now today we're going to be reading where he is telling believers in Jesus to suit up for battle.
Mark Medley: You are in a war, he's telling them.
Mark Medley: And the enemy is greater than you can handle, and you need armor and you need weapons that are greater than your own wisdom and your own faith and your own ability.
Mark Medley: So we're going to read this this morning.
Mark Medley: We're going to see what God has given to us to be able to fight our spiritual battles.
Mark Medley: So would you mind standing with me in honor of the word of God?
Mark Medley: And just you can read with me, it's going to be on the screen behind me.
Mark Medley: This is Ephesians chapter 6, starting at verse 10.
Mark Medley: Finally, you don't have to read it out loud.
Mark Medley: It's okay.
Mark Medley: You can if you want to.
Mark Medley: That's fine with me.
Mark Medley: But finally, be strong in the Lord and in the power in the strength of his might.
Mark Medley: Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Mark Medley: For we do not wrestle 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.
Mark Medley: Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand firm.
Mark Medley: Stand, therefore, having fastened the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace, in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.
Mark Medley: To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me, that words may give into me, may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it bold as I ought to speak.
Mark Medley: Let's pray.
Mark Medley: And as we're praying, would you mind praying for me too?
Mark Medley: That I would be able to speak boldly as I ought to speak.
Mark Medley: I need your prayers.
Mark Medley: So, Father, thank you.
Mark Medley: We're grateful this morning for your word, which is forever settled in heaven.
Mark Medley: Lord, your word which endures, which is alive and powerful, and it goes down into our hearts, even to our thoughts and intents of our hearts, and it divides soul and spirit, and it is working, Lord, always working.
Mark Medley: Today we pray that you would work in us and you would, in the short time that we have here, Lord, that you would do a long work in our hearts, that you would speak directly to the needs of every single person here in Jesus' name.
Mark Medley: Amen.
Mark Medley: Okay, you can be seated.
Mark Medley: So, since we're talking about spiritual battle, spiritual warfare this morning, I want to tell you stories of three warriors and see if we can learn something from these three warriors.
Mark Medley: The first one, maybe I've told this story before, but maybe I haven't.
Mark Medley: I don't know.
Mark Medley: But uh, it's a great story.
Mark Medley: It's really applicable to what we're talking about this morning.
Mark Medley: So it's a man named Hiro.
Mark Medley: Yeah, his name is Hiro.
Mark Medley: Hiro Onoda.
Mark Medley: And Hiro Onoda was an Imperial Japanese army officer in the Second World War.
Mark Medley: He was one of Japan's most famous military legends, but for a kind of a strange reason, actually.
Mark Medley: And he belonged to a family of samurai warriors, and he was in that class of family.
Mark Medley: And like all Japanese soldiers, he his orders stated that there are two things he could never do.
Mark Medley: He could never surrender and he could never take his own life.
Mark Medley: This is this was his orders.
Mark Medley: This was his his life.
Mark Medley: This is the way he um he lived his life.
Mark Medley: And in 1944, he was sent to the Philippines and he was ordered to do everything he could with his men to disrupt and hamper the enemy attacks on the island.
Mark Medley: The enemy would be would be us and others and the Filipinos.
Mark Medley: And so that included destroying the airstrip, that included uh destroying the pier at the harbor, and he and his men did a lot of destroying.
Mark Medley: But in 1945, the island was liberated by the combined forces of the United States Armed Forces and the Philippine Commonwealth, and Hiro and three other men ran to the mountains and they hid in the mountains surrounding the city.
Mark Medley: And from their little hideout in the mountains, they carried out these guerrilla activities.
Mark Medley: They engaged in shootouts with the authorities, including dis uh including uh uh um pouring um um their um weapons, uh pointing their weapons into the city and um barraging the city.
Mark Medley: And they were generally causing havoc for their Filipinos for almost, they did this for almost 30 years because Hero didn't know the war was over.
Mark Medley: Nobody told him that.
Mark Medley: And finally, in 1974, the Japanese government found Hero's commanding officer and sent him to the Philippines because they knew Hero would listen to his commanding officer as a good soldier, right?
Mark Medley: His commanding officer found Hero up in the hills, and he said, Hero, you've been so loyal.
