The Sword of the Spirit

Good morning. You know, it's a privilege to come together, and I'm grateful that you chose this morning not to let that privilege go unused. So thank you for being here. If you're with us online, we're grateful that you've tuned in with us because we always have really important things to talk about. When I was a kid, I read the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S.

lewis. I read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, all of those books multiple times, and I just loved those stories. As a sixth grader, I discovered a role playing game called Dungeons and Dragons. And that school year, I had some buddies. We would get together after school and on weekends and we would play through campaigns in that game.

We built our own weapons so that we could stage some of our own mock battles. I remember building a wooden shield and a club and a crossbow. I strung together some clothesline and some screen door springs and some door hinges, and it actually fired arrows. And of course, I built a sword, because my favorite weapon has always been the sword. If you were to come into my office, you would see hanging above a doorway.

I have this sword that I bought in Santiago, Chile. It's actually sculpted from the snout of a swordfish. So it's a sword that's actually made from a sword. You probably know about Excalibur, the legendary sword that King Arthur pulled from the stone. If you saw the movie Braveheart, you know that William Wallace made that claymore broadsword really famous.

In the Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins had what would be a dagger to you or me, but it was a sword to him called Sting, and it would glow blue when there were goblins or orcs nearby. In the Return of the King, Aragorn, son of Arathorn, carried a blade that was called Andariel. It had been forged from the broken shards of another sword. And we can't forget the lightsaber, can we? An elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

We spent the last few weeks talking about the protective armor of God that the Apostle Paul wrote about in Ephesians chapter six. But today we get to turn a corner and we get to talk weapons. Okay, Paul wrote. And we just want to review this text every week. Paul wrote, in Ephesians 6, starting in verse 10, follow finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, Paul said, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you have done everything to stand, stand firm. Then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. You may have noticed that twice in that text, first in verse 11 and then again in verse 13. Paul urged us to put on the full armor of God. It is not enough for.

For us to wear just some of that armor. You know, if a Roman soldier at the time when Paul wrote this, were to go into battle wearing just a belt or just a breastplate or just shoes, or with only a shield or only a helmet, he wouldn't last long. All of the armor is crucial. Now, up to this point, we've been talking mostly about defense. The belt was a way of binding up a soldier's tunic so that he wouldn't trip over the folds of that fabric.

The breastplate protected his vital organs against stab wounds. Shoes helped him to stand his ground and stay on his feet. Because if you get knocked down, you're very vulnerable. The shield deflected flying flaming arrows, and the helmet protected him from head injuries. Defense is important in sports.

It's often said that defense wins championships. I mean, in football, it's almost football season again. There we go. In football, it's hard for your opponent to beat you if you keep sacking their quarterback, if you keep intercepting passes, if you keep forcing fumbles and blocking kicks, your basketball opponent isn't likely to win if you keep stealing the ball and deflecting passes and blocking shots. But winning isn't just about preventing your opponent from scoring, is it?

It's about being able to put points on the board yourself. I mean, if you have a defense that forces and recovers fumbles, but your offense can't move the football, it's still hard to win. If your defense forces turnovers, but you can't put the basketball in the hoop at the other end of the court, it's going to be really hard for your team to win. And defense alone can't win a war either. You know, even if you have armor, great armor, Almost impenetrable armor.

And you're able to stand there uninjured until your enemy is completely out of arrows, you haven't won yet. I mean, even if you are able to shoot down every missile that your enemy fires your direction, and you do that successfully until your enemy's arsenal is exhausted and they're out of missiles, you still haven't won. And that's why Paul's Armor of God eventually moved from defensive gear to an offensive weapon, the Sword of the Spirit. A soldier without a weapon will not last long in battle. So there are three things I want us to understand this morning about this sword of the Spirit.

The first thing I want us to understand is what it is. Our weapon is the Word of God. Now, scripture uses a lot of symbols, and sometimes the symbols and metaphors we find in scripture can be confusing to us. Scripture sometimes uses symbols, and it doesn't provide us really any clear explanation as to what those symbols mean. Like when we.

We read about the Urim and the Thummim, these strange things that were carried in the breastplate of the Jewish high priest, or we read about these fantastical living creatures that make an appearance in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, and then we see something very similar in the book of Revelation. Also in Revelation, we read about this beast and this number of the beast, 666. And there are all sorts of theories about what those things represent and symbolize. But many of the Bible symbols and metaphors are very clearly and explicitly explained. The bread and the cup of communion that we just shared together very clearly represent the body and blood of Jesus.

