Of course Jesus was the master of the illustration. Who doesn’t remember his parables of the farmer scattering his seed over the various types of soil, of the shepherd who searches high and low for his lost sheep until he finds it, or of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus at his gate?
In our passage from the sixth chapter of Ephesians this morning I can picture the apostle Paul pacing back and forth in his prison cell as he draws towards the conclusion of his letter to the young community of believers living in Ephesus. And I imagine him scratching his brain for an illustration to conclude all that he has been writing—something that would stick in the minds of his readers, something that they would carry away with them, perhaps for the rest of their lives.
In the previous five chapters he has covered a vast expanse of ground. The great nineteenth-century biblical teacher Handley Moule summed it up like this:
He has been telling them, from the beginning onward, of the secrets of eternal grace and love, of the wonder of their salvation from spiritual death, of their peace and life through faith, of their sealing by the Blessed Spirit, of their union with Christ their Head, of his blissful indwelling in their hearts, and then of the resultant life of humility, purity, love, truth, and every gracious duty of social holiness…[1]
When you look back on it, he has given them a whole wagonload of vital truths to consider and challenges to act upon. Now Paul needs to draw all that he has been writing to a conclusion. What can he offer them that will help his readers to retain all this in their minds—and, more importantly, to put into practical action in their daily lives?
I can imagine Paul pacing back and forth in his cell. Then, deep in his thoughts, he pauses for a moment and glances around. And suddenly it comes to him. It was one of those head-slapper moments. Of course! How could he have missed it? The perfect illustration! There it was, staring right at him! It had been within feet of him all along: the Roman soldier standing guard at the door of his cell! As Paul’s eyes rest on the guard, it all becomes clear…
Paul lists six pieces of armour in all: the belt, the breastplate, the boots, the shield, the helmet and the sword. We don’t have time in the space of one sermon to examine them all, so this morning I want us to focus on just three of them: the breastplate, the helmet, and the sword.
The breastplate: protecting the heart
So first, the breastplate. This piece of armour covered the chest and shoulders, and was constructed out of a horizontal series of circular strips of iron fastened together with leather straps. The breastplate was designed to protect all the vital organs. But the most important one, and the one I want to focus on this morning, was the heart.
Were you aware that the word “heart” occurs more than eight hundred times in the Bible? And in almost every occurrence it is referring to something much deeper, and much more vital in many ways, than the physical organ that pumps blood through our bodies. For in the Bible the heart is the seat of the will. In biblical terms, it is the core of your inner being, the source of your emotions, your morals, your sentiments, your courage, your convictions and your resolve. The heart is what makes you “you”.
For this reason the Bible places enormous emphasis on what goes on inside our hearts. Here are just a few of the hundreds of examples you can find if you take the time to look for them:
· “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5)
· “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
· “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind …” (Jeremiah 17:10)
· “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)
· “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart … and rend your hearts and not your garments.” (Joel 2:12-13)
· “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” (Psalm 14:1)
The book of Proverbs sums it up well for us when it warns, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23) And so it is that over our hearts we put on the breastplate of righteousness.
Of course the righteousness to which Paul is referring is not our own. That is self-righteousness. That is the righteousness of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, who stood in the temple apart from everybody else and prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” (Luke 18:11).
No, like the breastplate that is put on from without, the righteousness that Paul was writing about is a righteousness that does not come from within, but is conferred upon us. It is not my righteousness; it is Jesus’ righteousness, by which he and he alone protects us from all the evil that can so easily strike to the core of our being. So it is that in the words of John Wesley we are able proclaim,
Jesus, thy blood
and righteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.
The helmet: protecting the mind
We move on, then, from the breastplate, which protects our heart, to the helmet, which protects our head. Like the breastplate, the helmet is a vitally important piece of our spiritual armour. And as with our hearts, the Bible has a good deal to say about what goes on inside our heads.
Earlier in this letter to the Ephesians Paul has called upon his readers to “to be renewed in the spirit of your minds” (4:23). Elsewhere he warns, “Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” (Romans 8:5-6) And then he cautions us “not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word” (2 Thessalonians 2:2). He challenges us to “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2). “Who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” he queries. And then he boldly answers, “But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16).
