#093 "Stop Trying to Be Strong" (Ephesians 6:10)

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might." (Eph. 6:10)

In this powerful first verse episode in our new The Armor series, Kate looks at Ephesians 6:10, inviting you to rethink what it truly means to be “strong” as a follower of Jesus.

Drawing from personal experience in the middle of deep physical pain and spiritual battles, Kate shows how God meets us not in our self-sufficiency—but in our surrender. Through vivid exploration of Psalm 18, the broader context of Ephesians, and the original Greek language, you’ll see that strength in the Christian life is not something you muster—it’s something you receive.

In this episode, you’ll learn: Why “be strong in the Lord” comes before putting on the armor of God, How avoiding hard seasons may actually be keeping you spiritually weak, What it practically looks like to rely on God’s strength instead of your own, Why your weakness is not a liability—but the very place God’s power is perfected, and How to face spiritual battles with confidence, knowing God fights for you. 

If you’ve been running on empty, bracing yourself for what’s next, or quietly wondering how much longer you can hold it together—this episode will gently unravel the pressure to be strong and lead you back to the One who already is. Here, you’ll rediscover what it looks like to stop striving, start surrendering, and be strengthened right in the place you feel weakest.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Abiding Matters

Kate 0:00

Hey guys, this is Kate from Abidable.com, and you're listening to the Abidable Podcast. I'm just a regular wife and mom who's had my life transformed by learning to study the Bible on my own. If I can, you can. On this show, I help you know and love God more by abiding in Him through His Word yourself. Earlier this week, I tried going for a walk, which is hard for me right now. As many of you know, I have been battling chronic pain for many years now, and post-endometriosis, excision surgery, and hysterectomy and appendectomy and bowel resection and all of the endolesions that they cut off back in August. I am still, sadly, in a lot of pain. I wake up in pain, I spend the day in pain, I go to bed in pain, I wake up in the middle of the night in pain, and it's exhausting. And don't worry, I am trying many different things. I am getting care and therapy and seeing doctors, and we're trying to figure it out. So don't worry about that piece. But in terms of just my heart and my spirit, I want to share something with you that happened. So I went for a walk. It's hard to go for a walk. And I don't know if this is what triggered it, but later that evening I had a debilitating headache on top of the pain that I experienced, mostly in my back, but I've been having it in random other fun places. It's like whack-a-mole. Suddenly I can't feel the back of my knees because there's like a strange pain, and my legs feel like they're gonna give out. And then it's my shoulder blade, and then I pulled my groin two months ago. It's like, what is happening? The whole car, the wheels are coming off the car. And so I had gone for this walk, and then I get this absolutely debilitating headache, the kind where you just not even laying in bed, not ice, not anything is touching it. And so I had gone to bed, and Jason had come in and he was reading, and I was laying there in the dark, and I was talking to the Lord, and tears, I just started silently crying, and tears were streaming down my cheek, and I was just quiet. And then as I'm talking to him, I'm I'm pleading with him, and I'm saying, if this is what you have called me to, if this is a season of pain that you have called me to, and for the moment there is not going to be relief or release or healing, then I need more grace, I need more strength. I I cannot, I feel so tired, I feel so weak, I cannot continue in this manner. And that's what I was like pleading. There was a lot of emotion in that as I was crying out to him. And as I was doing that, I started to cry more and more. And so then Jason can tell that I'm now crying, and it's like a release. Have you ever had a cry like that where you're just like, it just gets worse and worse and worse, and then suddenly you can't catch your breath. And so I'm starting to lose control of my breathing to the point where I went into a full-blown panic attack. Like I just completely lost it and I can't breathe. And now I'm saying to Jason that I can't breathe. I mean, I haven't had a panic attack in a really long time. And it's scaring him. He's saying, Do I need to call 911? Like, can you really truly not catch your breath? So my strategy, this is too much information for you guys, but I am like the princess and the pea, or like the three bears trying to figure out if my mattress is part of the problem. So trying different mattresses. So at the at the moment that this happened, we currently had two mattresses stacked on top of each other. My king was on the bottom. It's a little bit too firm, so I hadn't been on that one. And then I was trying out my softer queen on top because our base is a king. I did anyway. So I decided I'll fling myself out of bed. I just have to fling myself from this seventh-story bed of mine to see if that'll jolt me back into breathing. And hey, it actually worked. It worked. And so I kind of was hanging back onto the top part of the bed, catching my breath. And I asked Jason to get me some ice, and then I asked him to put Psalm 18 on repeat. And the reason that I reached for Psalm 18 is because I have a history with Psalm 18. It's very significant to me, very special to me. Because when I was in a similar panicked situation on bed rest with Liam in the hospital, um, my water had broken at 23 weeks and five days. And they were monitoring things and not too far into our hospital stay. He didn't come immediately. They kept me in the hospital. And I don't know, a couple weeks into being on bed rest in the hospital, they weren't liking what they were seeing on the monitor. And so they essentially called in the SWAT team and they're like, it's go time. So they started prepping me for emergency um cesarean. And this is like 26 weeks. This is really bad. Uh, because we were praying and hoping and wanting to keep him in as long as possible. And so they gave me a shot, I think mag sulfate is what it was called, and that was uh like maybe if I'm remembering correctly, a steroid for his lungs to help him with breathing when he was born. But because he needed it, they gave me the shot, and it makes you feel, I don't know if anybody's ever had this before, you know what I'm talking about. It makes you feel like your entire body is on fire from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. It's a it is a panicked sensation or a sensation that induces immediate panic. And so it was awful. And I'm laying there, same thing, silently crying, tears are coming down my cheeks. There's like 10, 12 people in the room. I can't even really see Jason. I don't remember if he was right next to me, he was there with me. And all of a sudden, in my mind, in my heart, in my spirit, I start hearing, I love you, oh Lord, my strength. I love you, oh Lord, my strength. And so I just kept repeating that and I kept repeating that until I was completely at peace and like chaos all around, total peace inside. It's like that little meme of the duck on the top of the water, like just total peace. And then underneath pedaling, but I wasn't pedaling even underneath. I was totally my soul, my soul was at rest, and my soul was at