"A Way Cooler Job"
EPISODE 193
Stand Strong in the Lord’s Armor
How can we stand in temptation and trial? This week we dive into Paul’s great text on spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6:10-20. Introducing a new segment, we take A Closer Look at each part of the “armor of God.” The study reminds us of our true enemy and our superior fire power. We end with a Reach Out discussion of the gaps in our armor that highlights our need for hope, knowledge, and trust. As Bryan likes to say, this is our PENULTIMATE session in this guided study of Ephesians, so catch us next week for the conclusion and download the whole guide at biblegeeks.fm/ephesians.
Takeaways
The Big Idea: God equips us to stand firm with the same armor he wears in battle.
This Week's Challenge: Ask a friend if there’s an aspect of their spiritual warfare you can pray for.
Episode Transcription
It's very cool. You have a way cooler job than I've given you credit for. Ha ha ha ha. Hello, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Bible Geeks Podcast. This is episode 193. I'm Bryan Schiele. I'm Ryan Joy. And thanks so much, everyone, for tuning in. We are, as has been foretold in the last episode, we are here in the penultimate episode in our Talking Through Ephesians Guided Study. We're in session 12, and we are getting into every little boy's favorite section here, which is spiritual warfare. Yeah, most little kids probably don't enjoy the first part of chapter 6 because they're forced to memorize the whole thing. But here in chapter 6, verses 10 to 20, we're talking about all the armor that we get to wear in our spiritual battles in the heavenly places. Pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. Kids, don't skip over that obey your parents thing on the way to the heavenly, powerful armor of the Lord. But yeah, this is, you said it's the penultimate, but it's kind of the ultimate episode. Come on. This is where it's at, the spiritual warfare. And I'm in the Lord's army. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right. Yes, sir. So we dropped a conversation starter that we're going to kick this episode off with. And that one we called Battle Tested. This is Talking Through Ephesians. In Ephesians 6, 10 to 20, Paul reminds us that we're locked in a cosmic battle with the spiritual forces of evil. We're soldiers in enemy territory, outnumbered and too weak on our own. Fortunately, we have battle tested equipment from a trusted ally to help us withstand. So here's the big idea. God equips us to stand firm with the same armor he wears in battle. Paul tells us to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, put on the whole armor of God. We learn that a fully prepared soldier prayerfully puts on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the readiness given by the gospel, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and wields the sword of the spirit. This passage echoes the imagery in Isaiah. But there, it's God and Christ who wear this armor. Christ, the divine warrior, has righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head, garments of vengeance for clothing wrapped in zeal as a cloak. Our armor has been battle tested by the king. And that means we can stand in God's strength by putting on God's character as we join God's war. The weapons that the Lord needs to overcome are the same weapons we need to withstand our struggles. Think about God's word. Know it. Love it. Wield it like it's our last defense. See righteousness not as rules that constrain us, but the just and good way that protects our hearts. Imitate God. Be recreated in his image and dress for war just as he does. So here's the big question. Do you have God's full armor on today? So follow along with this guided study of biblegeeks.fm/ephesians, and may the Lord bless you and keep you. Shalom. OK, so the big idea we talked about there is that God equips us to stand firm with the same armor he wears in battle. And I love this big idea. This is not where we usually go with the topic. In our resource room at the church building, we have all of, you know, we have four sets of plastic armor. And we usually focus on all of the cool armor and the idea of battle. And we'll talk later on about what each of these things represents. But it's clearly what Paul has in mind, that this panoply comes from the Old Testament. This armor is God's armor. This is what Jesus wears. This is what the Father wears in battle. And he's the great warrior. I remember using my dad's work belt and trying to dress like him, thinking maybe if we look the same, I'd be able to accomplish all the things he could. And in a way, that's what the Lord is offering. He's saying if we have the attributes he has, we take upon ourselves these things that he takes up, then we will have his strength and be able to stand with strength from the Lord. That's a really cool idea. Yeah, thinking about the big question that we dropped there was, do you have God's full armor on today? And that's a really important question, I think, because I am the kind of person who, when I go and stay in a hotel room, which I've been doing quite a lot of lately, it reminds me of the routines that I've developed as I pack my bag to head home. Do I have everything? Do I have everything with me? I'll check the drawers. I'll check the bathroom. I'll check the nightstand, the chair, the