Armor of God | Week 5 | Message

Well, I have been a part of church my whole life. I've literally been in church nine months before I was born. So because of that, I've been to a lot of events and camps at churches. And a few years ago, I had the opportunity to go to a kids' ministry camp in Prescott, Arizona.

And if you've ever been to these kind of camps, we go all out with the theme. Like, they would try to make it as fun and engaging as possible. And this camp I went to, the theme was all about the circus, which in retrospect is a bold choice.

Because we took about 100 elementary kids to the woods, and nothing says Jesus loves you more than bad lighting in the deep in the woods and volunteers dressed like clowns. It was awesome. Hey, kids met Jesus and probably a good therapist, so we're no harm, no foul. But but at this camp,

I had the responsibility coming up with one of the circus games. So I created a DIY whack a mole game, and it was awesome. Took a big piece of wood, cut six holes in it, threw some drape over it, got some sock puppets for the

Whack a Moles part of it, and then I got a pool noodle to hit it with. It was such a cool game. I was very impressed with myself. We take it up to Prescott, and the kids loved it until this fifth grade boy shows up. And I could already see in his eyes, this is not gonna go well.

He shows up. He gets in line. He takes the pool noodle, and I say, alright. Ready? Go. And he hits the first sock puppet. And as soon as he hits it, goes down. Then in the meeting, he pops back up, and he was confused. So he hit the same puppet as hard as he could with the pool noodle. Goes down, pops back up.

At this point, he turns and looks at me, and he says this, why won't that stay dead? I'm like, you obviously have never played whack a mole before. That's not the essence of the game. And he took the pool noodle, he threw it on the ground, and he stormed off as intense as any fifth grade boy can storm off.

Well, we continued. We powered through. We continued with the game. And a couple minutes later, the boy came back. Oh, and he did not come back empty handed. In his right arm, he had a rock the size of a softball. And I could see in his eyes, he was out for blood.

He skips the line. He goes straight up to the game. Because I'm perceptive, I have an idea what's gonna happen. So I jump in front of my whack a mole, my my prized possession, and I'm like, bro, you cannot hit the whack a mole with that rock.

And this fifth grade boy with all the confidence in the world looks at me and says, oh, yes, I can. And this time, that thing is gonna stay dead. And you know what? He wasn't wrong.

If I would have gotten out of the way and let him hit my poor my friend's hand, we would have probably been in the ER that night with broken fingers, and the game would be completely over. See, what that fifth grade boy understood is what my prayer has been that you and I will understand in our time together today,

and that is if we use the right weapon, we can defeat our enemy. That we have a spiritual battle that all of us are in, and some of us are trying to fight with the pool noodle when God has given us a much greater weapon to fight with.

The big idea for today, what we're gonna unpack in our time together is this. Right weapon, real victory. When you and I use the right weapon, we will see real victory. Ephesians chapter six. Paul is writing. Verse 10, he says this, a final word.

Now if you've been with us, we have been thirteen weeks studying the book of Ephesians all the way back since January, and we're wrapping up the book here as Paul is writing to a church that he started,

and he's getting the last, like, hoorah speech to the team. And he says, a final word. This is the last thing I want you to remember. He says, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil.

For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in the dark world, and against evil spirits in heavenly places. And Paul says, okay, finally, you need to remember that you and I have an enemy.

That the moment you have said yes to Jesus and you have crossed that line, you now have an enemy. And that enemy is not flesh and blood. It is not your neighbor. It is not the church down the street that believes something different. It is not your coworker. You and I have a very real enemy, and that enemy

is not of this world, and it is not flesh and blood. And I think the American church at large has done a poor job teaching about this. We talk a lot about God's love, his grace, his mercy, as we should.

But there's another side of that coin that the church tends to not talk about, and that is the moment we say yes to Jesus, we have an enemy that wants to kill, steal, and destroy everything.