Mark Medley: You've been you've been such a good soldier, but Hero, the war is over, and the war has been over for almost 30 years, and so Hero surrendered his sword and his rifle and over 500 rounds of ammunition and some grenades and the dagger that his mother gave him, and he went back to Japan, and he ended up being a military legend like a hero.
Mark Medley: Hero was a hero to the Japanese.
Mark Medley: What I want you to understand about this story, though, is that Hero Elnoda kept fighting a war that he didn't know was already over.
Mark Medley: It had already been won.
Mark Medley: Well, in his side, it's always been already been lost from his side, but it was over, and he kept his efforts up for 30 years, fighting a war that was not.
Mark Medley: So sometimes, when we're talking about spiritual warfare this morning, sometimes we are fighting in our own strength a war that has already been won.
Mark Medley: Today we read about these in these enemies, spiritual enemies, the principalities and powers.
Mark Medley: But Paul didn't start in chapter six talking about this, he talked about this in chapter one that Jesus himself was ascended, was raised up, and had authority over the principalities and powers.
Mark Medley: And that we also are raised up together with him over those principalities and powers.
Mark Medley: So, but some of us are living like we don't know the war is already won.
Mark Medley: And this is why Paul started the book of Ephesians with a chapter and a half of what God has done for us in Christ.
Mark Medley: And he prayed for us that God would open our eyes to what he has done, the riches that we have in Christ, and that the gospel would be the foundation of our life, and from that gospel foundation, rooted and grounded in the love of God, that we would be able to walk in righteousness and also, in the end, fight the spiritual battles.
Mark Medley: Paul was saying that in one sense the battle is already won.
Mark Medley: But there are others of us walking with Christ who aren't even aware there's a war.
unknown: Yeah.
Mark Medley: You don't even know.
Mark Medley: It's not, you haven't been told yet.
Mark Medley: You're living in it.
Mark Medley: Maybe you felt the effects of it, but you don't know what you're feeling the effects of.
Mark Medley: And this is why Paul ends the letter with this section about spiritual armor and how we're to stand in the freedom that we've been given.
Mark Medley: Because there is a war.
Mark Medley: And everything that he talks about here in this section, chapter six, he's already been talking about.
Mark Medley: He doesn't just introduce it here, he's wrapping it up here, but he started talking about it much earlier.
Mark Medley: And Kelly did such a great job last week.
Mark Medley: If you haven't heard Kelly's sermon, you should really look it up and listen to it because he introduced us to spiritual fighting last week and reminded us that there is a fight, but it's not the fight that we might think.
Mark Medley: It's a spiritual fight.
Mark Medley: It requires spiritual armor, spiritual power.
Mark Medley: We do have an enemy.
Mark Medley: These evil, powerful, deceptive, invisible powers are real, but also we have what's necessary to defeat them.
Mark Medley: And there are, as you know, as I know, there are seasons in our lives where the fight is fiercer.
Mark Medley: There are there are some intense battles sometimes.
Mark Medley: But we have the armor.
Mark Medley: We're able to withstand.
Mark Medley: And our passage this morning says, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his own might.
Mark Medley: It's really important.
Mark Medley: It's his strength, it's his armor, it's his truth, it's his righteousness, it's his gospel of peace, it's his faith, it's his salvation, it's his sword of the spirit, it's his word.
Mark Medley: The battle belongs to the Lord.
Mark Medley: It's his armor that we're putting on.
Mark Medley: And yet we are engaged.
Mark Medley: So this is the paradox we're gonna see all through today, because there's there is a paradox.
Mark Medley: It's like the the battle has already been won by Christ, but we are doing the daily work of in his power, applying his victory and enforcing his authority.
Mark Medley: That's what this is about.
Mark Medley: Paul's point is that Jesus is exalted above all powers, and we are raised up together with him in active resistance together with him against these evil forces.
Mark Medley: And here we have a list of what God has given us to fight with.
Mark Medley: Specific list.
Mark Medley: And Paul's readers would be familiar with this.
Mark Medley: They would they would understand Roman soldiers because all of this was Roman territory.
Mark Medley: So they had seen Roman soldiers, they had seen the armor that they wear, they understood that the armor was given to them, it was purchased by the wealth of an empire.
Mark Medley: It was given by the emperor to them for the purpose of protecting the interests of the empire.
Mark Medley: And our armor is given to us by our King.
Mark Medley: God, through the work of his son, Jesus Christ, who bought it and gives it to us so that we can help protect the interests of this kingdom.
