Renewed Minds

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God is Government, called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ's teaching of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today's focus discussion will be Renewed Minds, the Armour of the Believer. It starts in verse 10. Let me read it for you. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything to stand firm. Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. With all prayer and petition, praying at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. And we'll stop at that point. This great letter begins with the fact that we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. And here in chapter 6, it is the same domain of the heavenlies from which our formidable enemy comes. That is to say, we have been blessed with supernatural spiritual benefits. We also confront a supernatural spiritual enemy. We need to be equipped to deal with that, as we have been learning through the series. But there's one final, additional, and all pervasive element to our armor, and it is contained in verse 18, and that's where we find ourselves for tonight. With all prayer and petition, modifying the main verb, pray at all times in the spirit. The final element of the believer's weapon is prayer. Prayer. You will remember if you've read Pilgrim's Progress, the great classic allegory by John Bunyan, that the last piece of armor that Christian is given in that story is the weapon of all prayer. All prayer. It is given because it will stand him in good stead when all else fails. And with this weapon of all prayer, Christian is instructed that he will be able to prevail against all who come against him in the valley of the shadow. When he pours out his soul in prayer, he is most formidable. That is, of course, a reflection of what our Lord says in Luke 18 1. That men are always to pray and not to faint. No matter how difficult the challenge is, no matter how formidable the enemy, no matter how hard the victory, men ought always to pray and not to faint. There are the two options. You can pray or you can faint. The Lord opts for the praying side. This instruction is essential, foundational in the life of every believer. When it comes to the armor of the Christian, of course, it is climactic, it comes at the end, it is all-encompassing, it is all pervasive. The whole picture here then ends with this plea for prayer. But it's not just the end, as it were, of the armor section, it's actually the end of the epistle. All that's left in verses 19 and 20 is an application of the prayer principle, and then some final words to sign off, so that this majestic epistle, which begins in the heights in chapter 1, with one of the greatest theological statements written anywhere in the scripture, in which we are lifted up and exalted into the heavenlies from which all blessings come. This epistle, you might say, that begins in the heights, ends on its knees. And it's important, I think, to get the big picture to understand the importance of prayer. It's crucial for us to back up a little bit and capture the essence of this whole epistle. And I know that's hard, we haven't really studied it together, but you might be familiar enough with it to follow, tracking with me a little bit. Let's go back to chapter one for a moment, for this is the context in which we are to understand prayer. If there is any epistle in the New Testament that celebrates what we have in Christ, it is this epistle. It is an accumulation of blessings and benefits and privileges and gifts and empowerments. In chapter 1, verse 3, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings or every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. In verse 4, we are chosen in him before the foundation of the world to become holy and blameless. The end of verse 4, and into verse 5, we are loved so as to be predestined to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself. Verse 7, He has given us redemption, which includes the forgiveness of our trespasses to the degree that is commensurate with the richness of His grace. We are even given an inheritance, verse 11. That inheritance is an inheritance that is described for us elsewhere in Scripture as undefiled, that fades not away, is incorruptible, and is lavish. We are made secure. We are sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the pledge of our inheritance, which guarantees the redemption of God's own possession for the ending point of all, and that is the glory that belongs only to Him. In chapter two, we start out realizing that we are dead in trespasses and sin. We're under control of the Prince of the Power of the Air, the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, which children all of us are. We live in the lusts of the flesh, desires of the flesh, and lusts guide us, guard us, motivate us, drive us, compel us. We are by nature headed for divine wrath like everybody else. But, verse 4 says, God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were in that condition, raised us with Christ, seated us with him in the heavenlies in Christ, we are alive, and we shall live forever. We are objects of grace and will always be. In verse 7 it says that God is going to show us the riches of his grace in kindness through Christ Jesus, not just in time, but in the ages to come. Eternally we will receive His grace. Verse 10 says, We are his masterpiece, his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God designed from the very very beginning. We are, according to verses 13 and following, brought near who were formerly far off. Brought near to whom? Brought near to God, brought near to one another, both Jew and Gentile made one, the barrier between the two broken down, abolished in his flesh, that is, in his death at the cross. We are members of his family, verse 19. We are God's household. We are, in verse 22, a building in which the Holy Spirit lives. In chapter 3, there are many more elements to the blessedness that has been given to us, fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. We are part of the manifold wisdom of God, manifest through the Church to the heavenly authorities, that is, to the angels, both holy and unholy. Chapter three ends with a prayer that we would understand the riches verse sixteen of his glory, that we would be strengthened with the available power through the Holy Spirit, in our inner man, that we would experience Christ settling down in our hearts, being rooted and grounded in love which is shed abroad in us. He prays that we would be able to grasp with all saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, to be able to get a comprehension of the vastness of this saving love, that we would experience the fullness of God, that we would know what it means to do exceeding abundantly beyond all we can ask or think, according to the power that works not outside of us, but inside of us, so that God can be glorified through his church. Those are just some of the statements in the opening three chapters that tell us who we are in Christ, what it means to be a Christian. It is lavish, it is massive, it is high and low and wide, and that is how it's described. Starting in chapter 4, we are called on to act like this. Since we possess the Son of God and the Spirit of God, and have a relationship with God the Father. Since we are members of the body of Christ, since we are in the Church and come under the direction and leadership of the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the teaching pastors who are given to the church for the perfecting of the saints, since all these things work for us and in us, since we are growing together into Christlikeness, we need to make sure, verse 17 says, that we don't live the way we used to live, we don't walk the way we used to walk. Since, verse 20 says, we have learned Christ, we've been taught the truth, our old self laid aside with all its lusts and corruption, we need to be continually being renewed in the spirit of our minds. Put on fully the new self in the likeness of God, that new self having been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of renewed minds. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way.