peace because the Lord put that on my heart to cling to in that moment, in that battle that I was facing. And I'll tell you, I had not even been studying Psalm 18. Like that wasn't something on my radar that I had been memorized, it was just there. He just brought it to me. And so I have studied Psalm 18 extensively. It is significant. This is this is like 13 years ago. Um, Liam, my son, says, You're obsessed with Psalm 18. He always opens my Bible to see how I have it all marked up. So it's a special psalm to me. So I asked Jason to put it on as I'm like recovering in my breathing this past week from that panic attack, just my sadness and my emotion and my release of just how hard this season of pain has been. And I am telling you, same thing. I was feeling so tired, so hopeless. And then I we push play and I just listened to it on repeat, and instantly, truth washed over me. I felt the calm and peace of his presence with me as he spoke that truth over me. And here's the gist. I would love to invite you to read Psalm 18 on your own. I'm not gonna read you the whole thing, but here's the gist of it. David is crying out to the Lord uh because he is surrounded on every side by his enemies. He is using vivid imagery to say the cords of death encompassed me, the torrents of destruction assailed me, the cords of Sheol entangled me, the snares of death confronted me. I mean, it's bad. He he is uh has just been delivered from the hand of his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And so he's describing what it felt like. And so I called upon the Lord, I cried out to the Lord because this is what is going on. And what God, what David writes is a vision of God's response when when he hears, when our cry reaches out to him in heaven, what his response is. It says, From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears, then the earth reeled and rocked, the foundations of the mountains trembled and quaked because he was angry, angry at David's enemies. Smoke went up from his nostrils and devouring four, devouring fire from his mouth, glowing coals flamed forth from him, he bowed the heavens and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet. And then it just describes him coming, uttering his voice, hailstones, coals of fire, sent out his arrows and scattered them. He flashed forth lightnings and routed them. Then the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundation of the world were laid bare at your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils. Like that vision. We need to, we need, we need to have that vision in our minds and in our hearts and in our souls when we are in battle. It's not like we cry out to the Lord. First of all, it's not like we don't have any battles, okay? Like sometimes we think, oh, I'm gonna be a Christian. Like, why life is good? Like the prosperity doctrine that's like, okay, you're gonna become a Christian, everything's gonna be hunky-dory, plastic Christian smile, blessed and not stressed, all the things that we wrongly suppose or are imposed on us by bad theology. But the reality is that becoming a Christian, being a follower of Christ, does not mean it is a faulty assumption that becoming a Christian ends your struggles. You will still face struggles as a Christian. We see that in the Bible. David was God's anointed and a man after God's own heart, and yet he still is in battle. He still is facing struggles. We talked about Paul. We're gonna get to our verse for today, Ephesians 6:10, our author Paul, and the struggles that he faced as an apostle, called by the Lord Jesus as an apostle for the gospel. And so as a Christian, it's gonna be an ongoing struggle. Uh, author H.B. Charles Jr. says that um if you live out your faith and obedience, Satan will fight back. Your personal devotion to Christ will be attacked, your doctrinal convictions will be attacked, your fellowship with others will be attacked. The Christian life is an ongoing struggle. Christianity is a battleground, not a playground. And that also might mean that you experience brokenness in any form, relational brokenness, body right now. My body, my body feels very broken. And just because I love Jesus, it does not mean that I am immune from the effects of this fallen world. And I was so encouraged to be brought back to Psalm 18 and reminded that he hears me when I cry out to him and responds immediately, often in ways that I cannot actually see. And we make such a mistake in assuming that because we can't see what he's doing or how he's responding to our cry, that he's not responding, that he's sitting there indifferent as we are surrounded on every side by enemies that are too strong for us, that he's just indifferent, or he's too busy, or he's um caught up, you know. Leave a message and I'll get back to you next week. That is never the case with our God. David knew that, and that's what David is saying here. In my distress, I called upon the Lord to my God. I cried for help from his temple. He heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears, then dot, dot, dot. And he writes how he sees God responding. And we're gonna come back to Psalm 18. We're we're in Ephesians 6:10, but Psalm 18 is a battle psalm, and so we're gonna come back to it again in the course of our time together today. But one of the things that really like is like, okay, Lord, thank you. As I was laying there crying and recovering from my meltdown moment, my panic attack, one of the things that really stood out for me was verse 34, which I had not really paid attention to in my previous studies. He trains my hands for war so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. God does not leave us exposed, unprepared, ill-equipped for the battles that we face. Okay, we are going to face battles here. And so let's jump into our verse for today, which is Ephesians 6.10. It's the first verse in our study here of the armor of God, Ephesians 6.10 through 20. And if you missed our introduction uh episode last week, I would highly recommend that you make sure to check that out because it was a really important, it was very long, longest episode I've ever done, but I really wanted to lay some strong foundational groundwork for us in terms of who Paul is and where Ephesus is, was, and the significance of this city and these people to Paul and to the spreading of the gospel to the early church and to Jesus, as we saw that he also wrote a letter to the church at Ephesus in the book of Revelation. So here's our verse for today. It says, it starts with, finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. That's Ephesians 6.10. Short and sweet, but packs a heavy load because it starts with finally. And as we discussed last week, we understand that that means a lot came before this. That word finally essentially means here's what remains to be said after everything else that was said. And I mentioned to you guys, please, please, please read Ephesians the whole book. It's only six chapters. It's an easy read. You can do it, you can put it on play and have it read to you while you're doing the dishes, while you're driving somewhere. Uh, listen to it and understand that the first three chapters, first half, as we discussed last week, is the gospel story, our position in Christ, who Jesus is and what he's done. And then the second half, chapters four through six, are what now? How do we live now? How should we live in light of what Jesus has done? So this finally, I like how David Guzick puts it. He says, uh, this comes at the end of the letter, a letter in which Paul has carefully established our place in