Minister:

Operation Ephesians:  Battle Ready

Ephesians 6:  10-18

            I brought a cute little toy to illustrate our scripture for today.  Sharilyn our Children’s Director has used this little bear in the past.  I know it is kind of little, but it has a little helmet with the word “salvation” embroidered on it.  And the little sword is the sword of the Spirit.  The shield has the word “faith” on it.  The belt is really tiny, but it says “truth” on it.

            (Go down front and say, Now aren’t you glad you sat in the front rows today?  You can see this.  I’m not going to the back rows!) 

            This is a great way to help little children understand the scripture.  It brings it down to their level and they can begin to understand what Paul was talking about.

            This whole letter is really designed for those who are mature in their faith or are growing up in their faith.  Paul deals with some pretty heavy topics in the letter and it’s clear that he expects the people of Ephesus to be growing up in their faith.

            He says it very clearly in 4:17.  This is from the Message translation.  It reads like this.  “No prolonged infancies among us, please.  We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors.  God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything.  We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do.  He keeps us in step with each other.  His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.”

            Did you hear his focus on growth?  He is talking about growing folks up to be like “Christ in everything.”

            And that is our more immediate heritage as well.  John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement talked about the various stages of grace.  These are kind of fancy theological words, but they are Biblical and they give us a sense of movement in our Christian journey.  Wesley would talk about prevenient grace which prevented us from running too far from God.  The next step was justifying grace, which made us just in the eyes of God because we trusted in what Jesus had done for us.  And finally, there was sanctifying grace.  It’s that thing Paul was talking about when he wanted folks to be like “Christ in everything.”

            As just an aside, we are going to be talking about John Wesley and his three simple rules on three Sundays in July. Do no harm.  Do good.  Stay in love with God.  I hope you can be a part of that series.  It’s going to be good.

            But back to Paul and his letter to the Ephesians.  He knew that as you grew up in faith, the spiritual challenges became more intense.  In fact, that was why he was writing this part of the letter that we read today.  He didn’t want the folks in Ephesus to be caught by surprise.  He wanted them to know what was coming and to be prepared.  They had spiritual resources to be employed in these challenges and they could win!         

            It makes sense doesn’t it?  As you grow and become more effective in your faith, your spiritual challenges grow.  If you don’t do anything for the faith, Satan isn’t going to bother with you.  You aren’t worth the effort.  But when you become a threat, then things change.  And the bigger the threat the bigger the push back.                        

            Some of you know that I enjoy the Calvin and Hobbs cartoon.  There’s one where Calvin and his stuffed tiger, Hobbs, are outside on a pleasant summer day.  Calvin is stretched out on the grass and Hobbs asks, “Do you think there’s a God?”  We see a panel where Calvin is pondering the question and finally, in the next panel, he answers, “Well somebody’s out to get me.”

            As maturity happens, that’s kind of the way it feels.  Somebody is out to get you.  Paul even talks about how huge some of those challenges can feel.  He says it in 6: 12, again in the Message translation.  “This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours.  This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.”

            Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to hear things like that.  All of a sudden we have gone from a cute little teddy bear with cute little armor to a life or death struggle. Wow!  That’s a huge shift.  Let’s go back to the little teddy bear!

            And to be honest, that’s what I have done with this scripture time after time.  I have trivialized the scripture.  I have tried to rationalize it away.  I have tried to take the threat of the scripture away by the way I listen to it.

            And it’s easy to do!  After all, Paul lived in a very superstitious age.  They thought spirits were everywhere!  If they couldn’t understand something, a spirit must have done it—a good one or a bad one.  If something bad happened, they demonized it.  That’s the way they understood the world. If you ate bad meat and got sick, it was because of an evil spirit.  They didn’t understand bacteria.  They were pre-scientific.

            It stayed that way through the Renaissance and that intellectual development changed the way people looked at the events of their life. 

            When you read scripture like this, it is easy to discount it.  We can say we have grown beyond that view of the world.  We are now scientific in our approach to the world.  We are rational instead of superstitious.

            But the Renaissance may have tossed out too much and we are beginning to come back from some of its excesses to a more moderate position that makes room for the spiritual. 

            We are a little more humble in our ability to apprehend the world through our senses and our intellect.  We all know that our senses are limited.  I know I can’t see all of the variations of light waves.  Science tells me that.  I know I can’t hear all of the frequencies of sound.  Science tells me that.  I can’t appreciate all of the varieties of scent the way animals can.  I know I’m deficient in that way.  The cats who live in our house constantly remind me of that.  We have two cats who live at our house.  These are not lap cats.  They are feet cats!  They don’t want to sit in your lap and purr like normal cats.  They want to smell you toes and snuggle with your feet! 

            It would be a terrible sacrifice, but I’d be willing to put these cats up for adoption!

            Where was I?  Oh, yes, our senses.  We are beginning to appreciate that science is far more mystical than we had ever imagined and so there is a new humility around the ability of science to explain everything in the universe.