No question about that. The Lamb of God clearly refers to Jesus who offered himself at the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. Baptism is clearly a symbol of Jesus death and burial and resurrection. And Paul didn't leave us guessing about what the sword of the Spirit is either. He very plainly said, the sword of the Spirit is the word of God.

And in saying that, Paul made clear that living without the guidance of Scripture is like going into battle unarmed. When we talk about the Word of God, what we're essentially talking about is truth revealed by God to people. Now, in Scripture, that phrase word of God can mean any of several different things. Sometimes it's a reference to a message that God gave directly to a prophet. Like when we read this Word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God, or we read that night the Word of God came to Nathan, or we read the Word of God came to John, John the Baptist in the wilderness.

But sometimes The Word of God refers to the teachings of Jesus. One day, as Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, which is another name for the Sea of Galilee, the people were crowding around him and listening to the Word of God. Jesus is God. So when Jesus spoke, he spoke the Word of God. Sometimes Scripture refers to the Word of God, meaning the message of Jesus being shared by others.

Acts chapter six says. So the Word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly. And a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. And sometimes we read in Scripture the words of the Word of God, and they actually refer to Scripture.

Proverbs says, every word of God is flawless. He's a shield to those who take refuge in him. Jesus used the phrases the Word of God and Scripture interchangeably, one and the same. At the time Paul wrote the Book of Ephesians, the Word of God that most people were familiar with was what you and I call the Old Testament. But as Jesus teachings continued to be circulated by his disciples and as God prompted followers of Jesus to write those teachings down for others to read, what we know as the New Testament began taking shape.

That's why Paul wrote in Second Timothy, Chapter 3, that all Scripture is God breathed. What Paul is saying is the Word of God is not just a compilation of human thoughts about God. It is a collection of teachings that God gave to specific people to write down. The Apostle Peter said it like this. Peter said, above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things.

For prophecy never had its origin in the human will. But prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Scripture was not man's idea. It was God's idea. And through His Spirit, God gave a message to human writers and guided them in recording that message accurately.

You and I have a Bible. Not because people decided on a whim that they would write something down about God, but because God chose through His Spirit to speak to people. And that's why when you and I read Scripture, when we read the Word of God, it carries the authority of God. The Apostle Peter said this. He said, bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation.

Just as our dear brother Paul, another apostle, also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant, unstable people distort as they do the other Scriptures to their own destruction. Did you notice that that Peter included the Apostle Paul's writings. In this category of Scriptures, Peter is saying that when Paul wrote those letters, he was writing the word of God.

All of God's word, no matter who wrote it, is inspired by the Holy Spirit and it carries God's authority. So while we naturally we read through our New Testaments and we sometimes our Bibles, in the books of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the words of Jesus are printed in red. Of course we want to take those words very seriously. But the doctrine of inspiration, the idea that all scripture is inspired by God means that the rest of the Bible is equally authoritative. The words of Jesus and the words of Paul, both are spoken through the power of the Holy Spirit and we set them right next to each other in terms of their authority.

We need to understand that our weapon is the Word of God. Number two, there are wrong ways to use the word of God. Paul called God's word a sword. He called it a weapon. And there are clearly some wrong ways to use weapons, right?

You don't hold a sword by the blade, at least not with fingers that you want to continue to use. You don't do that. You don't store grenades near open flames. You don't chamber around in a handgun and then tuck that handgun into your belt and pull the trigger. You don't fire a shotgun without properly snugging the butt of that gun up against your shoulder.

I may or may not have recently watched a a YouTube reel of people getting repeatedly slammed in the chest, in the armpit and the face because they were firing shotguns without securing them properly. See, Paul compared the Bible to a weapon. He also compared it to a tool. When he wrote in another of his letters, Paul said in second Timothy, chapter two, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. When I was a kid, my grandparents bought me a Bible for my birthday and they wrote that verse inside the front cover.

Paul wrote those words because there are clearly some incorrect and some shameful ways to handle God's Word. Just a few examples of those. One would be taking verses out of context, taking a verse and making it mean something it was never intended to mean because we isolate it from the context that goes with it. People often quote, do not judge without realizing that Scripture instructs us to recognize, to discern, to judge, if you will, certain behaviors as immoral and ungodly. This sometimes takes the form of reading the Bible selectively.

It is so tempting at Times to cherry pick scriptures that speak about other people's sins while ignoring the ones that address our own sins. But the word of God is the sword of the spirit. It is not the sword of Matt. It is not my personal weapon that I can selectively use and decide who I'm gonna slice and dice with it Today. We misuse the Bible when we start forcing it to fit our assumptions.