Jesus, and then the basics of the Christian walk. So that's what I was saying. This is his last section dealing with that walk. For Paul to write finally here means that he speaks in light of all that he has previously said, in light of all that God has done for you, in light of the glorious standing you have as a child of God. Hi, Bodie. In light of his great plan of the ages that God has made you part of, in light of the plan for Christian maturity and growth he gives to you, in light of the conduct God calls every believer to live, in light of the filling of the spirit and our walk in the spirit, in light of all this, there is a battle to fight in the Christian life. And so what we see here are two pieces as Paul introduces this passage in light of everything else he's just taught in Ephesians, in light of everything that God has done and who God is, we see two things that are that we're being told. First, to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, and second, to put on the full armor of God, which we're going to get to next week and beyond, right? That comes in verse 11. But what we're seeing here is that before we are to dress ourselves in the armor of God, we are to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. We'll get into all of what that means in a moment. But I think we have a problem. I don't know if you resonate with this. I'm sure that you probably do. But I think our issue, like when you see that, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. I think our problem so often is that we don't want to sit in the hard long enough to let God demonstrate his strength to us. And when we don't want to sit in the hard, when we won't let him bring us to or through the hard, then we are not strengthened. We stay weak. I think there are many things that I do to avoid the hard. And Lord knows our culture caters to that by providing us with every possible distraction known to man. There are a million and seven things that we can do instead of being still and sitting in the hard stuff, letting God bring us into the hard stuff to deal with us and to do the things that He needs to do in us in order to strengthen us. And so then it's like, uh, you know, we feel weak for the battle, ill prepared for the battle, when all along what he has been trying to do is to bring us through in order to a demonstrate who he is, the power of his might, his strength, his glory, and in so doing strengthen us through faith. And if we go through that process in the way that he lays out for us, the way that he plans out for us, it's a perfectly planned growth plan. Not for us to then, oh, look at me, look at my strength, I'm so strong, but to grow weaker and weaker in the idea of I am weak in my flesh, I am strong in Christ. And we just don't allow ourselves to go into those spaces like myself. Like, how long had I been needing that cry? And how many other things had I been doing instead of even good things? Reading the Bible with my family, doing a Bible, trying to go for walks, making dinners, being with friends, church, group, blah, blah, blah. Like PT, Cairo, like let me do all these things. I don't really want to fall in humility and brokenness and weakness before the Lord. Why? Like, why? Why, why do I think that he has saved me and proven himself to me over and over again just to leave me in this time? Like, this is what we've talked about before with God as one. And with the whole idea of abiding, that that we are so stinking, forgetful. And so I don't know. Like, I we we try to hold it together, we try to be strong instead of just like allowing ourselves to fall apart before Him, the one who is strong, the only one who is truly strong. And so I think that's our first problem. So you probably in some way, shape, or form resonate with that idea of not wanting to sit in the heart long enough to let him demonstrate his strength to us and to strengthen us. I think another piece of that problem is our incorrect. I think I think what what leads into that actually is inaccurate, incorrect perceptions of who he is and the role that he takes in our struggles. We blame him for the hard, we blame him for the struggles, we distance ourselves from him because of that. When in fact, his desire is to deliver us from and through and out of each and every one of those struggles. Like we see the image that David gives us. He cries out to the Lord, he hears my cry from his temple, and he bends the heavens to come down because he was angry. How dare you to the enemies of David? How dare you mess with my son? He came and he scattered them and he routed them. Um there's another Psalm, Psalm 138, 3 that says, On the day I called, I think this is so important. This is like maybe one to write down and memorize because it's short and sweet. On the day I called, you answered me. My strength of soul, you increased. There is an element to our strength, part of our strength comes from knowing the heart of God, the character of God, and how he responds to us when we are in battle, when we are in the heart, when we are facing impossible odds, when we are surrounded by our enemies. And the freedom begins to come when we acknowledge the fact that our enemies, and this is what happened to me like our enemies, our battles, our struggles, our trials, um, whether they be the the physical. Spiritual, um not the physical flesh and blood fight, but the spiritual powers of darkness in the heavenly places that we're going to be studying in verse 12, uh, that we can't see with our eyes, but that are as real as physical, everything in the physical world that we can see, um, they are too strong for us. And when we acknowledge that, it's like that's the space where we are getting ourselves out of the way so that God can come in and do what he innately does because of who he is and the power that he wields as supreme Lord of all. David says again in Psalm 18, he rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. Those words that my strong enemy is is the idea of um harsh, greedy, strong. They were they were too mighty for me, too strong, too determined, too bold, too established. Um, and that they hated me, they they utterly hated me. They are my enemy and my foe. Our enemies are too great for us, but they are not too great for God. And one of the places that I have to draw your attention as we talk about this idea of strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might is that these three words, strong, strength, and might, are all different words in the Greek. This is not a repet uh repeated, it's a similar concept, but each one, it's like it's like Paul is really trying to drive home where we are to get our strength, not in ourselves, but in the Lord. So that word for be strong in the Lord is to receive strength, to increase, to empower. And that word is used, I thought it was really cool. One of that, one of the places in the Bible, that word be strong in the Lord is used, that same word for strong is Romans 4, 16 to 21, like Abraham, who hoped against hope and grew strong in his faith. So when he believed the promise of God, when he understood his own age, his own weakness, his own frailty, his own inability to produce an heir, a promised heir, um, he grew strong. I thought that was interesting. His faith, when he hoped against hope, trusted in the God who could, the God who was able, as opposed to his own flesh, which Paul had talked about. We talked about that last week, that he doesn't put his confidence in his flesh or in his own righteousness, but in the righteousness of Christ, in the work of God, and the