            We know there is evil in the world.  We may want to avoid it, but it confronts us constantly.  If you still read a newspaper you see it.  If you get current event on your computer or twitter one of the news agencies, you see it all the time.  The world is filled with evil!  It is reality.             

            And all of us have had those experiences that make us wonder what is going on.  I was reading N.T. Niles commentary on this letter and this is what he said about these verses.  “For some reason, almost whenever I write about passages like this one, dealing with spiritual warfare, I run into problems.  One time a workman outside the house drove a nail through a main electricity cable, and I lost half an hour’s writing on the word processor.  Sometimes domestic crises suddenly arise and distract me.  Today the computer jammed completely just when I was about to begin writing.  I have come to accept this as normal—and to be grateful that this is all that has happened.  So far.”  (N.T. Wright)

            Now some of you have considered computers the work of the devil for a long time!  That’s not really the point.  What he’s saying is that things happen that make him wonder what is going on. 

            It has happened to me.  Things happen that don’t normally happen and I pause and wonder where it comes from.  One of the earliest events was when Caroline and I were going to go to a Christian marriage encounter weekend.  If you aren’t familiar with those, they are weekend retreat settings that focus on better communication in your marriage.  Well, I wasn’t all that excited about going, but it was at a motel, so I figured I could watch movies on the TV if things got boring.  But as we were getting ready to go, we got into an argument.  I don’t remember what it was about, but it erupted fast.  We were in the kitchen and I had a kitchen knife in my hand.  At some point, I tossed the knife into the sink and it shot back out of the sink, point first and went right between the two of us!  That had never happened before and I began to wonder if this weekend wasn’t pretty important.  We went, had a great time and I think it helped our marriage.

            Years later, Caroline and I were driving back from the garage.  Our car needed more work.  If ever there was a lemon, this car was it!  We had just dropped it off and were driving back to our house and I was mad.  I mean really mad!  We had put so much money into that car and now it was going to cost another arm and leg to fix and I was just steamed! 

            The next thing I knew, people were talking to me and I had glass all over my body!  When I really came around, this guy told me it wasn’t my fault.  I had the green light.  Well, a pick-up truck had run a red light, plowed into our car.  I had a broken leg, a broken foot and a concussion.  Caroline was bruised up pretty badly, but she had been on the good side of the car.

             Paul talks about anger in  Ephesians 4: 26 “In your anger do not sin”: (quote from Psalms 4:4) Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”  Paul knew that anger could open the door to evil and I began to wonder if that was what was happening to me.

                        Guy who heard that car accidents normally happen within a mile of home, so he moved. 

            It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

            Paul had lived the struggle.  He had fought the good fight.  He didn’t wonder anymore.  And he knew people didn’t want to hear this, but he had good news for them.  He could say with confidence, that we have all of the resources we need.  We have all the armor to protect you from those struggles and challenges. 

            My last day in the field in Viet Nam was a  good day and a bad day.  It was a good because it was my last day in combat.  It was a bad day because it was not my scheduled departure! 

            Rainy season hadn’t started yet, so the weather was hot and dry.  We weren’t on any major operations, so we had it a little easier.  Every night we would go outside the perimeter and set up ambushes, so no one could surprise us and that’s what we did that day. 

            I was head of a machine gun fire team, but my gunner was too doped up to make it into the field, so I was carrying the machine gun.  We got set up and I picked the field of fire.  We arranged who would be standing watch and then I got ready to get some sleep.

            I still remember working on this decision.  Should I sleep in my flak jacket or not?  Flak jackets were these bulky vests filled with plates designed to protect you from shrapnel.  They wouldn’t stop a bullet, but they could help with grenades and booby traps.  They were hard to sleep in.  The plates would cut into you and when you’re sleeping on the ground, it’s uncomfortable enough as it is.

            But I thought about it, because I was within a month or two of going home.  Should I be cautious?  I decided “no.”  It was still too early to start worrying about that.  Bad decision.

            I started to take my flak jacket off when a huge explosion knocked me flat on my face.  I could feel dirt and debris all over me.  For a few moments, it was completely silent.  Everyone was waiting for what I was waiting for.  I wanted to know if this was an attack and there would be more explosions and gunfire or if this was a booby trap and isolated.  When nothing else happened, the moaning and groaning started. 

            It turned out that the radio operator had stepped on a booby trap, so we had a very hard time getting help.  But eventually a med-evac helicopter came and took most of us out.  That was my last day in the field in Viet Nam. 

            There was a lesson in that for me.  I took off my armor.  It almost killed me.  It was a bad decision.  Don’t take off your spiritual armor.  Keep it on and keep it strong! 

            Paul closed his letter by asking for prayer.  I want to do the same.  Please pray for me and my family.  For boldness and protection.  Please pray for Kirsten and her family.  Please pray for the staff and their families.  Keep the armor on!