You know, if you decide before you even open the book that miracles are impossible or that God's main job is to make you rich and comfortable and happy, you're not going to read Scripture objectively. You know, another way that we misuse the word of God is by never opening it. If your Bible's only a paperweight, if it's just a decoration on a shelf, if it's just a family heirloom that passes from generation to generation and perhaps makes an appearance at an occasional wedding, it is no more beneficial to you than that hammer or that drill that you never use. The Bible itself warns that people are going to misuse it. Jesus laid into the Jewish Pharisees and teachers of the law for the way that they invented traditions that allowed them to conveniently sidestep the clear teachings of Scripture.

Jesus said to those guys, you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. You take what God has clearly said and you brush it aside and you replace it with man made ideas. Paul wrote to his friend Timothy, preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season, correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Paul goes on to say, instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. Those words were written nearly 2000 years ago and they are remarkably relevant today. When people often look less for a church that teaches scripture accurately than for one that lines up with their politics or affirms their sexual choices or just makes them feel a certain way. The Bible is often misused. So the Word of God number three actually instructs us how to use it.

God doesn't just give us this big book and then leave it to us to figure out what to do with it. He doesn't leave us guessing. The Bible is full of instructions about how to use it. Paul wrote in Second Timothy, Chapter 3 that all Scripture is God breathed. We look at that part of it just a few minutes ago and is useful, Paul said, for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

All Scripture is pretty all encompassing, isn't it? All scripture is not a reference to just some of the Bible, not just certain verses, not just certain books. It is all God breathed. The Bible claims not to be a book of human words about God. It is a collection of God's words that are recorded by humans that God gave them to.

All scripture is useful. There are some loud, very outspoken voices in our culture that insist that the Bible is outdated, that it's archaic, that it is irrelevant. But Scripture itself contends that because it is, God breathed, it serves valuable purposes. It's useful, it's useful for teaching. It's through scripture, it's through the word of God that we learn about God and we learn about ourselves and we learn about how desperately we need him in our lives.

All Scripture is useful for rebuking. Scripture has a way of confronting our wrong words, our wrong thoughts, our wrong actions and attitudes. And it convicts us of the need to change. Change. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would bring about that conviction.

All scripture is useful for correcting. You know, Scripture doesn't just tell us about our sin. It doesn't just point out what we do wrong and then just leave us there guilty and frustrated. It teaches us how to be restored to God. And all scripture is useful, Paul says here, for training in righteousness.

Scripture actually shows us how to live, how we walk with God, how we learn to reflect his character. And why has God breathed out this useful book for us? I mean, what's the purpose of all that teaching and rebuking and correcting and training in righteousness? Well, it's not so we can impress people with how much scripture we can quote. It's not so we can rock those Bible questions when they pop up on Jeopardy.

I mean, it's not to assist us in pointing out all the things that other people do wrong, as much as everyone loves and appreciates that. God gave us scripture so that as we read it, as we learn it, as we internalize it, it transforms the way we think and live, and we become thoroughly equipped for every good work. My parents gave me a Bible when I was a little older than when I received the Bible from my grandparents. It was a little bit different translation. This verse, 2nd Timothy 3, 17.

In that translation of the Bible, it doesn't say thoroughly equipped. It says so that the man of God may be adequate, not uber prepared, not Superstar level. Not supremely skilled, just adequate. If you and I know the Word of God well, that doesn't make us superheroes. It makes us adequate.

It makes us prepared and equipped to live the life that God calls us to. The Bible ensures that we have what we need for life. Through Scripture, God calls and equips us for action. God's Word is not just for reading. It's not even just for knowing.

It's for doing and obeying. Living without the guidance of Scripture is a lot like going into battle among unarmed. The Bible is so much more than just a big compendium of do's and don'ts. It's a tool of heart transformation. Hebrews chapter four says that the Word of God is alive and active.

Sharper than any double edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes. Some translations say the intentions of the heart. The Word of God is alive. It's active.

It's not a dead outdated book. It is a message the Holy Spirit inspired and it's a message the Holy Spirit continues to use as he interacts with us. Hebrews says the Word of God is razor sharp and it is surgically precise. Just as you put a scalpel in the hand of a skilled surgeon and he is able to to carefully slice through flesh and separate muscle from bone. God's Word has a way of peeling back layers in our minds and our hearts to reveal our deepest intentions and desires and motivations.

We could illustrate this in a number of different ways, but just one example, Paul wrote in 1st Thessalonians, chapter 4. It is God's will. In other words, this is what God wants. That you should be sanctified, that you should be holy, that you should live your lives in a way that is dedicated and set apart to God. And one expression of that is that you should avoid sexual immorality.