might, power, strength of God. Um, yeah, we see that that says Abraham grew strong in his faith. So that's that word strong. So be strong in the Lord. God the Messiah is supreme in authority. That's what Lord means. And in the strength, that word means power, might, force, strength, um, great power and dominion. So it's a totally different word, again, emphasizing, okay, this is a big deal in the strength of his might. And that word is comes from a word to own or to possess. So this is like an idea of an intrinsic ability or an intrinsic force, intrinsic strength or might. And this is not the f first time that Paul is talking about the power, strength, and might of the Lord. These are things that he introduced in the very beginning as he's praying over the Ephesians in in chapter one, verse 19, that you may know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might. Another word here, um, meaning inherent power, strength, ability, his miraculous power. Uh, and it comes from a word to be able, and then immeasurable is surpassed, exceeding, transcendent. Like, you can't measure it. It is impossible. It does, it does not dry up. My strength, like I'm real tired even right now. It's been a very long, busy weekend. You guys know how it feels. You're you're poured out, your schedules are full, you're working, you're parenting, you're serving, you are trying to do all the things, and your cup often does not feel like it runneth over if you are trying to run in your own strength. You're running on fumes. That's an expression that we have come up with to express what it means to run out of strength. And boy, do we do we ever in our human frailty we run out of strength? Not so with our God. He has immeasurable greatness, the immeasurable, uh, unable to count, inquantifiable, transcendent greatness. Um this is the only time this word, megathos, megathos, is magnitude, and it's the only time it's used in the New Testament, which I thought was interesting. His immeasurable greatness of power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might. And then we see that again, a similar, similar language, another prayer as he's closing out that first section about our position in Christ. This is Ephesians 3.16. And he's praying that according to the riches of his glory, again, an abundance of fullness, riches of his glory, he may grant us to be strengthened with power. Same word from the previous prayer in Ephesians 1.19, through his spirit in your inner being, this idea of being made strong and to increase in strength. His strength, not our strength, his strength that knows no limit, his strength that overflows, is is transcendent. We can't count, we can't quantify it. It is uh abundant, it is full. I need like I need to know that. Don't you don't you just need to know that the God who we cry out to is immeasurably strong and has an abundant, like abundant riches of power and strength and might that He can give and desires to give and will give because it's promised, will give to us when we cry out. And the reality is not wanting to sit in the heart, like trying to continue in our own strength to fight the battle is absurdity. It is absurdity because A, like I said, our enemies are too great for us, like David said, um, he rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. Um and and two, it's absurdity to stay in the heart and to not let the God who has proven himself to us take us through the heart so that he can demonstrate his strength and power and might to us. He wants to show us, he wants to remind us, he wants to use every circumstance to rem remind us of who he is and what he wants to do on our behalf. Um and I just am thinking about like the reality of the spiritual realm. We're gonna we're gonna study it. I mean, we've been studying it with Into the Wilderness. We saw Satan attack Jesus with the three temptations in the wilderness. We saw that he um left no stone unturned and was persistent. But next to Christ, what we ultimately saw was that he is pathetic. Next to us, he is not pathetic. We are no match, we are no match. You are, I am no match for the devil and for these, as we're seeing, verse 12, right? The rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. We standing alone are no match for these demonic forces that are a part of the battle we face as Christians. So it's absurdity. It is an absurdity to push away the strength of the Lord, to not take the time to understand what it means to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, as Paul is commanding us here. He hasn't even gotten to the armor yet. He's not saying put on the armor and then you'll be strong. He's saying, and this is really important that we get this, he's saying be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, and then put on the full armor of God. So why is he doing it in that order? Why is he saying that you first must be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might? And I think I I don't know, I'm not trying to be overly complimentary, but David Guzick like crushed it. I don't know if you guys already saw, hopefully you did, because I know you're studying on your own. I know you got your own copy of the armor at abidible.com and you are studying alongside with me. And so you probably already saw this commentary. I hope you did, but I I can't even like quote parts of it because it's so important to understand it in its entirety, what he's saying here about the order. So he says, literally, Paul wrote, Strengthen yourselves in the Lord. He probably took the idea from 1 Samuel 36, where it said that David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. I am gonna go off script here for a second. I was studying that from 1 Samuel 36, uh, chapter 30, verse 6. And I was like, what does that mean? So David is discouraged in this chapter because he had been, it's a long story. I'm not gonna go into it, but he he he he needed some encouragement. So he went and strengthened himself in the Lord his God. I'm like, well, what does that mean? How do you go and strengthen? And so part of what I was seeing was that essentially he he just remembered. He went and he remembered. He remembered the Lord's love for him and how God had demonstrated his love for him before. He remembered his anointing and his calling, who God had said he was, which is what Paul does in Ephesians chapter one and in two and in chapter three reminds us of who God says we are because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross and the new position that we now have as we've been saved by grace through faith, and he's given us a new life. Uh, and then David also remembered other times that the Lord had delivered him. He strengthened himself in the Lord by remembering. Okay, beautiful. So David is saying, Paul, Paul, you know, strengthen yourself in the Lord. Perhaps Paul is thinking back to, and certainly we know, as we studied last week, Paul knew Torah. So he he would have certainly known this verse and this story of David strengthening himself in the Lord his God. So, so back to Guzak, he says the detailed teaching of spiritual warfare in this passage presents two essential components. First, first, first, first. Notice the order. I'm repeating for emphasis, as we see in the Bible. Bible authors do that. So I'm trying to capture your attention. First, you must be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Then, then you must put on the whole armor of God. The two are essential, and much teaching on Christian combat neglects the first, which I resonate with. Like, how many times have we looked at this passage, read