desk, the spot behind the TV. I'll check the bed, especially the bed, because a lot of my devices are white. And they tend to blend into the sheets really easily. AirPods. Oh, no doubt, for sure. Once I know I have everything, I check it again. And I have even been known to walk out into the hallway at a hotel room, turn around, and go back in the room, and check one more time. And just to make sure that I've gotten everything that might be missing. And so that might be the best question we can ask ourselves in regards to this armor that we're reading about here in these verses. Do I have everything on? Is there anything missing? Do I have a part of myself, a part of my sensitive insides and all of my vital organs? Do I have a piece of something that's not being covered? And so just a constant question that we need to be asking ourselves. And is there something that I can be doing better, some way that I can be equipping myself with the Lord's armor better? Just a really important thought, maybe, to kick this thing off with. I like that a lot, yeah. I think of smog in the Lord of the Rings. The scales and the armor that the dragon in The Hobbit had. That he was missing one scale, and that was the one that the archer shot the arrow right through into his heart. Are we missing one spot? And I think that's a good question to ask in just about every area of life. What's missing? You might focus on all the things you have going on, but is there something that I need to focus on that is missing? So I love that question. We have another question that is about things being passed down, but it's a lesser level of seriousness than receiving the Lord's armor. For our icebreaker question, Bryan, what is something you still use today that's been passed down to you by family or friends? Yeah, this is a good question, because we're a big fan of vintage finds in our household. We love to go down and look at the antique stores and stuff and find things that we can incorporate into our house. But especially those things that are passed down to us by family, grandparents, or anyone else that we love and know. We have had this set of plain white Corel dishes in our house for a really long time. And when my grandma passed, we inherited her set. Except hers, while it's the same shape and everything else, it has this iconic gold enamel flower pattern around the rims. And every single time we pull out these dishes, it's just a little reminder of her. And it's a really cool opportunity for us to kind of throw back to a time when we would have meals with my grandma at her house. And I love those dishes and we use them all the time. So that's a pretty cool one. What about you? What do you keep around that may have been passed down to you? I like that. Yeah, well, we love hand-me-downs. There's no shame in receiving all kinds of hand-me-downs. But as far as these, like you're talking about, these things that have sentimental meaning and value. I mentioned my dad's tool belt. I have a lot of his tools, his big framing hammer. I use that sometimes. But maybe more important, I have his sword, his Bible, with all his notes in it. And you have all this little, he has this tiny cursive writing. And so everything that he wrote down word for word as he prepared for classes that he taught all those years. Or I have little cards with the prayers that he wrote out. And that's pretty special, pretty meaningful. That is super cool. I think if you talk about having your dad's sword, the fact that he's got a sword that has been so well used is so cool. And just even to pull that open and to be able to look at all of his notes. Your dad was a special guy. So that definitely has to be a cool one. Moving on, I think, from our icebreaker question, let us get into maybe the meat of this conversation here as we find Jesus here in Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 to 20. And of course, this is the great, as you called it, the panoply laying out all of the armor before us. He says, finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. He talks about how we're not wrestling against people or against physical things, but these are against the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. This is a battle unlike we've ever faced before. Then he lays out all the armor for us there. And he asks at the end of this whole thing to be given the boldness to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, to pray for him, to make sure that Paul is able to do all the work that he's meant to do. So where do you find Jesus here in these 10 verses? I find him right there in the first verse, where it says, finally, be strong in the Lord, that the Lord, and Paul, usually refers to Jesus. Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. And there's three words here for strength. Strong in the strength or the power and of his might. Three words for strength, and none of it refers to our strength. And so I think that's the big message here that I take as I just jump right into what he's trying to tell us, right in that first kind of thesis statement of this whole section. What is putting on the armor of God going to do for us? What do we need to know about how we can overcome these fierce powers that we're gonna go up against in battle, in our trials, in our temptations, and in all the darkness that surrounds us? Well, we need to know that we have to lean on Jesus' power. He's the Lord, he's the mighty one, he is the victor, and he is a warrior, he is a warrior. And I think of those times in the Bible where he is presented not just as Jesus, the meek and lowly, who we can trust to be gentle as a leader with us, but Jesus, the rider of the white horse who carries a sword, Jesus, the son of man who has a flaming sword coming out of his mouth and feet like fire and this banner and a glowing face and burning eyes in Revelation one, there's these pictures that help us to understand he is a conqueror. All those prophecies of the Old Testament about the Messiah as a conqueror and as this powerful warrior, they are fulfilled in Jesus just as all the rest of the prophecies about him being a suffering servant are fulfilled in him as well. So trust him and find your strength in him. What about you, what did you find here? Yeah, that's so good. I think as you look at this section, there's not really a whole bunch of references to Jesus himself, but I found it interesting here at the end how Paul echoes the language that he uses from 2 Corinthians chapter five, verse 20, where he calls himself an ambassador, and there he says he's an ambassador for Christ. So he's an ambassador here of the gospel. He's an ambassador in chains. And so I love the picture of being an ambassador, right? Because you're not an ambassador for yourself. Like you're an ambassador for somebody. You're going on behalf of someone else and Jesus is the one who's sending Paul out to boldly preach this mysterious good news that he's going to preach. And so I think it's important language for us to hone in on maybe and think about Paul as an ambassador. He is representing the commander in chief, the king whose message that we're bringing into the world. And so, you know, to know that Paul's able to leverage the kind of power that you just talked about, I think is really important to see that he's not just coming out into the world with some mealy-mouth, squeaky-voiced, barely a plea out there for the rest of the world. No, he's bringing power. He's bringing boldness and as he ought to speak. And that's, I think it's cool to see how Paul sort of almost wrestling with this. You know, he wants to go out and speak boldly, but you know, it's something he needs prayer for. He needs help in this. And so he knows he should be bold as he ought to speak, but man, he's got some work to do with all the armor at his disposal for sure. I think that's helpful to recognize that the one that we're reading these words from carries the authority of the king, not within them himself, but as the emissary, as the ambassador who brings a message from the king, even if he's sitting there in chains, the message reaches us with all the authority of the commander in chief. That's very cool. All right, so let's get into our next segment here on the episode. This is going to be a new segment that we're going to drop for the very first time and we're going to call this one a closer look. Number one, perhaps you better take an away team down and have a closer look. I said, Dr. Crusher, join me in transporter room three. All right, so transporter room three is activated and we are going to go down to the surface for a closer look at these attributes, at these weapons of warfare, as we're going to talk about them here in this section in Ephesians six versus 10 to 20. There are a lot of things that we could talk about. We could spend really almost weeks, I think, many, many episodes talking about each of these battlefield accompaniments here, but let's maybe kick this thing off with the Belt of Truth, exactly where Paul kicks these things off. Yeah, the Belt of Truth. This is Roman soldiers wrapped a leather apron around their legs for protection, and that seems to be what he's thinking of here. And God's truth is protective, but it also holds everything together. Other pieces can strap onto it, like that work belt of my dad's I was talking about. And so the truth is essential. It's foundational. There is integrity and rightness and trueness in the message we speak, the things we believe, and what we understand, and how we conduct ourselves. We were told back in Ephesians four to speak the truth in love to each other, and truth has been an important part of this message throughout the book, and of course, it's the center of what we're taught. Paul said back in verse 20, but that is not the way you learn Christ with sensuality and that kind of thing, assuming you have heard about him and were taught about him as the truth is in Jesus. So we start with this strapping on of this belt, and the belt is the truth of God. We need to know it. We need to let it be written on our hearts. We need to carry ourselves in accordance with it. Yeah, I love the idea of this being like the foundation like you're talking about here. It's the basis on which everything else is placed. As we move on here, we get into the breastplate of righteousness, and this is such a cool picture because I'm really familiar with breastplates, I suppose. It's something we work with a lot on our jobs, not actual breastplates, but we work with the military. I didn't know if that was a joke or what. I do not work with breastplates at all in real life. Believe me, on a regular basis, I am out in various places in our country wearing breastplates. I've had a lot of