Family Service: The Whole Armour of God

[0:00] Well, if we could, we could turn for a wee while back to that passage that we read in Ephesians chapter 6.

[0:16] Ephesians chapter 6, and if we can read together, we'll read together at verse 10 and 11. We're going to look at the whole passage that tells us how to fight.

[0:26] But we're going to read again verses 10 and 11, where it says, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

[0:43] Put on the whole armour of God. So well, boys and girls, today we're going to learn how to fight. We're going to learn how to fight, but we're not going to learn how to fight one another.

[0:56] Because as you know, well, I'm not going to teach you how to fight with your brother or sister, or with mummy or daddy. Because I probably don't need to teach you how to do that. You probably do a very good job of that already.

[1:08] I don't need to teach you how to fight with your brother or your sister or your mummy and daddy. But I want to remind you, first of all, that the Bible says that we're to love one another.

[1:20] We're to love one another. We shouldn't fight with our brother or sister. But we're to love one another because the Bible tells us that Jesus loves us and he gave himself for us.

[1:31] Jesus died on the cross to take away our sins. And so, boys and girls, today we're not going to learn how to fight with one another. But today we're going to fight or learn to fight against our greatest enemy.

[1:43] And our greatest enemy, it's not our brother or sister. It's not our mummy or daddy. It's not someone in school. It's not a bully in school. Our greatest enemy isn't even all the bad people in the world.

[1:54] Our greatest enemy, the Bible tells us, is the devil. Our greatest enemy is the devil. And that's what we're told in these verses. It says, put on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

[2:09] We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, not against people, but against the rulers and the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

[2:23] The Bible tells us that our enemy isn't someone physical. Because we can't see the devil. We can't touch the devil. We can't hold the devil. The devil is not a physical enemy.

[2:36] He's a spiritual enemy. And sometimes, you know, that's hard to get our head around. It's hard to get our head around that we can't see the devil. But the devil is not a physical enemy.

[2:47] He's a spiritual enemy. But he's a real enemy. He's a real enemy. And he's our enemy. And he's our enemy because he doesn't love God. The devil doesn't love God.

[2:59] He doesn't want us to listen to God. And he doesn't want us to follow Jesus. Which is a terrible thing, isn't it? It's a terrible thing. But that's why the devil is an enemy.

[3:12] And, you know, we have to learn how to fight against the devil. And so in order to fight against the devil, we need to protect ourselves, don't we? We need to protect ourselves in our fight against the devil. We need to keep ourselves safe.

[3:23] And we need to put armor on. Don't we? We have to be soldiers to put armor on. Because as all good soldiers know, they need armor to protect themselves from their enemies.

[3:37] And so if we're in the Lord's army, which we should be by trusting in Jesus and making him our savior, I hope we're all in the Lord's army. And if we're in the Lord's army, then we need armor in order to protect ourselves as we fight against the devil.

[3:52] Because we can't go out and fight against the devil without our armor on. That would be silly, wouldn't it? We need protection. We need to keep ourselves safe. And we need armor in order to stand firm and fight against the devil.

[4:07] So that's what we're told in verse 13. It says, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm.

[4:19] And so in order to stand firm against the devil, in order to fight, we need to put this armor on. And we're told in this passage that there are six pieces of armor. Six pieces of armor.

[4:32] Okay? So we have to, everybody, are you all listening? Open your armor cupboard. You're looking? Open your armor cupboard. Everybody open their armor cupboard, right?

[4:42] We've opened our armor cupboard. All the armor is inside. We open our cupboard. And the first piece of armor that we find inside our armor cupboard is the belt of truth. The belt of truth.

[4:54] That's the first piece that we find. And the belt of truth. We need the belt of truth because the devil is a deceiver. The devil is a liar. And, you know, that's what the name devil means.

[5:07] The name devil means deceiver. It means liar. Now, boys and girls, I wonder if you've ever told a lie. Hands up if you've ever told a lie.

[5:20] Now, all the mommies and daddies should be raising their hand right now. Nobody's telling the truth. They're all lying by keeping their hands down.

[5:31] But I'm sure that we've all told some lies. Maybe some small ones. But the ninth commandment, it tells us that you shall not lie. Which means that we're always to tell the truth. Even when we've done something wrong.

[5:43] We're to tell the truth. Because when we do something wrong, which we often do, and we break something in the house, like we break a window, or we break somebody else's toy, or if we hurt someone, we hurt our brother or sister, or we hurt someone, like our mummy or daddy, the first thing we want to do is say, well, we didn't do it.

[6:01] I didn't do it. It wasn't me. It's not my fault. That's what I always say anyway. And we lie about it because we don't want to get into trouble. And, you know, that's what the devil wants us to do.

[6:12] The devil wants us to lie. He wants us, he doesn't want us to tell the truth. He wants us to blame other people for all the things that we have done. The devil doesn't want us to tell the truth.

[6:23] But, you know, we have to take our belt of truth, and we have to put it on every day to make sure that we tell the truth. Okay? To put on the belt of truth every single day.

[6:34] And, you know, the reason why we have to put on the belt of truth first, why it's first above the shield and the sword and the helmet, is because the belt of truth, it holds all the armour together.

[6:47] It holds all the armour together. And if we don't tell the truth, if we lie, well, things will just fall apart. It'll all fall apart. Our armour will just fall off us if we don't tell the truth, if we don't have the belt of truth on.

[7:01] And, you know, that's what will happen if we don't tell the truth as well. It'll upset more people, it'll hurt more people, things will fall apart. And so, boys and girls, we have to have on, first of all, what is it?

[7:13] The belt of truth. The belt of truth. In order to stand firm and fight against the devil, we need to put on the belt of truth. Okay?