Mark Medley: We're working together with God.
Mark Medley: We're co-laborers together with him.
Mark Medley: And we are to aggressively resist what God, what is resisting God's kingdom, what's resisting salvation, what's resisting righteous living, what's resisting unity in the body.
Mark Medley: We are to work with God to resist that.
Mark Medley: We stand against it.
Mark Medley: So each part of our armor is tied to the work of Christ and our faith in that work.
Mark Medley: So ultimately, spiritual warfare is the application of the gospel.
Mark Medley: It's applying what's already been done for us.
Mark Medley: So today I want us to see this list, though, in the big book, the context of the big book of Ephesians.
Mark Medley: Because we take things out of context, we get a little squirrely, right?
Mark Medley: We can get weird, we can even get heretical.
Mark Medley: We can we can be teaching things that are not taught here when we're adding our own thoughts into it.
Mark Medley: If we don't, if we just pull this out and say, yeah, warfare, and we make up our own rules of warfare or our own tools of warfare.
Mark Medley: But we got to look at the big picture.
Mark Medley: So we're gonna do that today.
Mark Medley: I want to see this in the in the context of the whole letter.
Mark Medley: Now, here's the good news this morning.
Mark Medley: I don't have to cover every piece of armor this morning.
Mark Medley: This is good because we have lunch waiting back here.
Mark Medley: We are having lunch today, y'all.
Mark Medley: This is good, but we can't have it until I'm done.
Mark Medley: So I but I promise you I will not hold you hostage.
Mark Medley: Because this is this is a pet peeve of mine personally, it's preachers that hold the congregation hostage.
Mark Medley: I hate that, so I will not do that to you.
Mark Medley: And the good news is that over the next 10 weeks, starting on June 10th, Wednesday nights, we're gonna have our Timothy team teaching on each piece of armor in depth so you can understand it better.
Mark Medley: So you don't want to miss that.
Mark Medley: It's really gonna be good.
Mark Medley: I don't have to do that this morning, so everybody breathe and say thank you, Jesus.
Mark Medley: But this section is echoing what Paul has already taught us in the rest of the letter.
Mark Medley: So if we look back over from the very beginning, over eight months we've been going through this, Paul says that the Christian life consists of a few things.
Mark Medley: Number one, it's grounded in the love of God, love of our Father, and the work of the Son.
Mark Medley: Okay, that's chapters one and one and part of chapter two, right?
Mark Medley: And number two, it's walking together in community.
Mark Medley: He over and over says we need each other.
Mark Medley: And number three, it's walking in our spiritual life.
Mark Medley: So it's developing habits from a brand new heart, a changed heart, and a disciplined life.
Mark Medley: He talks about walking in the light, walking in good works, walking in wisdom, walking in love and walking in unity and walking in the spirit, all of those things.
Mark Medley: He talks about walking a lot.
Mark Medley: Walking is daily decisions that we make as we follow Jesus.
Mark Medley: But it's empowered by being grounded in the love of the Father and the work of the Son.
Mark Medley: And then from that foundation, finally, brothers, be strong in the Lord.
Mark Medley: Finally, from there we fight, we battle.
Mark Medley: So we prepare by our lifestyle, and we fight out of that preparation, which brings us to the second warrior that I want to tell you about this morning.
Mark Medley: And it's a man named Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
Mark Medley: And all of you Civil War people said, Yeah.
Mark Medley: He was a colonel in the United States Army.
Mark Medley: And um in the middle, in the middle, uh, and I'd love to have a mustache like that.
Mark Medley: I can't make mine do that.
Mark Medley: I don't know why.
Mark Medley: In the in the the middle day, the second day of the turning point battle of the Civil War, Gettysburg, he was given command of a small mountain called Little Round Top.
Mark Medley: He was positioned at this extreme end of the Union line, and it was a very important position because if the Confederate Army flanked that line, they would come around the back, they would defeat the United States Army.
Mark Medley: They had been defeating the Army up to that point quite a lot.
Mark Medley: They were only 90 miles from Washington, D.C.
Mark Medley: They would sweep down through Philadelphia into Washington, and and uh probably we wouldn't be celebrating 250 years this year of our country.
Mark Medley: And the Confederate attack was fierce.
Mark Medley: And it came in wave after wave, after wave, after wave after wave.