this passage, even maybe been sat under teaching this passage, um, and and neglected that first element of be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might? We jump right into put on the whole armor of God. Let's throw on our belt and our helmet and our breastplate, like let's go. We get we get right to that part. But butzik is saying if you take a weak man who can barely stand and put the best armor on him, he will still be an ineffective soldier. He will easily be beaten. So equipping for Christian combat must begin with the principle, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his mind. If you take a weak man, I'm going back to it, if you take a weak man who can barely stand and put the best armor on him, he will still be an ineffective soldier. So, in essence, Guzick is saying, like in Paul, in the in the order that he's presenting this to us, he's saying, I'm not gonna have you putting on this armor until you first understand what it means to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. So this is of utmost importance because he's leading with it, right? So Guzick says, before a soldier is given a gun or shown how to fire a missile, he goes through basic training. One great purpose for basic training is to build up the recruit's physical strength. It's as if the army says, soldier, we are going to give you the best weapons and armor possible. But first, we have to make sure that you are strong and that you can use what we give you. So that's what what Guzak writes about be strong in the Lord. And then the second component, and in the power of his might, you're gonna want to pause and write some of this down if you haven't already printed. I know you printed it because I know you're doing this study with me, because I know you want to abide in the Bible with me. Uh, he says, and in the power of his might, this shows how to get this strength. This does not happen just by saying the words. It is not an incantation or a spell. You can't just walk around saying, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, or put on the whole armor, put on the whole armor, right? Over and over again as if it will happen. Those kind of mental games can accomplish something, but it certainly wasn't what Paul meant here. And then he defines might and power. So he says, might is inherent power or force, whereas power is the exercise of that might. So let me say that again. Might is inherent power or force. Like he gives an example, a muscular man's big muscles display his might even if he doesn't use them. It is the reserve of strength. Whereas power is the exercise of might. When the muscular man uses his might to bend an iron bar, he uses his power. It means that the reserve of his strength is actually in operation. So might is the inherent power or force, and power is the exercise of that might. And we cannot strengthen ourselves in the Lord like David did, if we are still fighting to live life in our own reserves of might and exercise our power out of that might, independent of the Lord. And how many times have I tried to do that? How many times do I still try to do that? How many times do you have you tried to do that? We we just struggle with wanting to be strong. And that's what we're trained to do. Our cultures, women, you know, us women, strong, independent women, don't need no man. I've talked about that many times before on the podcast, this false illusion of independence that um even has leaked into the church in the sense that it's still hard for even for me, I'm in the word. I love Jesus, but it's hard for me to grasp the concept of maturing, meaning that I'm more and more dependent over time. It feels so counterintuitive that the deeper I grow in my relationship with Jesus and the more that I know about him, that I I would come to need him more, right? Everything else that we do is even as we grow from from childhood, adolescence into adulthood, the whole point is to learn how to be, no longer be dependent on your parents and as dependent on others or on systems, schools, uh, in order that we might gain independence. And I'm not kicking, knocking independence and responsibility and growth, those are all good things. But for the Christian, none of that is good apart from Jesus and trying to walk in our own strength. We crash and burn every time. So allowing ourselves to sit and sit in the heart long enough for God to remind us, to demonstrate his power and might, and for us to be then strengthened in his power and might is where we need to be. That's what this verse is talking about. Before we ever even try to slap on these helm, these pieces of armor, the helmet, the breastplate, we won't even be able to lift the sword or the shield. Like, come on, we gotta, we gotta learn what it means here to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of it uh of his might. And so obviously it c it it starts with what I'm trying to say is that it starts with being willing to sit in the heart, with understanding that when we are in the heart and when we cry out to him, just like David did when he felt like the cords of Sheol were surrounding him and he was drowning, he cried out to the Lord, the Lord heard him and came down, and it was the Lord who fought the battle for him. Like, right, we see that all throughout the Old Testament. The many multiple situations and scenarios where the Lord is the one who fights on behalf of his people. And he says, you only have to be still in Exodus. What is it, 14, 14? Maybe you only have to be still still and see the deliverance that the Lord will work out for you today, that he is the one who fights for us. And so, like girding ourselves and shoring ourselves up for this battle doesn't mean that I grit my teeth and I try to work harder, be stronger, be better for the Lord in my own strength. What actually, what actually needs to happen is that I need to learn, like Paul did, to boast in my weakness. So this is the, you know, reversal, as we often see in God's word, the reversal of how the world does things. Instead of trying harder to be better and be stronger in my own strength, strong, independent woman don't need no man. What I actually need to do is fall on my face and surrender and acknowledge my weakness. And there is the place of true freedom. You know, um, this author, H.B. Charles Jr., I thought this was so profound. He said, the pride of the unbeliever makes him think he is strong. The life of sin is the epitome of weakness. I'll say that again. The pride of the unbeliever makes him think he is strong. The life of sin is the epitome of weakness. The only hope for weak sinners is to trust the Lord for salvation, for help, right? Um Matthew Henry puts it this way we have no sufficient strength of our own. Our natural courage is a perfect cowardice, and our natural strength as perfect weakness, but all our sufficiency is of God, which brings me to Paul's famous verse, which you've heard before, most likely, but but we don't always know how to walk it out. But he brings us there because he's good and he's kind, and that's what he did to me this week, and that's what he's doing right now for us, even as we discuss this. He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. That's what God said to Paul. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. This word for sufficient means to the root word is really interesting. It means to raise up a barrier. It just feels like protective. My grace is protective, my grace is sufficient, my grace is enough. It means to be possessed of unfailing. I put stars around that, unfailing strength. To be strong, suffice, be enough, satisfied, contented. