Our Most Basic Purpose
The word for “submission” that we’ve been reviewing for weeks now comes out of a military context. It seems now Paul presses forward into the military illustration to give this fellowship their most basic mission. To preach the Gospel to all creation and make disciples of all nations is the commission given to every believer in Jesus Christ. To accomplish that, it means each generation of believers needs to faithfully pass on all they have received from those who came before them, beginning with Jesus’ Apostles. Thankfully we have the Scriptures and the gift of literacy to help us correct any errors in what was imparted to us by those who came before. Interestingly, the commission Paul gives this church is not the Great Commission, but a commission to stand firm, to hold fast. They are like a fort on the frontier, a beacon of light in a land of darkness. They must not let their light go out! From Ephesians 6:10-13.
God’s Power
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.
With the word “finally,” Paul begins his last set of instructions for this fellowship. With the unmasking of our true enemy and a list of our equipment likened to that of a soldier, this section has an overt military theme. You know I like to quote 2 Peter 1:3: We have “everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (NIV). Paul gave us one set of “equipment” in chapter 4, including apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, as well as each other, along with our new nature; all of these assure our ability to live out the Christian life successfully. Here he gives us another list of “equipment” that we already possess, which enables us to carry out everything Christ commands of us and to succeed in His mission.
The first and most important thing we already have in our hands: the Lord and His mighty power! Paul tells us to “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” Our strength to obey, our strength to witness, our strength to hold fast all God has taught us comes not from ourselves, but from God Himself!
You hear all the things we have talked about from week to week. You read them yourself! It is so easy to think, “There’s no way I could do that!” And you’d be right, if it all depended on you and your strength alone. But it doesn’t. You’re not alone. Yes, you have brothers and sisters ready to support and encourage you, to pray for you, but they can’t change your life and how you live. You must do that yourself. They can give you courage, but they cannot give you strength.
God can. God, who lives within every believer in Jesus Christ. God, who created all we see, the whole universe, out of nothing by command of His word. God, whose power has no limit! You can access that! He wants to strengthen you to do His will! All you have to do is ask.
“Lord, help me put an end to this sinful behavior.” “Lord, help me surrender the deceitful desires of my old self and live in Your true righteousness and holiness.” “Lord, help me control my mouth, so that only what pleases you and benefits others comes out my lips.” “Lord, help me get rid of all the bitterness and rage within me and be kind and compassionate to those around me, forgiving those who sin against me.” “Lord, help me submit fully to You.” “Lord, help me submit to my husband, my parents, my leaders.” “Lord, help me trust You, so that even when my leaders make bad choices that can harm me or ruin my hopes, I can still honor and obey You and them, and not give way to fear.”
Our success in living in obedience to the Lord doesn’t rest in our strength, but in God’s power! “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26, NIV). “Nothing will be impossible for you!” (Matthew 17:20, NIV)
Don’t look at your ability, your strength and give up before you start. Look to God. See who He is. See how mighty is His power! Call on Him for help, then throw yourself into the fight.
Our Enemy
11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Make no mistake: The Christian life—to walk in a way pleasing to the Lord—is a fight! We are at war, and to think otherwise is to embrace the enemy. If you think that there really is no struggle, no need to characterize life in this way, then you have already surrendered to the enemy—or else you never broke free.
Scripture allows no other view. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2, NIV). James wrote to his fellow Jewish Christians, scattered among the nations, “You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4, NIV). The Apostle John wrote to His beloved “children,”
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. (1 John 2:15-16, NIV)
If we truly belong to Christ and learn to walk in His ways, even Jesus tells us,
If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me. (John 15:18-21, NIV)
That’s why Paul writes, “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12, NIV).
If we have embraced Christ and submitted to His lordship, if we have committed ourselves to learn from and walk in His ways, we will not fit into this world. We will not be like unbelievers. We will make them uncomfortable; they will not want to be around us. Some will try to shame us or deceive us or just plead with us to leave off God’s ways. If we hold fast to the Lord and His Word and His ways, many in the world, many of the people around us, will come to hate us. Some will even try to harm us.
We will see clearly that we are at war! But it is not that we hate them, rather we love them and long for them to save themselves from this evil generation (Acts 2:20), that’s why we live as we do and speak up for Jesus and call them to repentance! But as Paul makes clear, our real enemy isn’t these people who have been taken captive to do the will of their master (2 Timothy 2:25-26); rather, it is their master, Satan, who is our only real enemy. The people who disagree with us or actively oppose us are just pawns in the battle.
The devil is no where near as powerful as God, but he is far more crafty and powerful than we are. We cannot underestimate him, neither should we cower in fear because of him. He who is with us is mightier than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4)!
He commands a whole host of evil spirits, fallen angels, who have set themselves against God’s will, plan and purposes. And just as we have levels of authority and areas of responsibility, so also does the spiritual realm. You get one of the clearest glimpses of this in the book of Daniel, especially those latter chapters when Gabriel comes in answer to Daniel’s prayers.