Now, the black and white command of that verse is that God instructs us to reserve sex exclusively for marriage. But Scripture doesn't stop there. Paul went on to say this. Not only that God's will is that you be sanctified and avoid sexual immorality. He says that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans who do not know God.

And that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. See, after the rule, sex is to be reserved exclusively for marriage. The Holy Spirit provided a number of reasons. Because honoring God requires That we learn to control our bodies and say no to ungodly desires. That's not just true of sexuality.

That's true of every area of life. If I'm gonna live in a way that is holy and honorable, I'm gonna have to learn to say no to myself on a regular basis in order to obey God's instructions. For me, another reason for this rule is because God wants us to live differently than people who don't know him. God wants our lives to look markedly different from the world we live in. And that difference should.

Should be a source of conversation and intrigue for people. Because when we fail to control ourselves sexually, people get hurt. We see that in the news every day. God's instructions are not just rules. They always have a purpose.

Now, if you were to open your Bible, physical Bible, right to the middle, more than likely you're gonna land somewhere in the Book of psalms. And the 119th chapter of the Book of Psalms is the longest chapter in the Bible. It's a Hebrew acrostic poem. There is a stanza for every letter in the Hebrew Alphabet that makes up this psalm. And it provides in Psalm 119 some incredibly practical advice about using the sword of the spirit.

I'm going to highlight three of those very quickly as we close. Number one. There is a challenge in Psalm 119 to read Scripture. Psalm 119, verse 16 says, I will not neglect your word. I will not neglect your word.

You know, when our Bibles sit and collect dust, we don't stop being discipled. We just get discipled by other things. We fall more under the influence of Hollywood. We become disciples of social media. We become disciples of political culture rather than disciples of Jesus.

Charles Spurgeon made the statement that a Bible that's falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't. I love seeing a Bible that is cracked and weathered and the leather is peeling and certain pages are falling out because that's an indication that that Bible has been actively used. If you don't have a Bible, we would love to give you one. Please don't leave here today without a Bible. If you'd like one, we'll put one in your hand.

And if you have a Bible but you aren't sure how to use it, you're not alone. A lot of people find this book intimidating and confusing. We'd love to help. If you're sitting down to read the Bible for the first time, don't start at the beginning, okay? Jump all the way over to the New Testament, the second book in The New Testament is the Gospel of Mark.

I would encourage you to start there. Mark is short and it's action oriented. It's 16 chapters. It's like it was written by a teenage dude. It's the action movie version of the story of Jesus.

You don't have time to fall asleep when you're reading through the Gospel of Mark. Just bam, bam, bam. I would encourage you to start there. The YouVersion Bible app Many of us use has recently surpassed its 1 billionth download. Hundreds of languages now have access to the word of God because of the YouVersion Bible app.

It's a free tool that lets you have access to God's word on your phone, on your mobile device. You can carry it in your pocket. And not only does it provide access to the text itself, there are all kinds of study tools that go along with it. Devotional plans. You can build your own devotional plan just based on whatever issue you're struggling with or whatever you're wanting to get questions answered about.

It's such a useful tool. So we have to read scripture, but we don't stop there. Psalm 119 also encourages us to meditate on Scripture. Verses 15 and 16 say, I meditate on your precepts, on your laws, and consider your ways. I delight, I take joy your decrees.

See, meditation goes a step beyond reading to reflection. We read the text and we reread the text and we do it slowly and patiently and we ask God for insight. Couple of approaches to meditation that I have found personally useful. One of those, right now I'm just in a groove where every day I read a passage of scripture and I read it slowly and I highlight some key words as I go. I make some notes in the margins about things that jump out at me.

I read in a study Bible. So then I turn to some of the study notes in the margin and I reread the text through that lens and I'm using a devotional commentary. So I read some thoughts by another writer about the life application for those words. And then I write down some observations and some reflections about the text in my journal. And then I go back three weeks to an older journal entry and I just look at what God was teaching me then and I try to connect the dots.

That's one way you might approach meditation. Years ago, there was a season in my life when I was just struggling to contain, to tame some ungodly thought patterns. And so I created a tool for myself. I typed up a list of relevant scriptures. I just laid them out as a word Document.

And then I read that document out loud into my phone as a voice memo so that I could listen to it over and over and over again in my car and. And begin to internalize those words. If we're going to obey God's word, we have to know God's Word. And meditation is a way of helping us to internalize it. But meditation also helps us, number three.

To memorize Scripture. Psalm 119, verse 11 says, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. I'm convinced that Scripture has the greatest impact in our lives when we know it well enough that we don't have to look it up. When you get to that place where you know forward and backward what that verse says, the Holy Spirit has stamped it on your heart. We still open our Bibles to read other things, but being able to just internalize it and commit it to memory is powerful.