armor-plated vests that I've worn and that I've secured onto other soldiers in the military. It's very cool. You have a way cooler job than I've given you credit for. But these things can be hot and they can be bulky, and they definitely, though, they make you feel like your vital organs are secure because you've got these armor plates that are covering your heart and they're covering your stomach in some cases. They're covering your back. And the breastplate of righteousness is the same phrase that is used back in Isaiah 59 verse 17. We are like Jesus when we protect our hearts with good deeds and an upright character. It's not merely defensive. Paul is also calling righteousness in those verses a weapon. He says in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 7 that righteousness is a weapon for the right hand and for the left. And so it's cool to see that not only is righteousness something that we are to defend ourselves with, we're to cover over our hearts with, but it's also something that we use as an offensive weapon, making sure that we're bringing righteousness into the world in a positive and productive way and that it's protecting us in some ways. Well, you wear a breastplate. I'm kind of like a soldier too. I wear shoes and shoes are the next element of this armor. As shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. Kind of a mouthful. It's not something simple like breastplate of righteousness. No. All these words that talk about there's the sense of readiness, this sense of the gospel of peace and we're standing. We have a firm footing in our life and in the battle because we're prepared. We're always ready to bring the gospel of peace to carry the good news. I think maybe this goes back to another picture in Isaiah, not of the armor, but of that messenger in the chapter right before the suffering servant in Isaiah 53, of course, is the picture of the one who comes and saves us. But right before that, we're told about how lovely the feet of those who bring good news are. They're running on the mountain and they're bringing this message of God's victory that he's going to bring through this suffering servant. The gospel, the good news, the declaration, happy declaration of Jesus victory and of this new king brings us all peace, which is kind of an ironic place to fit peace into this discussion of warfare. But that's our mission. We are peacekeepers, you know, like sometimes sometimes peacekeepers carry weapons. We are keepers of the peace and we do that. We bring peace to others by standing strong against the forces that oppose peace and want to bring chaos and evil into the world. And so we have our feet ready to speak to others about the gospel. We have our feet ready to stand ourselves in the promises and our confidence in the gospel whenever trials and difficulties come. Isn't this such a cool idea after spending the whole time effectively talking about how we walk? Yeah. Moving on here, I think we move to the shield of faith and I don't know why, but I picture like the Captain America shield here, but that is totally not what people back at this time would have been picturing. I think it's not this small little circular trash can lid kind of shield. I think probably they're picturing like the size of a small door, maybe that the Roman soldiers used to hide behind. They'd be tall enough to where they could interlock them together and protect the entire squadron really from arrows that are coming at them. And so Paul, I think is referring to that kind of faith as a breastplate in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 8. You can see the similarities between a breastplate that he talks about there and this idea of a shield here. It's the same kind of thing. You're protecting yourself. You are standing against, able to stand against these flaming arrows as we read about here how the enemy is lobbing them at us from a distance. He's a coward for sure. He's standing at a distance and this shield is a defensive weapon to keep those things under control. And so the more faith we have, the more we look to God, the more we keep our eyes on Jesus. And yeah, the more times we see all the bad things going on around us, not that we're just ignorant to them, but we notice them, we see them and we have specifically trusted in God to protect us from those things. And so that is what faith does. Faith just lets us ride out those ebbs and flows, those various difficulties and good times. No matter what's going on in our lives, faith is that thing that helps us smooth it all out and really deal with all those difficult challenges that come our way and not become discouraged for sure. I'm glad you painted that picture of this big maybe wooden shield with leather on the outside of it. Or I liked the picture of a door carrying a door in front of you. And one of the things I've always found cool is the way that they would use those shields to form up around each other. There'd be like several in the front and then some of them over top of the group of soldiers so that if you were shooting darts at them, you wouldn't be able to reach any of them because the front and the overhead are completely protected. And so not only individually, but we're even stronger as our faith supports one another's faith and we are able to protect each other. Maybe that's not in the text, but it's a cool picture that