When I went to church in Sunday school, I would go to church in Sunday school, and they would never teach me about this. I would sit there in kindergarten, and the teacher would pull up two flannel graph boards. One was black, one was yellow. On the yellow one, she put a giant castle. On the black one, giant flames.

In kindergarten, we'd sit there, and the teacher would say, Alright. One day, every single one of you is gonna die.

And she would always, like, pick someone out. Like, Timmy, on your way home, you might get hit by a bus today, and you're gonna die. And we're like, Timmy. And the teacher would say, okay. If you say this prayer, God will be with you forever. He'll give you everything you want. And bonus, you get a castle when you die.

If you don't say this prayer, you're gonna burn forever and ever. How many of you wanna say this prayer?

Even the guy who didn't raise his hand, he's like, yeah, I'm from Arizona. I can handle the heat. Like, no. There's a clear option here to pick. I think there should be a part two to that.

And if you raise your hand, the devil's gonna notice, and he's gonna try to kill, steal, and destroy everything in your life, boys and girls. Who's in? Who's in? It's like, oh, it's at least a little bit more complicated. But that's the reality of what this book teaches,

which, by the way, if you're sitting here saying, are they teaching my kid that in kindergarten? I'm a go get my kid. We're not teaching that in your kid in kindergarten. Don't worry. Your kid is fine. But for you and I, we need to be reminded

that we have an enemy that's coming for you. And so many of us, we walk around and feel like, man, our life is being shot to hell right now. That's not true. Your life is not being shot to hell. Your life is being shot by hell. You have an enemy that's coming for you and your family. And Paul says, remember

who our enemy is. And says, therefore, in light of the fact that we have an enemy, in light of the fact that you have an enemy that's coming after you. See, our enemy hates our heavenly father, but cannot touch him. So he's going after the thing that our heavenly father loves most, you and I. See, if you hated me,

but you can't touch me because I'm so awesome, the way you would get me is go after my kids. And that is what our enemy is doing. So he says, therefore, in light of that, put on every piece of God's armor so that you'll be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle, you'll still be standing firm.

Stand your ground. Put on the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the good news so that you'll be fully prepared. In addition to these things, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows from the devil. Put on the salvation as your helmet,

and take up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. If you've been with us the last few weeks, we've walked through each of these body armors that he's telling us to put on. If you have not been with us, you can go online. You can watch them. They've been super helpful.

Today, what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at the last piece of armor that Paul mentions that you and I have to fight our enemy.

See, Paul is on house arrest, and he's literally attached to a Roman guard. And as he's writing this letter, he's like, man, Christians are in a battle much like this Roman guard is. And the last piece of armor he gives you and I is the only offensive weapon he gives us, and that is the sword.

Now I bought this this week simply for educational purposes. I wanted to study the text and make sure I and I wanted a cool sword. So he he's looking at this Roman guard and says, that weapon that the Roman guard has, this weapon would strike fear in hundreds of thousands of people because of who made it.

This weapon is meant to fight your enemy when they are right in your face, up close and personal. See, this weapon represented the power of the Roman Empire. And Paul was saying, Christian, you have a weapon that represents the power of our empire. It's not a sword. It's something far greater.

The weapon he tells us you and I have to fight with is this, that this weapon is given to us by God as a way to fight off our enemy. It is a weapon that God has given us to protect us from our enemy, and this weapon makes our enemy fear and tremble when he sees it. So what is this weapon?

What is the weapon that God has given you and I to fight our enemy? I have a definition of what the Bible is. And by the way, the word Bible simply means books. So what this book is, is the collection of books. It's a collection of 66 books written across three continents, in three languages, by over 40 authors,

over fifteen hundred years, telling one cohesive, redemptive story. That is what the Bible is. It is a collection of 66 books put together, written by over 40 different authors on three different continents in three different languages in a span of fifteen hundred years telling one cohesive, redemptive story.

So what makes this book the right weapon to get real victory? If you're taking notes, this is what we're gonna look at for our time together, is what makes this book the right weapon to defeat our enemy? The first thing is this, the Bible is a battle tested weapon.