So what does it mean to have the mind of Christ? Many years ago I was helped in this through a book by a lamentably little known author by the name of Harry Blamires. Blamires was both a student and a friend of C.S. Lewis and he wrote a number of books, one of which was entitled The Christian Mind. Here is one of the things he had to say on that topic:
The Christian mind sees human life and human history held in the hands of God. It sees the whole universe sustained by his power and his love. It sees the natural order as dependent upon the supernatural order, time as contained within eternity. It sees this life as an inconclusive experience, preparing us for another, this world as a temporary place of refuge, not our true and final home.[2]
Blamires was writing more than sixty years ago. Yet I dare to say that the principles he was articulating may be more crucial now in the twenty-first century than they have been at any time in the past. We live in a day when false notions and false ideas proliferate more than ever before—and as Christians we are not immune to them.
Our Lord Jesus himself warned that “false messiahs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24)
Today we are being bombarded from every direction with falsehoods dressed up in the guise of truth, immorality purporting to be virtue, reason being drowned out by emotion. Issues of human sexuality, abortion, and euthanasia are just three areas of many where our society is deeply divided, to the point where it is often difficult (if not impossible) to engage in rational dialogue—and that is only the tip of the iceberg.
What I am saying may seem very dreary and pessimistic, so let me cheer you up with another book I’ve been reading. It’s titled The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. Its author documents how in recent years a number of leading intellectuals have begun seriously questioning the false assumptions that have taken hold of so much of our western thought, and are finding themselves attracted to the Christian faith. He asks whether we might be seeing the first ripples of a new wave of faith. Pray to God that that might be so!
Whatever the case, we need to have the helmet of salvation fitted firmly over our heads and to be actively seeking the mind of Christ. “Do not be conformed to this world,” Paul wrote to the believers living in Rome, “but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)
The sword: our only offensive weapon
We have looked at the breastplate and the helmet. Both are defensive gear, to protect the soldier from attack. Now we turn to the only offensive weapon in Paul’s list—the sword. The sword that Paul’s guard would have carried was not a long, heavy sword like you might imagine in Robin Hood or Braveheart. Rather, it was a little less than two feet long and weighed less than two pounds. It was ground razor sharp on both edges, with a sharp point; and the soldier carried it not at his hip, but over his shoulder, so that he could whip it out at a moment’s notice.
And that is exactly what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of Jesus’ betrayal. Matthew’s gospel doesn’t tell us who the guilty party was, just that “one of those who were with Jesus” reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear (Matthew 26:50).
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)
And here we have the example of our Lord Jesus, who, though he carried no physical weapon, was adept at wielding the sword of the Spirit. When the devil sought to tempt him away from his God-given mission, Jesus’ defence was not with any sophisticated philosophical argument, but with the words of Scripture. Each time his reply began, “It is written…” “It is written…” “It is written…”
Clearly Jesus knew his Bible. And if that was the case for him, how much more for us, as we are confronted with the unnumerable falsehoods and temptations with which life in the modern world confronts us. For this reason I can’t recommend highly enough a practice, not only of reading the Bible daily, but of committing it to memory. In my own Anglican tradition we have a prayer in which we ask that we may “hear, read, mark (that is, pay attention to), learn, and inwardly digest” the Scriptures. That means taking the time and the discipline to allow the message of the Bible to soak into us, to become a part of our very being.
Early in my own Christian life I was encouraged to begin memorizing portions of Scripture. I can’t tell you how many times those verses that I committed to memory have been helpful to me, particularly in times of difficulty—and more than fifty years later many of them are still embedded in my memory.
So much of life today is a spiritual battleground, and the weapons aimed against us grow daily in sophistication and menace. So let me challenge you to put on the spiritual armour with which God supplies us—the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of truth, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God—so that in the end you may shout with all the saints, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” .
[1] Handley Moule, Ephesian Studies, 321
[2] The Christian Mind, 67
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