Mark Medley: There were five attacks on that end of the line that day.
Mark Medley: And his men and his ammunition were exhausted.
Mark Medley: And Chamberlain led his men, commanded his men to perform this obscure maneuver, this attack that was right out of a military textbook, where they fixed their bayonets and they swung down the side and they ran toward the enemy and they defeated the enemy.
Mark Medley: It was extraordinary heroism.
Mark Medley: And that decision and his bravery that day saved the day, saved the battle, arguably saved, won the war eventually, after two more years of fighting, and eventually, arguably saved the United States.
Mark Medley: But here's what I want you to understand about his story is that the victory didn't begin the day of the battle.
Mark Medley: It began long before the day of the battle.
Mark Medley: It started many years before.
Mark Medley: Several years before the war, Chamberlain wrote this in his diary.
Mark Medley: I love this quote.
Mark Medley: I love it.
Mark Medley: I kind of live by this quote in some ways.
Mark Medley: We know not the future and cannot plan for it much.
Mark Medley: But we can hold our spirits and our bodies so pure and high, we may cherish such thoughts and ideals and dreams, such dreams of lofty purpose that we can determine and know what manner of men we will be.
Mark Medley: Whenever and wherever the hour strikes that calls to noble action.
Mark Medley: No man becomes suddenly different from his habit and cherished thought.
Mark Medley: We don't know exactly how to plan for it, but one thing we can know, we can know what kind of people we're gonna be when the future comes.
Mark Medley: When the hour comes that calls us up, when we're called to battle for our children or for our families or for our church, our neighborhoods, whatever you're battling for, when those moments come that we have to raise the bar, we can know what kind of people we're gonna be when those that time comes.
Mark Medley: So the gospel, chapters one and two of Ephesians, community, chapters two and three of Ephesians, and our disciplines, chapters four and five of Ephesians, make us spiritually strong people who are ready to fight when the battle comes.
Mark Medley: We put on the armor that's provided for us day by day, that we might withstand in the evil day.
Mark Medley: When the time comes, we'll be the kind of people that are ready for that time.
Mark Medley: It's really what Paul's been talking about the whole time.
Mark Medley: He doesn't start in chapter six, right?
Mark Medley: He starts preparing the whole time.
Mark Medley: Okay, so if we think about how he has spoken about these pieces of armor in the other parts of Ephesians, he actually is thinking about the Old Testament.
Mark Medley: His mind is filled with Isaiah.
Mark Medley: Isaiah chapter 2, or chapter 10, rather, Isaiah chapter 11, Isaiah 52 and 59.
Mark Medley: In some of the Psalms, he's pulling these pieces of armor out where God said he would wear this armor in fighting for his people.
Mark Medley: He's talking about God's armor that God gives to us.
Mark Medley: So there's a belt of truth.
Mark Medley: We see that in Isaiah 11.
Mark Medley: What is the truth he's talking about, though?
Mark Medley: Well, he's talking about the truth of what God has done for us in Christ.
Mark Medley: It's specifically that we're forgiven, that we're adopted, that we're sealed by the Spirit, that we're raised up with Christ, that we're joined together as a temple, a dwelling place for God, that we're filled with the Holy Spirit to walk in righteousness.
Mark Medley: That's the truth he's talking about, the truth of what God has already done for us.
Mark Medley: But also, he says in chapter four we're to speak this truth to one another.
Mark Medley: I need you to remind me of these truths.
Mark Medley: We need each other to speak this truth into our lives.
Mark Medley: Your words are powerful.
Mark Medley: Your words for your brothers and sisters could be the very thing that holds it all together for them, that gives them courage in that day, that that raises them up, that encourages them to where they are, but then lifts them up and gives them strength for the battle.
Mark Medley: Because our enemy, the nature of our enemy, is a liar.
Mark Medley: He's a father of lies.
Mark Medley: And what defeats him?
Mark Medley: Truth.
Mark Medley: Truth of what God has done for us already.
Mark Medley: And truth is not just knowledge, truth is actually a person.
Mark Medley: The truth is Jesus Christ.
Mark Medley: Okay, so there's also a breastplate of righteousness.
Mark Medley: This is a shadow of, or looking back to Isaiah chapter 59.
Mark Medley: But is this the righteousness that God gives us, or is this righteousness that we walk out, like our daily walk of righteousness?