The Bible is a battle tested weapon. I've been a part of church my whole life, but when I was in college, I had a period of my life where I started having some doubts about this book, as a lot of us have in our life.

I got to this point where I was like, how do I know that this book is legit? There's all kinds of ancient writings. There's all kinds of different beliefs and all kinds of different books in the realm of spirituality. How am I sure that the book that I happen to be grown up in is the right book?

So I spent about a year really just dissecting, how do I know that God has preserved this book, and that it hasn't changed over time, and it's been manipulated with simply to get some type of narrative across? And as I was studying if we can trust this book,

I came across something that I wanna share with you today. It's called textual criticism. Now, hang with me for a second. Textual criticism is what people use to look at ancient documents to see if we can trust them or not. So here's what textual criticism does. It looks at when was it originally written?

What's the gap between when it was written and when we begin to get copies? Because if the gap is two thousand years, that's a lot of time for the story to change, for the telephone game to play. If the gap is two hundred years, that's a lot less time for the story to be changed.

Textual criticism says, when was it written, and what's the gap between we get the first ancient copies?

Because every ancient document we have is a copy. Because ancient documents was written on papyrus, and that didn't last very long. So either people wrote a copy of a copy of a copy, or it was passed through tradition through talking about it.

So when was it written? What's the gap? And then the other thing textual criticism looks for is how many ancient copies do we have? Because if we only have two copies and they say two different things, there's no way to tell what's original or not. If we have 200 copies, 198

say the same thing, and two say something different, then they look at that and say, we have proof that this is what was actually written, and this is a fraud. So I wanna look with you at some ancient documents that textual criticism has come to the conclusion that these books can be trusted.

The first one I wanna look at with you, it's gonna come here on the screen behind me, is Gallic Wars, written by Julius Caesar. The gap between when he wrote it and when our first copies show up is about one thousand years. That's a long time. The amount of ancient copies we have are 10, which, by the way, no one questions

if this is legit. This is enough evidence for people to say, we can say confidently that Julius Caesar wrote Gallic Wars. Plato, some of you read Plato in school. Others of you, you played with Plato in school. And there's a unique group out there that ate Plato in school. No judgment. Whatever your experience with Plato is,

the gap between when he wrote anything and our first ancient copy is about thirteen hundred years, and we have seven copies, ancient copies. Homer's Iliad, the gap between when he wrote it and when we start seeing copies show up is four hundred years, a much smaller gap.

We have six forty three of them. That is considered to be the highest standard of ancient documents that exist outside of one. The New Testament. The gap between when it was written and when copies show up is about thirty years, which means copies showed up in the lifetime of those who were in the stories,

that these are real people who were alive when copies started showing up. We have over 23,000 ancient copies of your New Testament, which means 23,000 ancient copies they can look at and say, does it say the same thing? Has it been altered? And to their amazement, the only differences are punctuation and spelling.

No theological part of your New Testament has been altered. You and I can trust that the New Testament is battle tested. How about the Old Testament? There was a discovery in 1947 that was one of the greatest discoveries in ancient documents' history. In 1947, in Qumran,

a shepherd boy lost a sheep into a cave. So he took a rock and threw the rock in the cave, hoping to hear a sheep yell. What he heard was pottery shattered. And that led to a discovery of 37 of the 39 Old Testament books, scrolls were in these caves.

Some of them were the entire books, like the entire book of Isaiah. Some of them were partial scrolls of the Old Testament. And these were predated, think about this, predated three hundred years BC. Three hundred years before Jesus, humanly speaking, walked this earth. So skeptics and saints were excited

because we can now look at the Old Testament and say, did Jesus have the same Old Testament you and I have? And what they discovered was shocking. The only differences are punctuation and grammar, that no narrative has changed over that time, That your New Testament is battle tested. Your Old Testament is battle tested.

What I find so amazing about that is since we have no question, is the Old Testament written before Jesus showed up? A mathematician said, then what's the chances that one person could fulfill all of these prophecies?