You may recall that at the beginning of Jesus ministry, he was targeted, and he was tempted by our enemy, the devil. Jesus had been in the wilderness. He had been praying and fasting for 40 days when Satan showed up and urged him, first of all to use his power to turn stones into bread, to make something for himself to eat. And then Satan urged Jesus to go to the highest point of the temple and fling himself off, just demanding that God show up and catch him and show everybody how special Jesus was. Satan urged Jesus to.

To gain power and glory not by going through with his crucifixion that he'd come to accomplish, but by trading all of that and just stopping right there, bowing down, and worshiping Satan in exchange for power and glory and fame right then and there. And if you know that account we read in the Gospels, Jesus answered every temptation that Satan threw at him or with scripture that he knew by heart. Now, you might say I'm just not good at memorization. And I'll admit some people struggle more with this than others. But we all memorize things.

I bet you know your Social Security number. I bet you know the PIN number for your ATM card.

I'll bet if I say, just a small town girl.

Yeah. I'll bet if I say, hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. Yeah, you're gonna say, you killed my father. Prepare to die. And it's not because you had a devotional that took you through a plan to help you memorize song lyrics and movie quotes, right?

It's a simple matter of repetition. When we hear things often enough, memorization is what naturally happens. Memorization is about intentionality it's about repetition. We just have to give God's word our intentional, repeated focus and his words begin to take up residence in our hearts. Friends, the whole focus of the series has been that we have a very real enemy and that enemy hates God.

He hates us and he wants to destroy God's work in our lives. So God equips us with spiritual armor to protect us against Satan's attacks. But he doesn't stop there. God also provides us with a weapon, the sword of the spirit, the word of God to fight back with. And we need that weapon because living without the guidance of Scripture is like going into battle unarmed.

Living our lives without our Bibles open, without our Bibles getting into us is an awful lot like fighting a battle and not taking a weapon with us. So don't forget your sword. Let's pray. Lord God, we're grateful this morning for the way that you love us and the way you communicate with us. Thank you for not hiding from us, God, for not placing us here and then retreating to the most distant part of the galaxy wondering whether we'll ever fit to look up and seek you.

God, we thank you for creating us and for speaking to us through your word, for giving us guidance to help us know you, to help us know why you put us here, what your purpose is for our lives and how we can live our lives according to that purpose. God, I pray that because we live in a world that is busy and it's noisy and it's fast paced and it's cluttered and distracting that you would help us, Lord, to quiet ourselves, to put down our phones, to shut off the tv, to retreat to a quiet place and allow your word to speak into our hearts. Lord, we pray that you would build in us not just a discipline, but an appetite, a delight for your word, Lord, that would cause us to come back again and again and again to see what new things you have to share with us and what things you've already taught us we need to be reminded of all over again. Father, we ask that you would help us to be people who treasure your Word and allow it to speak into us and fill us so that our lives look like you created them to look. We're grateful, God, for this time together.

We're grateful for the privilege of opening your word together. We ask you, God, to help us to encourage one another in that pursuit. And we pray it in Jesus name. Amen. You know, God calls us to become Bible students because it's through scripture that we come to know him and trust him and follow Him.

And as a church, we are here to help you grow and we'd love to connect with you Every time we're together. We want you to know there are three very simple ways that you could reach out to us if you're struggling to figure out what your next step as a follower of Jesus looks like. I want to invite our Next Steps team to go ahead and make their way down here to the front every Sunday. After every service. There will be a handful of us up here along the front of the stage and we're just here to pray with you to answer your questions.

If we can point you to Scripture, if we can help you discern what your next step is, we would love to be a part of that conversation. And for the benefit of all of our online friends and any of you that have to jet pretty quickly and maybe can't stick around for a conversation today, just text the word Next N E x T to 3177079997 and let us know what's on your heart and we can begin a conversation very much like the ones that often take place right down here. Lastly, we want you to know that there is a series of classes called Next Steps that we offer every single month. First four Sundays of every month. This is a second Sunday, so we just completed the Next Steps Follow Jesus class during this hour, but next Sunday, the Next Steps Engage Class is an opportunity for you to learn more about what does it mean to connect at gcc?

What does it mean to find a place of belonging, a place of ministry? We would love to help you in that regard. Anything we can do to help you to get God's word into you so that Jesus can be at the center of your life. That's why we're here. It's always a pleasure to be together.

It's a privilege that we share together to worship God, to be in community together. Thank you for being here. God bless you.