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power. We see this word again, the same word that's used in Ephesians 1, 19, the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might. So this uh dunamis, inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or which a person or thing exerts and puts forth power for performing miracles. It is inherent, it is innate, it is who he is, it's not who I am. I don't have this kind of power. He does. So he says, My power is made perfect. This word means to bring a close, to a close, to finish, to end, to perform, to execute, to complete, to fulfill, so that the thing done corresponds to what has been said. It's like fulfilled promise to perform the last act which completes a promise or a process to accomplish or fulfill. My power is made perfect in what? It's made perfect in you, Kate, when you keep on striving and you keep on putting on the happy face and you keep on trying to do X, Y, and Z without coming to me, without surrendering to me, without crying out to me, without asking me, going to every other thing in the world, as if they have what it is that you look for. No, my power is made perfect in weakness. This word weakness is want of strength, infirmity. It's native weakness and frailty. Of feebleness, of health or sickness, and it could mean of the soul, want of strength and capacity to understand, to do things great and glorious, to restrain corrupt desires, to bear trials and troubles. So fascinating that Jesus is saying, My power, where where is it perfected? Where is it most beautifully displayed? Where is it able to accomplish all that it intends to accomplish in weakness? And Paul talks like that. We saw that last week. He said that that God demonstrated by by choosing me, a persecutor of the church who was breathing out threats and trying to destroy Christ's church, he demonstrated in my sin, in my weakness, in my brokenness, in all my shortcomings, he demonstrated his patience and his glory and his mercy to me. And so the invitation here, as we kick off Ephesians and our study of the armor, the invitation is to first learn what it means to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. And here's what it means to boast in our weakness. So Jesus says that to Paul, My grace is sufficient to you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. So Paul goes, uh, therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ, there's that word again, may rest upon me. So for the sake of Christ, he's content with his weakness. He's gonna boast in his weakness. And I thought it was really cool because that psalm that I read you earlier, Psalm 138.3, on the day I called, you answered me, my strength of soul, you increased. And it's really interesting because that expression, my strength of soul, rehab az in the Hebrew, can mean you have made me bold with strength in my soul. And that word um can mean to act stormily, boisterously, or arrogantly. And I was like, wait, that sounds familiar. I will boast all the more of my weakness. You made me you made me strong. My strength of soul, you increase by helping me boast in my weakness. That's how I am strong. By boasting in my weakness, by saying, I can't. Like, do you know what the Lord loves to hear from us? Not I got this. I can't. God, I can't do this. I don't know how to do this. Help. We overcomplicate it so much. We run from him. We don't we don't want to sit in the heart, we don't want to cry out to him, we don't want to throw up our hands, we don't want to throw in the towel, we want to keep on trying. You know, like I think I can, I think I can. It's like, what are we doing when we have a God who has a measurable greatness? We can't count it. It transcends all understanding, surpasses, exceeds everything that we can comprehend. That's his greatness of power, in reserve, unending and never-ending well of strength and power and might. The riches of his glory that he can grant us to be strengthened with power through his spirit in our inner. That's what we're invited to. Like we are invited to to boast in our weakness, and that is how we are strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, not in our own strength. And I think about you know, our greatest weakness, our greatest need, our greatest um cry for me, you know, for you is salvation. We were dead in our sin. Paul talks about it. Hopefully you've read it, because I told you to read Ephesians. Let me find it. Ephesians 2. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. That was our greatest need, our greatest cry. When we cried out to him, you know what he did? He sent his son. God the Father, like the image of David being surrounded by his enemies and the Father hearing him from his temple, hearing his cry, bending the heavens to come down, scattering them with lightning and thunder and arrows. That is what God did for us in Christ. When we were dead in our trespasses, when we were weak in our sin, not when we got it all together, not when we figured it all out, not when we were standing strong with armor. No, when we were weak and broken and dead in our sin, our greatest cry, our greatest need was salvation. And he sent his son. It's exactly what Jesus came to do. And he put them to open shame. We talked about how on the cross, what he did was put the devil to open shame by defeating death, by defeating sin once and for all. Our greatest cry, our greatest need, he already has responded and in so doing demonstrated his great power and might. He has already proven to us through his son, through the cross, through Jesus, through his death and resurrection, the power and might that he has, that is innate, inherent, it is who he is, it is his nature. That is the story of the gospel. And that's what Paul starts with in the first chapter. And we have to understand, I have to point this out to you. It's critical for us that as we look at, you know, we're we're gonna be coming up on verse 12 in two weeks here. Um, the powers, the the authorities, the rulers, all of these categories of evil in the heavenly places. I want to focus on real quick here this phrase in the heavenly places, because there is something we we see that it's it's brought up somewhere else in Ephesians, and I want to read to you where this is verse three. Blessed be the God, uh, sorry, Ephesians 1, verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Okay, so we are blessed. So the same place where these evil spirits and authorities and rulers and powers dwell and reign and where the battle takes place, we have been blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be homely, holy and blameless. I said homely. Oh my gosh. Oh man, I got a joke, but I'm not gonna tell it. Okay, holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. So in him we have redemption through his blood. Okay, our cry, our greatest cry, our greatest need was salvation, and he answered our greatest cry, our our our most profound weakness, sin, he answered and came in with strength through Jesus. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. Okay, so these are all go back to Ephesians 1, read it all. But fast forwarding to verse 20. Well, let me read you this whole prayer. I do I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and here it is, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might, ready, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand, where in the heavenly places, far above, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. Those words sound familiar. Verse 12, right? 612, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come, and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Right now, Jesus. And we're learning about this actually in church that my pastor brought it up this morning. And I had a note that I wanted to make sure to talk about this saying, he brought it up in Hebrews. Why don't we go there? Because I'm a Bible nerd, you know I can't not keep reading his scripture. Um, this is Ephesians 8. Now, the point in what we're saying is this we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. So right now, Jesus is at the right hand of the Father in the heavenly places, and he has been given a position of total authority, far above, not just like here's demons, here's Satan and demons, one notch up, there's Jesus. No, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but in the age to come. Because of who Jesus is and what he did, that that is his position of authority. That is the strength of the Lord, right? Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. He conquered Satan's sin and death. He rose from the grave. He is that it is, I can't even find words. I'm not even articulate enough to um emphasize the power that our God has. So, in light of that, you know, we can't, we can't be naive in the battles that we face, and we can't be naive as we go into this study talking about um the battles that we face and putting on the full armor. But like we have nothing to fear. We have nothing to fear, and we have all the freedom in the world to gain by boasting in our weakness, by being willing to sit in the hard places so that God can demonstrate to us the power of his might and so that God can strengthen us. It's like we're never gonna be strong if we don't allow him to do what he needs to do by bringing us through the hard stuff. That's part of the Christian life. It's not a playground, it's a battleground. And here's some of the practical um everyday like understanding of this that that Guzak spelled out. He says, God has vast reservoirs of might that can be realized as power in our Christian life. But this is a really important distinction, and I love how he articulates it. He says, but his might does not work in me as I sit passively. So it doesn't mean that I'm not boasting in my weakness. It doesn't mean that I'm I'm I'm actively in my own strength trying to do something, but I can't sit back and do nothing. These are action verbs, these are commands, this is this is like suit up, stand up, step up, right? We talked about that last week. There's action to be taken with the understanding that I boast in my weakness and I'm putting on the strength and might of the Lord. But David, David Guzek is making the point here that God's might does not work in me as I sit passively. His might works in me as I rely on it and step out to do the work. I can rely on it, so I can believe that he's strong and do no work. I can do work without relying on it. So those are the two options. He says both of these fall short. I'll say that again. I can rely on God's might, but do no work, or I can do work in my own strength without relying on it, but both of these fall short. I must rely on his might and then do the work. It's not I do everything and God does nothing. And it's also not I do nothing and God does everything. It is not I do all I can and God helps with what I can't. Each of these approaches falls short. The key is for me to, by faith, rely on his might and rely on it more and more and then do the work. So it's what we've been talking about, this idea of his strength first, his power, his might. It's ridiculous. It's really ridiculous. I just laugh at myself. I feel like I'm like um Kip, you know, Napoleon Dynamite, like pretending that I'm super strong. And I'm not. I'm not, and I'm no match for Satan, his demons, whatever categories that we're about to study of evil here in the spiritual realm and these heavenly places, this present darkness that we can't see but is very real. Like, I'm no match. And I also, like, what am I doing? Trying to avoid the heart. Like, I'm so glad. I'm so thankful that I let myself cry. Thank you, Jesus, for sort of allowing me to have that headache. You know, in retrospect, it's like, man, that was loving of the Lord to allow me to have that headache so that I could reach a breaking point where I would cry out to him and be reminded, like, of just how quickly he comes, just how quickly and how angry he gets when I am surrounded on every side by Satan, demons, lies, trying to take me down, trying to prevent me from walking with God, trusting God. He comes quickly on my behalf. He did in Christ when he saved me from my sin. He did for you in Christ when he saved you from your sin. And then every day, it's like, do I think he just saved me once? I said that before. That he would never answer me again. Do I think that he's gonna send Jesus to the cross to deliver me from my greatest weakness, sin, and then he's not gonna answer me in my day-to-day? Like Guzick put it this way um, he didn't deliver me before to let me perish now. So we we must cry out to him in our weakness. We must boast stormily, boisterously, arrogantly. We must boast in our weakness because his power is made perfect in weakness. And and the future that we have, the promise that we have to live out the day-to-day is what God then does when we cry out to him. So I want to close by reading you the rest of Psalm 18. I painted the picture for you. I said David was surrounded on every side. He was about to drown, was about to die. He felt like he was gonna die. He's literally saying the cords of death encompassed me. We see this picture of God bending the heavens and coming down. He sent from on high. So I'm picking up in verse 16. This is this is how God responds to us when we cry out to him in our weakness. And this is what it looks like to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. So it says, He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a broad place. He rescued me because he delighted in me. The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands, he rewarded me. Quick pause. This comes from uh 1 Samuel, I think. Second Samuel, where David, we we know that David did not have clean hands. We know that David was an adulterer and a murderer. But what he's saying here is that I have kept the ways of the Lord because I have repented. David was a man after God's own heart, not because he walked perfectly, but because he repented when he blew it, he followed the law after blowing, he blew it, and then he would come back, repent, and follow the law. And so he um was a man after God's own heart. If David could be considered a man after God's own heart, then then so can you, and so can I. We can be people after God's heart because we come back to him. So the Lord answers him, right? He's saying, He answered me according to my righteousness and the cleanness of my hands. With the merciful, you show yourself merciful, with the blameless, you show yourself blameless, with the purified, you show yourself pure, and with the crooked, you make yourself seem torturous. For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down. For it is you who light my lamp. So let's let's envision this as our future. When we when we cry out to the Lord, when we boast in our weakness, here's what he does. For it is you who light my lamp, the Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord proves true. He is a shield, we're gonna come back to that, for all those who take refuge in him. For who is God but the Lord, and who is a rock except our God? The