If you're familiar with the Old Testament, there are over three There's three twenty four prophecies of a coming Messiah. And he said, what's the chances? What's the probability of just randomly one person fulfilling 48 of these prophecies? And that number is one to the one hundred and fifty seventh power.

Here's what that number looks like. And you don't need to count the zeros. I promise it's right for my ADD people. One to the 150 power. This number is greater than the number of atoms in the universe.

Let me make it a little more close to home. The same chances of one person fulfilling just 48 of these prophecies, and these are prophecies that Jesus could not have have manufactured on his own. It was things like where he would be born and how he would die. The same probability of one person fulfilling just 48 of them

is the same probability as you winning the Mega Powerball 19 times in a row. You win it once, you're the luckiest person alive. You win it twice, FBI's at your front door because they know it's been rigged. Do you win it 19 times in a row? This is no question. Someone has rigged it. Church, someone has rigged it.

This is not simply a book. This book is battle tested, and it points to a real Jesus who really died on a cross and really rose from the dead for you and for me. This book is battle tested. We can trust that what's in this book is what God has meant it to be. The Bible. It's a battle tested weapon.

The Bible is also an offensive weapon. Now, I said offensive, not offensive, which the Bible is offensive. It will get in your face. It will punch you in the throat. We're gonna talk about that in a second. But the Bible is an offensive weapon. It's meant for us to be on the attack. Because we have an enemy

that wants you and I to get distracted from the mission that this book tells us we need to be on. Reminds me of the movie, Inception. If you've seen Inception, I'm sorry. It's a terrible movie. I hated it. It's one of the most confusing movies I've ever seen. When I go to a movie theater,

I do not wanna have to think. I just don't. I wanna sit in my seat. I wanna get my large popcorn with extra butter and a diet Doctor Pepper because they cancel each other out, and I just wanna watch the movie. If that's you, do not see Inception.

Last week, I was talking to Bill and the team about how I'm gonna talk about Inception. I explained the movie to him, and afterwards they're like, have you seen the movie? I'm like, I've seen it three times. He's like, I don't think you have, man. You need to rewatch it. You totally missed the point of the movie.

It's because it's confusing. So I'm gonna attempt to explain to you a movie that I don't understand. Sounds good? Okay. Inception. It's a heist movie. We'll start there. It's a heist movie about Leonardo DiCaprio, who is in this reality, but somehow has the ability to dream. And in this dream,

he can't tell if it's reality or not, because everything is so real and tangible, and it's so complex. And in the dream, he's in another heist. And while it's confusing enough for us, this dude dreams again and has a second dream. And now he's in reality, in a dream, in a dream.

And everything is so real, and he can't tell what's real and fake. And he gets confused, am I in a dream? Am I not in a dream? And when it's as confusing as can be, this dude has the nerve to dream again. And now he's in a dream, in a dream, in a dream that's in a reality.

And because it's so confusing and because he has such a hard time knowing what realities he's in, he has a top, a spinner, and he spins it, and he watches. If it doesn't stop spinning, he knows he's in a dream because gravity's not working. But if he spins the top

and it starts to shake and it starts to slow down, then he knows what reality he's in. See, what he understood is that he needed something, a compass, to help him stay focused on what reality you and I truly live in. Colossians three:two says this, Think about things of heaven, not of earth.

Our enemy wants you and I to get distracted on things of earth. God wants us to be focused on things of heaven, and this book helps us be reminded. It helps us stay focused on what God has for us to do. This is one of the reasons why I love Rock Point Church. Just last year alone, we had over 6,000

people give their life to Jesus here. An incredible number. Yeah.

Do you know why that happened? Cause Bill's a really good storyteller. No. That's not why. Bill is a good storyteller, though, in case he's watching this later. That happened because this church is on the attack. This church is offensive.