comes from this illustration. And the next item here is the helmet of salvation. And the Romans would wear these bronze helmets. They had the cheek pieces. Sometimes you'll see pictures of it to give protection to the whole head. And Paul is again looking back to Isaiah 59 and Yahweh the victorious warrior wearing his helmet. And his helmet is salvation because God is the one who delivers his people. He is the one who conquers all those forces who oppose him. But now we're wearing this salvation, not our own salvation, but the salvation from God, this deliverance. And it is something that we make sure that we're wearing. You think of the head as the thing that points where you're looking at, right? You know, the head is pretty important. The heart is important. So is your head. I agree with that. You want to protect both of those. And so the idea, I think, is that we're shaped by our confidence that God will save us, confidence in his salvation, the salvation that is past. On the day that we were saved, the salvation that is present as he is saving us. And the salvation that's to come in the day when our bodies are redeemed and we are forever delivered. We know who will win the battle in the end. So in 1 Thessalonians 5, 8, he uses the same term, but he calls it the helmet of the hope of salvation. The sense of a forward looking helmet. The more we look forward expectantly, the stronger we'll be. The more we'll be able to face the battle with all that we need, knowing the end is in sight. If you've given up hope in winning the battle, then it's hard to stand whenever things get difficult. But whenever we know and recognize that the Lord will win and deliver in the end, then we can stand through anything. And so I think we come to the crescendo maybe of this whole conversation as we get into our final piece of the armor. And that is the sword of the spirit. And yeah, this is the spirit sword. You talked about it already. Your dad had a sword. My dad had a sword. All of us should have a sword. We should all be skilled in wielding the spirit sword. And he's given this to us to use accurately and skillfully. This is the sword of the spirit, which is as he talks about here, the word of God, the word given to us by God's spirit that he helps us. And we use wisely and courageously. It's sharp as he says here. It's accurate. It's able to go on the offense. But I think it's also playing a key defensive role here. Like all these other items have been doing, these are all been defensive weapons and we can defend ourselves with God's word and we can keep ourselves pure with God's word. We can also, of course, go on the offense. And I think that's appropriate for us to see here too. But I think having a sword on our side, it's only going to be useful if we know how to use it, if we practice with it. And it reminds me, you remember as a kid when you used to play lightsabers with friends and how I think pretty much if any one of us actually had a real lightsaber, we probably would have been mortally wounded within like two seconds because you don't let the lightsaber beam touch any part of your body or that part of your body has been severed. If we know anything from the movie. Yeah, my kids, we've been watching a Soca. My kids keep yelling, don't run with the lightsaber. Exactly. It's so scary. It's dangerous, right? And I think we all play around with lightsabers as kids, not really realizing what it would be like to have one in real life. But man, we got to be really careful when we quote unquote play around with the spirit sword. It is definitely something that we can do some serious damage to ourselves if we're not careful over how we're using it. And so just this last piece is so powerful. Obviously, God's word is huge in our battle. But let's be real careful with how we how we wield this expert tool that we talk about here at the end of the list. Yeah, definitely. This is our weapon, but it can be used improperly, right? The sword of the spirit. Peter talks about those who twist the scriptures to their own destruction, right? And second Peter three at the end there. We need to make sure we're handling it. Arightly. I liked the how you talked about being like trained and skillful. This if this is our tool, this is our weapon, then we want to be able to strike efficiently to make sure that we're following Jesus example the way he wielded it, whether it was going against Satan or using it to direct people in the right way. So that's the final piece of the armor. But maybe as we step back and think about what we take from this whole picture of, as you say, the panoply, which is just a fun word. The panoply like penultimate, you know, it's another like penalty. Yeah, yeah. Cool. And I think the simple message here that I take if I'm just thinking about what is it boiled down to for me is that the battle belongs to the Lord. Oh, yeah. You remember that scene in Raiders where the swordsmen are all coming and he's being chased all over and there's all these guys. They're swinging around swords. And then he realizes he has a gun and he has the superior weapon here. He doesn't have to go in and risk his life and be, you know, in the fray. And it's easy to forget we have the superior firepower. It's like there's this force of evil horsemen coming over the horizon and the world and the darkness seems so overwhelming. And then the light