Mark Medley: Which one is it?
Mark Medley: Yes.
Mark Medley: Both.
Mark Medley: It's both.
Mark Medley: Paul wrote in chapter 4 put on the new self, which is who is created in righteousness.
Mark Medley: God created you brand new with a new heart in righteousness.
Mark Medley: Then he said in chapter 5, walk in light, walk in righteousness, walk pleasing to the Lord.
Mark Medley: So it's both what's been given to us and how we live that out.
Mark Medley: Then there shows the gospel of peace.
Mark Medley: This is looking back to Isaiah 52.
Mark Medley: This is very strange, isn't it?
Mark Medley: That we go into war armed with peace.
Mark Medley: Isn't that strange?
Mark Medley: But it's beautiful.
Mark Medley: It's beautiful.
Mark Medley: We have a resting place from which we battle.
Mark Medley: But is this peace with God or is it peace with man?
Mark Medley: Yes.
Mark Medley: It is both.
Mark Medley: In chapter one and chapter two, he's talking about how we have peace with God.
Mark Medley: In chapter two, the latter part, he's talking about how he has made peace among us.
Mark Medley: Jesus is our peace.
Mark Medley: He's broken down the wall of separation between us and he's made us one body.
Mark Medley: He's reconciled us both to God and to one another.
Mark Medley: So it's peace, man to God, and it's peace, man to man.
Mark Medley: And then he talks about the shield of faith.
Mark Medley: This is a picture from Psalm chapter 5, where God is wearing this shield of faith.
Mark Medley: This faith.
Mark Medley: Is this faith from God or is this faith in God?
Mark Medley: You guys are so good.
Mark Medley: You get it, you get it.
Mark Medley: Man.
Mark Medley: Yeah, but grace for faith, saved through faith.
Mark Medley: This is not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, right?
Mark Medley: That's chapter two.
Mark Medley: But also it says in chapter three that we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him.
Mark Medley: It's faith from God as a gift, faith in God because He's faithful.
Mark Medley: My faith is not in my ability to have faith.
Mark Medley: My faith is in someone, it's in a faithful nature of that person and in the finished work of that person, and that's Jesus Christ.
Mark Medley: Then he says there's a helmet of salvation that we put on.
Mark Medley: It's important, it protects your head, right?
Mark Medley: This is from Isaiah 59.
Mark Medley: But is this a salvation that's given to us or a salvation that we put on?
Mark Medley: It's put on by us.
Mark Medley: Which one is it?
Mark Medley: Yeah, you're right.
Mark Medley: It is both.
Mark Medley: It's given to us, but we have to put it on.
Mark Medley: I have to remind myself of the gospel all the time.
Mark Medley: And we need to remind each other of the gospel all the time.
Mark Medley: Remind, it's not, you know, no, you don't feel too good today, you don't feel too victorious today, you don't feel like God could be pleased with you today.
Mark Medley: But it's not about your work, it's about a work that's finished, it's about Jesus' work.
Mark Medley: You are stable and steady.
Mark Medley: You are grounded in his love.
Mark Medley: You're okay, you're you're all right.
Mark Medley: We need to tell each other this things, and this is what protects our head.
Mark Medley: Because what because the battleground is the mind.
Mark Medley: It's the way, it's the way you're thinking.
Mark Medley: This is where this this is where this is the seed bed of your entire life.
Mark Medley: And so I am the thing that protects my head is the one thing I cannot provide for myself.
Mark Medley: Salvation is of the Lord, and I trust him for it.
Mark Medley: It's his armor.
Mark Medley: And then Paul says there's a sword, and the sword is the word of God.
Mark Medley: This is a picture of Isaiah 49 as well.
Mark Medley: And you know, he uses this word rhema there.
Mark Medley: There's two words for a word in the word, and the two words are logos and rhema.
Mark Medley: And you could think of it this way: logos is that that you're it's your Bible.
Mark Medley: It's what is settled, it's the canon of scripture, it's settled forever in heavens, it's the word of God that doesn't change.
Mark Medley: Heaven and earth pass away, but my words will not pass away, Jesus said.
Mark Medley: Okay, so it's the logos.
Mark Medley: But also, when you're reading that logos, sometimes God just breathes on a passage and speaks it directly to your situation.
Mark Medley: That's you could think of that as the Rhema.