Because we believe that the power of this book can change lives, and we have seen it time and time again. And we are gonna be a church that is on the offense, that we are not on the defense. Jesus said that the gates of hell will not prevail. We are meant to be on the attack. This is why we do things like launch Echoes Church and launch Flatiron,

which, by the way, these are terrible business models for us. It's a terrible plan. We get nothing in return, but yet we get everything in return because we are not here to build our kingdom. We are here to build his kingdom. And we are a church that is gonna be unapologetic

about being on the attack and reaching people. And I hope that's true about each and every one of you. Because this is why when you give your life to Jesus, you don't just disappear. Because we have a job to do.

We have a job to be focused on heaven, not of this earth, not get distracted by things that don't matter, and we have a mission to see this community know a God who can change their life. And next weekend,

we, God willing, we're gonna see 1,000 people give their life to Jesus in this room, And that could be your neighbor. That could be your coworker. That could be your family member. If you have the courage to stay on the attack,

invite them to come to Easter next weekend. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be powerful. I think it's gonna be the best Easter we've ever done, and we are gonna share the gospel in a way that people can respond to it. Because we are a church that is unapologetic

about reaching people, and we are gonna stay on the attack like this book tells us to do. The Bible, it is battle tested. The Bible is an offensive weapon, and the Bible is also a defensive weapon. It's also a defensive weapon. Second Timothy three sixteen

says this, all scripture is God breathed. This idea of God breathed shows up one other time in the Bible. It's in Genesis, when it talks about when God created man, he picked up the dust of the ground, and he breathed life into man. As if that you and I have the very DNA of God in us, and this book has the same language.

That this, all scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching. It's useful for rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. This book is not just here to be on the tack. This book is meant to protect you and I from things

that can kill, steal, and destroy our life. I heard an incredible true story about this guy who had a snake as a pet. Now if you're in this room and you have a snake as a pet,

God loves you, but that's weird. It's just weird to me. That's how When the devil showed up, he showed up in a snake. I'm just saying, I don't think it's a coincidence. The snake is an odd animal. But this guy had an anaconda snake as a pet. This is a true story.

And he's one of those guys who didn't just keep it in a cage all day. This thing would just hang out in his house out of the cage. And one day, he's laying in bed watching TV, and his anaconda snake is in the bed with him. Instead of being all bendy and curly, the snake does something he's never seen before.

The snake just starts to do this.

And he's like, that's weird. I've never seen it do that before. So he picks up the phone, and he calls his vet and says, hey, hey, you know, it's it's me. Yeah. Quick question. I'm in bed with my snake, and instead of being all bendy, it got all straight. And the vet's like, did you say you're in bed

with your anaconda snake? Like, yeah. We're just chilling. Like, yeah. And the vet's like, and you're telling me instead of being bendy, it's straight? He's like, yeah. What's the problem? The vet's like, okay. Here's what I need you to do. You need to very quietly and calmly get out of the bed.

He's like, alright. No big deal. Gets out of the bed, and the vet's like, okay. You need to leave the room and shut the door, and go into the farthest room possible and shut the door.

He's like, alright. You know, whatever you say, vet. So he does this. He gets in the farthest room, and he's like, all right, vet. What's the problem? And the vet says, sir, I hate to inform you, but your snake was preparing to eat you. He's like, What? He's like, Yeah. When snakes stay straight like that,

they're comparing their length to your length to see if they can get all of you in them. So while you're sitting there eating popcorn, your snake's sitting there going, Yeah, about another day. I think I can take this joker out. What was his problem? He got really comfortable with something that could kill him.

Some of you have gotten really comfortable with something that can kill you. You know what this book does? It points out things in our life that we are comfortable with that God knows can kill you.

This book is constantly showing us areas of our life that we are getting too comfortable with things that are going to kill you. Because you and I have an enemy that wants to kill, steal, and destroy everything. And our heavenly Father loves you so much, he's telling you and I, stay away from that. Stay away from that.

In my life, every regret I've ever made, this book has a warning flag about it. And my bet is that's true of you. This is why we spend time in this book and time in God's word, because this book is trying to protect you from things that are trying to kill you. The Bible is an unbreakable

book, unbreakable weapon. It's an offensive weapon. It's a defensive weapon. And last, the Bible is a transformative weapon.