comes and there's this shadow overcast above those evil forces as the Lord's forces appear. And I have to remember that if I stand with him, I will stand indeed. That's the directive that has driven this whole section is stand. Stand. He keeps saying to do that. You will stand. I will stand. If I stand with the Lord, he is able to make me capable of standing. It's a simple but heartening reminder. I think of all these passages that we've gone through as we've looked at the power of Jesus and the power that is at work within us and how Jesus is over every force, over every evil, every world power that's in the world today, over everything. Like we talked about in Ephesians 1 verses 19 to 20, how he is according to the working of his great might that was worked in Christ when he was risen from the dead and placed above every authority. And he says, that's what's at work in us. And he is the one who is ruling over his people, the church, his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all or chapter three, verse 20, to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. He is the Christ that is he is the King. He is the one that we stand with and he is our head. We are part of him. We are one with him in his body, the church. And so if we stand with him, we will overcome. And it's just something that is easy enough to say. But in the moment of battle, we need to remember the power and the love and the one that we place all of our hope in and the one that we submit our obedience and loyalty to. Yeah, a superior firepower definitely is at our disposal. I think that's a really powerful idea. And for me, as I sort of wrap this all up, I was thinking about how for me, I guess it's weird that I have this natural hesitancy when I start hearing about battle language. I think just given everything in our current spiritual climate and religious conversations and all the negativity, all the hateful speech and language thrown around today, the division, the shouting, the hateful, unloving and condescending way that sometimes people in the name of Jesus want to talk to each other or want to attack each other almost. And I think sometimes for me, when I see battle language like this, it just makes me uncomfortable that we're going to go the wrong direction with this. And it's not that there's anything wrong with this kind of comparison, you know, comparing our our daily walk to a battle. But I think we just need to get clear about what our battle is. And Paul is very clear about fighting the right battle here. He's not telling us that we need to fight each other. He's not telling us that we need to go to battle against our brothers and sisters or against people who disagree with us. No, this is a battle as he talks about here. We're not fighting or wrestling against flesh and blood. This is against spiritual forces in the heavenly places. And of course, as Paul just got done really talking about how Christ wants us united, he wants us to be loving for each other and considerate of one another. And he wants us to be connected to him all together, working as bricks in his great building. You see this great picture of unity in Ephesians. And when you get to the end here, I just want to be really clear and really careful that we don't turn our heads in the wrong direction and start fighting the wrong battle. And people want to cut each other down. People want to fight against each other. But if we're following Jesus and we're modeling God's grace in our lives, we're going to fight a very different kind of battle. Our warfare is going to be very different than the way that people want to fight these kinds of battles on social media or whatever. Like I think given Paul's work, it's really clear that we just need to be careful. With the application we use for these kinds of tools and these weapons in our own warfare today. He couldn't be any clearer. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. 100 percent. We are not fighting against people, but against the rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And the implication is that the rest of these people, those who are are standing with them are really enslaved. They are prisoners of war. They are making the wrong choices. They are standing for the wrong things. But ultimately we want to free them. And you know, you think of Jesus, for instance, knowing who he was fighting against truly. Not that he didn't have harsh words for anyone, but he looked out on a crowd of people that were killing him and said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. And so there is a place for speaking boldly to, as we talked about a few episodes ago, expose the unfruitful works of darkness to speak against evil actions. And there are evil people, but they are not the true enemy. And our goal isn't to tear people down. But I think 2 Corinthians talks about bringing every thought captive in obedience to Christ, tearing down strongholds of the evil one. We don't wage according to the flesh. We don't walk in the flesh. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to Christ. And so it's fierce language, but it's not about destroying people. It's about holding up Christ and exposing darkness. So that has been a closer look here at the armor that we're reading about here in this section. Let's move on to our last segment on the episode. And that is our Reach Out conversation. Reach out, reach out and touch someone. So we're going to get a little bit personal here as we talk about ourselves and ask these questions. What gaps in your armor do you most need to shore up? If you're looking around, standing in the mirror, what did you forget to put on? I see how we did this. We asked the question at the beginning in the generic way that we could just talk about it. That's right. What's missing? And then now we have to identify what's missing. What are you missing? Yeah, what are you missing? I think the helmet of salvation struck me as something I need to more firmly fasten on, if you will. Looking forward to resurrection and new creation and life with Jesus forever. I think I get too caught up in the now and maybe the near future. What I'm planning, what I'm hoping to do in the Lord's service often, you know, what I want to accomplish. And I have to learn to stay invested and joyful at that upcoming salvation. It just sometimes, we've probably talked about this before because it's something that I just perennially need to come back to and remind myself. It sometimes feels so distant. If you have a vacation that you're planning and it's two years away, you're like, I've got other things to worry about. And, you know, that's a nice thought, but this isn't a vacation and we don't know whether it's far away or it's near. And the message of the Bible is to live with that nearness in mind, with that sense of this is the majority of your existence by far is going to be in this place. And it's so much greater than any difficulty you face here. It's not worthy to be compared, Paul says in Romans 8. So keep looking forward to that. I think that idea of keeping my head, we talked about looking in the right direction, keeping focused on that forever idea is something for some reason, it seems to elude me more than it does some other Christians or like I lose my focus on that. And so that's something I want to focus on. It reminds me of that phrase top of mind, right? Like that's what you're talking about. You need to keep salvation top of mind. Well, what better to keep top of mind than a helmet on your head? Like the whole thing just wraps it up there, but I can appreciate that. I think you're right on track with that. I think I could easily agree with that in my own life, but I'm going to add two more just to pile on here for myself. Yeah, I think number one, I wonder sometimes if I am wearing the belt of truth properly seems like maybe an odd choice, but I often hear an insight that I'd never considered or I read something with fresh eyes and I remember that the truth is something that I've got to dig for and cultivate. And so I wonder sometimes if I'm only studying God's word with like 21st century eyes or am I aware that I have cultural bias and I've got a lot of baggage from my own life that keeps me from seeing things in this first century perspective. I can always check my belt. Yeah, maybe sometimes I need to get some suspenders too just to shore it up, but just really understanding what is true, what is right. And as I read the Bible, am I really reading it clearly, accurately? Am I getting the sense that the writers that really God intended me to get from these things? I don't know. I know that truth is important. I acknowledge that, but like am I really being as accurate with God's word as I could be? So that's maybe one thing, just making sure that truth is the foundation of everything and I'm really latched on to what is actually true. But then if I think about another thing, I could definitely make more of an opportunity to hide behind the shield of faith. There are far too many times in my own life where I let fear take over and faith should have kept me secure. Faith should have protected me in those moments, but fear takes the reins. It reminds me from that conversation we had a long time ago in Matthew 14 where we called it the fear sandwich, how Jesus' nighttime interaction with his disciples on the boat. It was fear and then it was faith and then it was fear again that Peter was experiencing there as he walked out onto the water and then again was filled with fear after seeing the waves and everything. Faith, as Jesus would talk about there, faith should have kept him secure. And for me, so often I put the shield down and I let fear just take over and there are so many reasons to be afraid in this world. But is my faith in Jesus enough to lead me to have the kind of peace that Paul is actually going to talk about here in just a few verses in our last conversation next week. I would not have thought of putting fear here as the thing for the shield to protect against. I really loved that you went there with it. And then I think your point about truth is worthy of a longer conversation. I mean, that idea of how easy it is to just grab on to the first interpretation that sort of jumps out at you. I think that's that is not the way to strap on the belt of truth. It does take some effort to make sure that we're not just strapping on any belt, we're strapping on the one that God tells us this is truth and that will protect us. For sure. Yeah, I just think we all have work to do. Nobody's perfect. Nobody has everything figured out and there's always digging to do. So, you know, to ask ourselves really the question, what part of our armor do we most need to shore up? I think it may depend