Mark Medley: And this is what he's saying here.
Mark Medley: The word of the sword of the spirit is the word of God.
Mark Medley: We pull it out.
Mark Medley: It is that thing that God personally speaks to you from for your moment from the logos.
Mark Medley: But that means you have to have daily exposure to the logos in order to hear the rhema.
Mark Medley: You gotta be in the word of God in order to hear the word of God to you in this moment.
Mark Medley: And so he says in chapter one, we trusted in Christ after we heard the word.
Mark Medley: That's the logos, the word of truth.
Mark Medley: But then he says in chapter five that Jesus loves his bride and he washes his bride with the rhema, with the rhema of his word.
Mark Medley: It's beautiful.
Mark Medley: So you see, all this is an ongoing process.
Mark Medley: As we become spiritually strong people, strengthened by the gospel and by our community and by our disciplines, then we're ready to fight when the day of battle comes.
Mark Medley: That's what Ephesians is all about.
Mark Medley: You can't just pull the fight part out and say, Yeah, we're gonna fight.
Mark Medley: It's connected to all the rest of it.
Mark Medley: So I want to end the sermon and then this whole series where Paul ends it in chapter 6, verse 17 and 20 through 20.
Mark Medley: We read this, but let's read it again.
Mark Medley: Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication, to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication.
Mark Medley: That means pray for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in change, so that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.
Mark Medley: Paul, this incredible man of God, who wrote the scripture, who saw Jesus, who knew the Old Testament, who had the great education from the rabbis of his day, who was filled with the Spirit, who planted churches, who did miracles, who saw things in heaven that he couldn't even speak.
Mark Medley: Paul is asking for prayer from the saints.
Mark Medley: Because we need each other.
Mark Medley: Doesn't matter who you are.
Mark Medley: You need you need the people around you.
Mark Medley: We gotta have brothers in arms around us who are fighting the battle with us and for us.
Mark Medley: Pray for me so the gospel message can get out.
Mark Medley: Pray for all the saints.
Mark Medley: My armor is not just for me, my armor is for you.
Mark Medley: I'm fighting for you too.
Mark Medley: And you're fighting for me.
Mark Medley: And here's what I've learned from this, and that is that there are battles I cannot win without your prayer.
Mark Medley: I need you.
Mark Medley: And the other thing is that God has called me to pray for you when you're in your own battles.
Mark Medley: So all that Paul's been saying in Ephesians is tied into community.
Mark Medley: He says things like, We're fellow citizens with the saints, we're members of God's household together.
Mark Medley: God has built us together as a dwelling place for him, that he's made us together a holy temple.
Mark Medley: It's all in the context of communion and community and relationships.
Mark Medley: So we learn how to rest in the gospel together, and we learn how to walk uprightly together, and we learn how to fight the enemy together.
Mark Medley: And that's why he ended the whole book like this in verse 21 and 22, so that you also may know how I am doing what I'm doing.
Mark Medley: Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will tell you everything.
Mark Medley: I've sent him to you for this uh for this very purpose that you may know how we are and how that it may encourage your hearts.
Mark Medley: Paul ends the letter.
Mark Medley: See, he didn't just send a letter, he sent a person.
Mark Medley: He sent a person to communicate, he sent a person to encourage.
Mark Medley: Ain't that beautiful?
Mark Medley: It's one thing to send a card, it's another thing to knock on the door and say, Hey, I'm here to help you, I'm here to encourage you, I'm here to tell you some news.
Mark Medley: So we don't fight alone, we fight with each other.
Mark Medley: And that's how we're one of the ways that we're filled up and we're enabled for the battle.
Mark Medley: Okay, so I told you there was gonna be three warriors, right?
Mark Medley: And there's Hero and there's Joshua, right?
Mark Medley: But there's another one, and the third one, the last one, is you.
Mark Medley: Because I want to remind you that you are a warrior.
Mark Medley: Even though you may not feel like a warrior this morning.
Mark Medley: Maybe this is not a season where you have felt like you're a winner, you're victorious.
Mark Medley: Maybe you felt the battle, but you haven't felt the you haven't felt the victory.
Mark Medley: Maybe that's the case.
Mark Medley: But I want to remind you, you're a you're a warrior that's been outfitted for this thing.
Mark Medley: He's giving you, he's given you what you need for the battle.