God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless. He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights. He trains my hands for war so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great. You gave me a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip. I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed. I thrust them through so that they were not able to rise. They fell under my feet. For you equipped me with strength for the battle. You made those who rise against me sink under me. You made my enemies turn their backs to me, and those who hated me I destroyed. They cried for help, but there was none to save. They cried to the Lord, but he did not answer them. I beat them as fine as dust before the wind. I cast them out like the mire of the streets. You delivered me from strife with the people, you made me the head of the nations, people whom I had not known served me. As soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me. Foreigners came cringing to me, foreigners lost heart and came trembling out of their fortresses. The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation, the God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me, who rescued me from my enemies. Yes, you exalted me above those who rose against me, you delivered me from the man of violence. For this I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing to your name. Great salvation, he brings to his king and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever. Which includes us, homies. Just super, super encouraging. I want you to have that vision of what it looks like to acknowledge that your enemies are too strong for you. What it looks like to be willing, like David was, to sit in the hard, but to call out to the Lord from the hard and to strengthen yourself in the Lord by boasting in your weakness. If you do, then what we see in Ephesians 3, 16 is is part of the future that's promised for us, that according to the riches of his glory, he will strengthen us with power through his spirit. So be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might so that we can then put on the armor of God. And that's it for this episode. If you know someone who would be blessed by what you just heard, please share the Abidable podcast with them. Keep spreading the word so we can make much of the word. Drop us a review, tell us what you love and what you're learning. Check out the link to learn more about partnering with us by buying us a coffee one time, by joining our Abidable Plus women's membership community for $10 a month, or by becoming a monthly supporter. For those of you following along in the workbook, go ahead and begin working on our next verse in this series, Ephesians 6 11, on pages 12 through 15 in your study workbook. Ideally, you would have this section done before you listen to the next episode, number 94. In that episode, we will take a look. Look at the second critical part of Christian warfare after being strong in the Lord, which is putting on the whole armor of God. Not part of it, all of it, the whole armor. We'll also see why we are to put on this armor. The verse next week is Ephesians 6.11 and says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Interesting. Put it on. First be strong in the Lord in the strength of his might, as we talked about today. Then put on the whole armor, all of it, not just parts of it, so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. We're going to take a big long look at this word stand because it's the first time we see it. It's going to be repeated four times in this passage. We're going to take a look at what it means, what are the schemes of the devil? And it's going to be a really great episode. So I hope you will join us next week. I will pray for us and then I'll close this out with our memory work for verse 10. God, would you empower us to be strong in you and in the strength of your might? We acknowledge, Lord, that we struggle with wanting to avoid the hard. We accept every possible distraction. We look to other things, our false idols, our false sense of comfort, security, whatever, distraction, because we are afraid to really face hard things, to really allow you to strengthen us, to even demonstrate your own might. It sounds ridiculous when we say it out loud, but we often don't want to be in that place. We don't want to face it because we're afraid. And part of that fear comes from not truly knowing that you will bend heaven and earth and come down to protect us, to defend us, to defeat our enemies, to utterly route them and scatter them, to shoot them with lightning and arrows, fire and coal and smoke coming out of your nostrils because you are angry when Satan and his demons come at us. God, we we forget that we don't know it, we don't believe it. God help our unbelief, increase our faith, and remind us this is why we abide. Remind us of what is true. This is what was so impactful to me, Lord. Thank you for bringing me back to Psalm 18 in the midst of my battle this week to have that picture of what happens when I cry out to you. I literally was crying out to you, literally crying. And you reminded me of that picture of what you do, who you are when your children cry out to you, when we are weak, when we say, My enemies are too, they're this is too big for me, too hard for me. God, forgive us for holding on to it and trying so hard in our own strength to face whatever it is that we're facing. God, open our hands, unclench our fists so that we can surrender these things to you, that we can cry out to you, and then as you promise, that you will increase the strength of our soul and that we will learn what it means to actually boast in our weakness. God, you promise that your grace is sufficient for us and that your power is made perfect in our weakness. So we have nothing to fear when we are weak, when things are broken, when we're falling apart. In fact, that's exactly how you want us to come. You want us to say help. You want us to say, I can't do this, I cannot take one more step. This is impossible for me. And that's where you come in and your power is made perfect. Thank you, God, for demonstrating on the cross the greatest display of your power and might when you defeated Satan, sin and death through your death and resurrection. You guys, Brody is interrupting my prayer because he wants dinner. Excuse me, I was just praying to Jesus. Would you like to come up and say hello to the people? Brody, I was praying to Jesus and you just interrupted the people. Lord, we just confess that sometimes we think that you maybe saved us once to forget about us. But God, you will not forget us. You have not, nor will you ever forgive us. You didn't deliver us before to let us perish now, to let us be surrounded by our enemies and to let them have victory over us. You are the ultimate victor, which you demonstrated as I was trying to say, Brody on the cross. So, God, I pray over my friends, those that are listening right now, that according to the riches of your glory, you would grant all of us to be strengthened with power through your spirit in our inner being. Make us strong in the Lord and in the strength of your might, so that we can learn now to put on the full armor of God. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Let's close by doing our memory work together. I'm going to repeat Ephesians 6 10 five times. Say it out loud with me or quietly to yourself. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Ephesians 6 10. Remember, you are able to abide in the Bible. We'll see you next time. Until then, Brody.