on the day, but all of us have work that we need to do and we can always improve. We can always be better. Of course, the Lord is there and he's willing to extend to us his power and his grace and everything else. But what a cool opportunity for us to just even be a part of the army, just to even be enlisted at all is such a cool opportunity that we all have to fight in these kinds of ways, knowing that the battle's already won, as you talked about already. So let's move on to our last segment here on the episode. And that is going to be our challenge for the week. I am ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me. Yeah, I like this challenge too, because it speaks to both the unity that we're not alone in the battle. We not only stand with the Lord, but with each other. And also that this end of the passage is part of our warfare strategy. Also, we get to the sword of the spirit and sometimes we stop there, but the passage continues as he says, with all prayer and supplication and to that end, keep alert with perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. And so with that in mind, our challenge is to ask a friend if there's an aspect of their spiritual warfare that you can pray for. And this is a tremendous way to make an impact in the battle for the kingdom. I think it's a powerful shift when we think about battle, right? Because putting this together with our previous conversation, we're not out there alone. Like we're fighting alongside our family and our friends. We're fighting alongside our brothers and sisters. So doesn't it make sense to shore up their equipment too? And what a cool opportunity for us to be able to look to each other and not only look out for myself, but also maybe most importantly, look out for other people. So I don't want someone on the front lines to feel like they're alone. This isn't like a Uriah situation where everybody backs up from him, right? I want to make sure we are all on the same page, that we all have each other's backs. When I'm out there, when you're out there. So opening up, I think could help us build a better bond and make sure that we actually pray about it. That's another thing. Just really, if you ask somebody what to pray for and they tell you something that you can pray for, please make sure that you actually do that. That's such a powerful thing that we can all do in our spiritual battles against the heavenly forces. And I appreciate what you said there about opening up. That's another part of this. There's the prayer part of it and then there's someone else knowing what your challenges are so that they can stand with you in the fight in this way. And prayer is going to be a huge part of how we succeed in the struggle. So let's pray right now. We're going to end with a closing prayer. And the prayer that we suggested in the study guide comes from verse 13. It says, Lord, equip us with the full compliment of protection against our evil enemy. So let's pray. Father, you are the warrior. You defeat every enemy. We all face our enemy in so many different battles, but we ask you to give each of us the unique portion of wisdom and power, of protection, of love and grace, of knowledge and strength that we need. May we stand firm. Whatever the evil one throws at us, may we stand. May we not be feeble, but stand in the power of your might. We pray that you would give us greater hope. Let us know the truth and embrace all that we learn from you. Oh, Father, give us greater faith. We believe. Lord, help our unbelief. Prepare us. Prepare us for the battle. Prepare us for the doors you open so that we're ready to bring the gospel to anyone we can. Equip us with discernment, with an understanding of your word. We want to please you, Lord. We want our thinking and our character to be like yours. And we need your help as we aim to live with justice and righteousness today. Forgive us where we fall short of that glory. Shine on us. Be with us. We pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. All right. So this has been our penultimate conversation in our study. And next week on the episode, we are going to talk about our 13th guided study session in this Talking Through Ephesians series. And that is the conclusion really in the last few verses, chapter 6, verses 21 to 24. And we'd encourage you to read those verses with us. Ephesians 6, 21 to 24. Next week, we'll probably do a little bit of a sweeping look at the whole book maybe. But I think there's a lot of power even in these last three verses that Paul wraps everything up with. Sometimes you get into some of these concluding conversations, these concluding verses of books, and maybe you treat them as like throw away things, like they're not so important. But I think we'll see here that Paul does not throw anything away as we get to the end of this book. No, he does not. There's meaning packed in every part of the book. And it's a fitting conclusion. For sure. All right. So thanks so much, everyone, for tuning in. This has been episode 193 of the Bible Geeks podcast. You can find us on our website at biblegeeks.fm. Find show notes for this episode in your podcast player of choice or at biblegeeks.fm/193. You can also find all the study guides and the conversation starters in this series at biblegeeks.fm/ephesians. And until next week, everyone, may the Lord bless you and keep you. Shalom. Bye!