Mark Medley: And as your elder team, we are active in praying for you.
Mark Medley: We realize each one of you have your own battles, and they're all unique to you.
Mark Medley: And each of one, each one of them is different in different seasons of your life.
Mark Medley: And some of us are in very intense battles right now, some of us are between heavy battles right now.
Mark Medley: But we realize that each one of you have battles, and each battle has needs support.
Mark Medley: So we're praying for you.
Mark Medley: I want you to know that we do pray for you.
Mark Medley: I have had so many battles in my walk with Jesus, and I've prayed about um relating some of my battles to you today, and I realize that some of them are so intense it's hard to put into words, and some of them involve other people, so it's not just my story to tell.
Mark Medley: And I just I just can't tell the stories.
Mark Medley: But I've had battles that have been very, very intense.
Mark Medley: You've had battles that are very, very intense.
Mark Medley: Maybe you're in the middle of one right now.
Mark Medley: I just want to encourage you that your shepherd is gonna lead you through a valley that's dark.
Mark Medley: He's gonna lead you.
Mark Medley: And you have a father, and maybe your your battles in the past have wounded you, but he will dress your wounds.
Mark Medley: He will dress your wounds, he'll give you courage.
Mark Medley: He knows exactly what to put on your wounds.
Mark Medley: He knows what piece of armor to help you put on at that moment.
Mark Medley: He knows which brother or sister in this body can speak the words that give comfort and courage to you, and he'll bring them to you.
Mark Medley: He's surrounded you with brothers in arms who will watch for you and fight with you.
Mark Medley: You're not fighting alone, and you're not fighting in your own strength.
Mark Medley: So I want to encourage you, I want to pray for you this morning.
Mark Medley: And as we're ending, I want to tell you, I maybe I thought, I just thought, how could we how could we apply this?
Mark Medley: And so I just thought, let's write some questions now.
Mark Medley: Maybe you can take these questions this week and pray for them, pray over them and see what you think.
Mark Medley: So, in terms of fighting for me, here's my questions.
Mark Medley: What are my personal enemies?
Mark Medley: I and notice I didn't say who.
Mark Medley: I said, I said, what are my because we don't battle against flesh and blood, right?
Mark Medley: Okay, they're spiritual.
Mark Medley: And what provision has been made for me in the gospel that I can fight these enemies?
Mark Medley: And how can I ground myself in what has already been done for me?
Mark Medley: What are the scriptures I can apply to effectively wield the sword of the spirit?
Mark Medley: The word of God.
Mark Medley: The word of God is a strong tower that you can run into.
Mark Medley: You can build yourself a place of safety with the scriptures.
Mark Medley: And then the other question is if I'm I'm also fighting for others in my life, who am I fighting for?
Mark Medley: Who am I responsible for?
Mark Medley: Maybe it's your children, maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your coworkers, the people around you, people you feel a burden for, the people your heart weeps for.
Mark Medley: That's the people you're fighting for.
Mark Medley: What are the struggles they need me to cover in prayer?
Mark Medley: Who are my fellow warriors who will pray for me and with me?
Mark Medley: So this is Ephesians.
Mark Medley: God has given us everything we need in the gospel and in each other and with his army armor to guard us, to help us.
Mark Medley: So, Father, I pray for each of us here, Lord.
Mark Medley: We are in need.
Mark Medley: We understand this battle is bigger than us.
Mark Medley: We also understand that you're bigger than the battle.
Mark Medley: We believe, Jesus, you are raised above in the heavenlies, above all principality and power.
Mark Medley: We also believe that you have raised us together with you and seated us with you in those heavenly places.
Mark Medley: And you have given us what we need to fight, co-laborers with you and with our brothers and sisters to resist the enemy.
Mark Medley: We thank you, Lord, that you've already given us the victory.
Mark Medley: And as Kelly reminded us last week, it's Hooper and Nico, it's more than conquerors.
Mark Medley: You've made us more than conquerors.
Mark Medley: I don't even know what that means, Lord.
Mark Medley: I think I can get my mind around victory, but I don't know what it means to be more than victorious.
Mark Medley: And that the enemy is more than beat, is more than defeated.
Mark Medley: Lord, would you give us that faith and eyes to see that and help us, Lord, to fight together in your strength.
Mark Medley: In Jesus' name we pray.
Mark Medley: Amen.