There is a whole host of spirit rulers and authorities and powers and spiritual forces arrayed against the people who love Jesus Christ. And we have two options if we want them to mostly leave us alone:
One, stay out of the battle by going with the flow. Don’t set yourself up as a target by walking in God’s ways. Rather, mix in with the rest of mankind who don’t know or love God and just do what they do. You won’t be a threat to Satan’s plans, so he doesn’t need to send resources after you to threaten or harass or attack you. That’s no guarantee of peace with the devil, because he and his forces take delight in bringing misery and grief into anyone’s life.
But I imagine, given the population of the world today, that he has to spread his forces more thinly than in the past. He has to focus them where he has key projects in motion. I don’t know how many angels God originally created, but only a third of them follow the devil. Perhaps that’s why we don’t see demonic activity as much as seems to have been the case a thousand years ago or more. Or perhaps it still surrounds us, but we don’t recognize it for what it truly is.
The other way to enjoy a measure of peace in the midst of this spiritual war: Suit up. Always be on guard. Train to become proficient in the battle. You’ll be a target, sure, but you’ll be able to protect yourself. And if you’re really good, the devil will leave you for an opportune time (Luke 4:13).
Since our enemy is spirit, so we need spiritual equipment to defend ourselves against him and his minions. In verse 11 and again in verse 13, Paul tells us to “put on the full armor of God.” To succeed against the devil, his forces and his schemes, we need to put on all that God has prepared for us—not most of it, not key parts of it, but all of it!
Additionally, Paul puts us in the driver’s seat: We must put it on. It has all been provided for us, but if it’s lying at our feet, it does us no good. If we have it tucked away in a closet or stacked neatly on a shelf, we’re entirely vulnerable. If we have this piece or that piece on, but the rest missing, we’re still entirely vulnerable to an enemy who is far more experienced, far wiser and far more skilled than us. And he can see us plain as day; we can’t see him!
We’ve got to break out that armor and strap it on all day, every day, so we can be on guard from every angle at all times for any possible plot or ploy. The devil is not relentless; he doesn’t have to be. He just needs to watch for an unguarded moment to launch his attack.
Stand Firm
13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
So what are we gearing up for? Not just to take our stand against the schemes of the devil, but to stand our ground when the evil day comes, and after everything else? To stand.
We’re to be prepared for an attack at any time. There’s no schedule that we know of. There’s no advance warning. The day just comes. The army may be encamped against us for days or weeks or months or years. We need to recognize that we live in enemy territory, so they’ve been encamped against us from the very first day, and they haven’t withdrawn yet. They’ve launched attacks before and they’ll launch them again. We need to be ready to withstand their attack, to repel it.
Notice, Paul doesn’t say anything about taking new ground, advancing against the enemy, expanding our territory. But that’s exactly what Paul has done. This outpost of the Gospel in the midst of a very dark world was established by Paul or another missionary. He doesn’t tell them to put on the armor of God and march out to war. He tells them to hold the ground at all cost. He tells them to stand firm against the enemy’s attacks. He tells them that once they’ve withstood every onslaught, then they still need to hold fast. They must not give up. They must not abandon this post. No matter how bad things go against them, they must not move.
How can that be? Where then is the Great Commission, to “go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15, NIV)? Or “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19a, NIV)?
Every church is like a fort established on the front lines. Some churches are more like fortresses, some just simple encampments. But every church has the same basic mission: To hold the ground they’ve been given. To be a light to the community in which they find themselves. To shine the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the space around them. They are in hostile territory, so their first and most basic need is to be ready to repel any attack from the enemies around them.
This is a spiritual battle, but yes, it has physical dimensions. Some of those attacks will come in physical form. But the enemy knows Who helps us, and knows that He never sleeps and can never be overcome. God is not the weak link in our defense or strength. We are. So Satan plays the long game. His goal is not so much to overthrow our little outpost, but to distract, confuse and divide those of us manning this fort. If he can demoralize us defenders, discourage us, confuse us or divide us, we’ll abandon the church without him ever having to fire a shot.
So a church’s most basic function is to continually train and prepare for war. We need to constantly drill, practice and practice and practice some more God’s Word and God’s ways, until they become so natural to us, we’re never left unguarded. There will be scouting missions and raiding parties—rescue missions—forays out into the community around us, taking the Gospel to those who are still under the power of the devil. We will, in effect, be training each member to be effective apostles, “sent ones,” missionaries, who can go out and take new ground and establish new outposts. So that we should always have a ready supply of those we can send out to claim new ground for the Lord.
But the church itself, individual congregations, are not mobile. They are to be permanent enclaves that continually train all who join up. They exist on the front lines, so they always train in real battle conditions. They are to hold this ground, even if eventually everyone around them turns against them. But again, though we war in this world for the souls of men, this is a spiritual battle.