Transformative weapon. This book wants to change who you are from the inside out. This book is not simply meant to be information. It's meant to be transformation and change how we live our life.

When I was in high school, was pretty good at baseball. And I got invited to an all expensive paid trip to Vegas. And I was really excited about it. And the company that paid for the trip was going to provide a chauffeur

at the airport to pick me up. So I was like, man, I feel like a pretty big deal here. So I get on the plane. I fly to Vegas. I get off the plane. And I see this guy at the airport just doing this.

So I'm like, alright, maybe he's looking for someone. So I walk up to him, and I'm like, hey, how's it going? And he goes and walks away. I'm like, all right. He ain't looking for me. No big deal.

So I'm just looking around, and I'm like, all right, who's picking me up here? Like, someone's gotta be here for me. Right? A couple minutes go by. It's just me and this guy left. And I walk up to him. I'm like, hey, are you looking for Rocky? He's like, yeah. And he's like, the company sent me a picture of you.

It don't look like you. I'm like, what what picture did they send you? And he shows me, it's a picture of me like five years younger when I was a lot shorter and a lot skinnier. And he goes, dude, you don't look like this picture.

My prayer for me, my prayer for you is when God looks at you, he says, yeah, you look like the picture. Yet your life matches what this book is telling you to do. Yet you are on the offense. You are trying to reach people. You're listening to the things this book is telling you to stay away from.

Because this book is not simply a book to read. It's an invitation to meet a God who loves you and a God who died on the cross for your sins and my sins and rose from the dead, conquering death, hell, and the grave. Isaiah 53. This is one of the prophecies I mentioned earlier

that we know for sure this was at least written three hundred years before Jesus, ever humanly speaking, showed up. This is predicting the coming Messiah. It says this, but he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.

All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's path for our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. Jesus came into a broken world, lived a perfect life, and said, hey, if you wanna know what God is like, look at me. And he went to a cross on Good Friday, experienced a horrible death,

and we remember the horror that he experienced on our behalf. And then he rose from the dead so you and I can have our lives changed. He died on the cross, rose from the dead, so you and I can look like the image. As we head into the Easter season and Easter being next weekend, I would love for us to take communion together,

to remember what God has done on our behalf. If you did not get the elements when you walked in, just put your hand up, and our team will get you some as they're going through the aisle. But I want us, as a church, to remember what Easter is all about and what this book is all about. Because before Jesus went to the cross,

he was with his guys. He knew what was about to happen. He was with his people,

and they had a meal together. And he said to his people, this bread that we're eating, see, they were celebrating the Passover. They're celebrating something that happened for the last two thousand years. And he said, this is no longer about a Passover meal. This is about me. He took the bread and he broke it and said, this

bread is not simply bread. It is a symbol of my body that will be broken for you. Let's take the bread together and eat it.

He then took the cup and said, I'm gonna go to the cross. And on that cross, my blood is gonna be poured out for you. I will pay a debt that you cannot pay on your own. So he took the cup and said, I want you to drink this in remembrance of me.

So, father, as we head into this Easter season,

help us be reminded of how great you are in our life. Father, if there's areas in our life that we need to start getting more on the attack and focus on things that you want us to focus on, I pray that you will convict us of that. Father, if there are things in our lives that we've gotten too comfortable with,

convict us of that. Because, Father, ultimately, we want to represent you well because of what you did for us and your love for us. We are changed. Help us be a people trying to change a community as well. Father, as we sing this song about your great love and what you did for us in those final days on earth,

I pray this won't just be a song that we sing. This will be a song that moves us because of your power and your love. Father, teach us these things. Help us represent you well because you are worthy. I pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The he rose from the dead, and we have victory in his name. Hey, thanks for joining us for service online this weekend. Be sure to follow us on our Rock Point social media to stay connected and see what's happening here at Rock Point.