So to accomplish our mission of defending this plot of ground assigned to us, we need to hold fast to the very things that make us the people of God. That means our most basic purpose in this life, as a church and as individuals who man this outpost, is to hold fast to God and to all He has taught us. To defend Him and His Word to the very last breath. We can and must be ready to lose anything and everything, even those standing shoulder to shoulder with us, in order to protect and preserve the truth of God in the world, to protect and preserve this outpost of God’s truth in this dark and hostile territory.
Whatever the Word of God says and teaches, this is what we’re to believe and obey. We must order our lives after the commands and instructions of the Bible. This is what Satan wants us to give up. This is where Satan tries to trip us up. He points to the unbeliever and the half-believers and says, “See how nice their lives are? They have whatever they want! They are enjoying this life! But look at you, give up this and that. Unable to live in complete freedom like those people out there!”
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8, NIV). Since He knows the beginning from the end, He knows what we need to hear and learn and do. He recorded all His thoughts and instructions in the Scriptures knowing full well what life would be like today. He recorded these instructions for us today—as surely as He did for those back then. Jesus never changes, so His instructions for godly living never changes. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks or how modern it supposedly has become. It is no wiser than it ever was; in fact, in so many ways it is more foolish than ever before.
The Bible’s instructions are not irrelevant to us today, not because they’re so backward or ill-informed. The Bible’s instructions are absolutely relevant for us today—we just don’t want to follow them! They haven’t become inapplicable; we just refuse to abide by them! That’s fine for the world, the lost, but not for any of us who claim to believe in Jesus!
Satan defeats us when we give up the things of God, when we no longer walk in the ways God handed down from the beginning. When we look to another leader who can make peace with the world around us and make it seem like we’re still doing what God wants, even though we abandon our post and live for the things admired and sought by the lost. Who wants to live in a constant state of readiness for war? We all long for peacetime, when we can strip off the armor and put away the weapons—even if in utter defeat—and finally get on with just living and enjoying life.
Peace is coming, but it is not yet. Satan wins when we think we can have that peace before Jesus returns to set up His kingdom. Satan wins when we shelve our armor and occupy ourselves with civilian life (2 Timothy 2:3-4). Satan wins when this fort becomes a VFW outpost, a place where we gather to remember old battles and honor fallen comrades. Our war is not done. Not today, not tomorrow, not the next day. Not until you see Jesus coming in the clouds to “gather His elect from the four winds” (Matthew 24:31, NIV), to call us together with His own mighty angelic host and to claim this world as His own. Only after that will we be able to relax and enjoy a life of peace and prosperity.
Conclusion
- Look to God’s power to succeed in obedience
- Our enemy is Satan and his demons, not people
- Our fundamental purpose is to hold fast to God’s Word and ways by believing and doing them
The bare minimum requirement for every believer is to hold fast to God’s Word and God’s ways. Satan attacks through all kinds of means: whispering to our minds, speaking through friends and neighbors, cultural propaganda (books, movies, radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, schools, concerts, on and on). God gives us everything we need in order to stand firm and the Word upon which we must take our stand.
Some of us carry the fight to the enemy, and any believer is welcome to join those units. But at the very least, all who remain behind must guard their assigned fort, must guard the baggage of those who go into battle, must hold their ground. The Church today hasn’t done that. We’ve given way to the enemy. We’ve adopted godless ideas and ideals. Things of the world have become more important to us than the priorities of God.
Look at any and all of the churches named in Scripture and tell me where they are. All have been wiped out; some have been replaced, replanted. The seeds of their demise were planted early in their days. Read of the Seven Churches of Revelation. Two were commended; the other five were warned of the compromise already present among them. Sooner or later, they gave way so completely to worldliness and sin that God removed them!
That’s still happening today. Churches divide because one group has given ground so much that they no longer recognize they’re wrong, while another group sees the problem. Not every group that bears the name “church” actually carries a lampstand from God, but only those that hold to the truth as handed down from the Apostles and recorded in the book we call the Bible. If you argue with anything in this book, if you reject anything recorded here, you have given ground or are in the process of giving ground. You’re deceived by our true enemy, the devil. If you must set aside any teaching from Scripture in order to defend your new position or truth, you are giving ground.
Now is the time to repent. Now is the time to return to the Truth of God. Now is the time to cast out all the lies of the devil and purify your own faith and doctrine and the faith and doctrine of this church. If this fellowship will not hold firmly to the Word of God and all it teaches, then our lampstand will be withdrawn. Truth will be lost to this congregation; this fellowship will no longer belong to Christ.
If you and I as individuals will not hold firmly to all God’s Word teaches, we will be disciplined. If we will not return to pure and sound doctrine, as taught by God’s Word, we will be left out of Christ’s kingdom. Do not let that happen!