[7:25] That's the first one. Right? Go back to your cupboard. Open your cupboard. Opening the cupboard. Yep. The second piece of armour that we have to put on, what's this?

[7:35] Wow. This is the breastplate of righteousness. Okay? See if I can put it on. Can I put it on? Can I put it on? Make it easier for me. If it's just, I could do with somebody standing there to wear it.

[7:51] Anyway, this is the breastplate of righteousness and it's to protect our heart. The breastplate of righteousness is to protect our heart. Okay?

[8:02] Because we all know, boys and girls, we all know that our heart is sinful and our heart needs to be cleansed. And our heart needs to be washed and needs to be made white through the blood of Jesus.

[8:14] And you know, that's what happens when we confess our sins to God, isn't it? When we confess our sins, the Bible tells us that when we're sorry, when we say sorry to God, if we confess our sins, all the wrong things that we've done, all the bad things that we've said, all the times that we didn't love God when we should have.

[8:32] But when we confess our sins, the Bible tells us that God is faithful and God is righteous. And he promises to forgive us all our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[8:47] God will make us righteous because the blood of Jesus is able to cleanse us from all our sin. And because God makes us righteous by the blood of Jesus, we need to put on the breastplate of righteousness.

[9:02] We need to put on this breastplate of righteousness because when we trust in Jesus, God makes us righteous. And you know, as soon as we become righteous, the devil comes and he tries to tell us it's not true.

[9:17] That's the first thing the devil will do. He'll say it's not true. He'll try and deceive us and he'll tell us that God can't make us righteous because we're too sinful. We're too bad. God can't cleanse our heart because we're just too bad.

[9:31] We're too sinful to be Christians. We're too bad to be righteous. But yes, boys and girls, we do sin. We all sin, don't we? We all sin.

[9:42] We're not perfect. Christians aren't perfect. Christians aren't perfect. But the Bible says Christians are righteous. Christians are righteous.

[9:53] And Christians are righteous not because of what they've done, but because of what Jesus has done. He died on the cross to cleanse us from our sin. And so, boys and girls, we need to put on, what is it?

[10:06] The breastplate of righteousness to protect our heart from the attacks of the devil. Okay? So in order to fight against the devil, we need to put on the belt of truth.

[10:21] We need to put on the breastplate of righteousness. Just put that there. And then thirdly, I have to go to our cupboard. Go in the cupboard. Bit of armor.

[10:32] Next piece of armor. We need some shoes. Shoes of peace. That's what they are. Shoes of peace. Okay? Now, oh, there's paperclips in these.

[10:44] This is where Daniel was. Paperclips inside my shoes. Shoes of peace. That's what we need. And, you know, most soldiers in the ancient times, they were wearing sandals.

[10:56] Because, well, sandals were easy and they were light to run in. And I don't suppose any of you are wearing sandals today, are you? Is Kerry wearing sandals? No. Maybe you're wearing trainers.

[11:08] They're easy to run in. Maybe you've got church shoes that you wear. Or maybe you have high heel shoes. I don't know. You all have different shoes. And, well, the shoes that we have on, they're there to keep our feet dry and they're there to protect us from all the stones when we walk on the ground, don't they?

[11:25] But these shoes, which we are to put on, we have to put them on every day when we put our armour on, these shoes, they're shoes of peace. And we're to wear these shoes of peace as we march in the Lord's army.

[11:39] Because that's what soldiers do, don't they? They all march together. They march together in the Lord's army. And they march into battle. But when we march into battle to fight against the devil, we aren't marching to start the fight.

[11:55] We're marching to bring peace. That's what the shoes of peace are for. We're marching to bring peace. That's why we have these shoes on, these shoes of peace. We want to bring peace.

[12:06] We want to bring the peace of God into the lives of other people. That's what we want to do. And you know, boys and girls, that's why Jesus came. Jesus came to bring peace.

[12:19] He came to bring peace. Jesus came into the world to save sinners like you and me and to bring peace into our lives. Peace with God. And that's what the Bible says.

[12:30] We can have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And this message of peace, it's good news. It's a good news message.

[12:41] And that's what the word gospel means. The gospel is good news. What is it? It's good. Good news. Yeah, it's good news.

[12:52] And these shoes, and your shoes when you put them on, your shoes of your armor, they're gospel shoes. They're gospel shoes. They're shoes which carry good news to spread peace, to spread the gospel.

[13:06] They're to spread God's message of peace to those who have never heard it. to those who have never heard about Jesus. And that's what we're to do every day. We're to put on our shoes of peace and spread the good news, the good news of Jesus.

[13:22] We're to spread the gospel by telling people that we can have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, we need to go out with our gospel shoes.

[13:33] We need to go out and we need to invite people to come to come to church. And we need to invite people to come and meet with Jesus. Because Jesus is the best friend we could ever have.

[13:48] Now boys and girls, I wonder if your feet smell. Michael? No? No? I know Adam's feet smell.

[13:59] Do your feet smell? These aren't too bad. They're okay. Not too bad. But you know, when we put our gospel shoes on, the Bible says that our feet are beautiful.

[14:14] Do you know that? When we put the gospel shoes on every day, the Bible says our feet are beautiful. Because it says in the book of Isaiah, it says, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news and proclaim peace.

[14:29] How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news and proclaim peace. And so, we need to have beautiful feet by putting on our gospel shoes, our shoes of peace.

[14:44] And so, in order to stand firm, to fight against the devil, we have to go to our armour cupboard, we have to put on the belt of truth, we have to put on breastplate of righteousness, we have to put on our shoes of peace, and then we need to go to the armour cupboard again, armour cupboard, back to the armour cupboard, and then we take out the shield of faith.

[15:10] The shield of faith. Wow, yeah. Oh man, don't start laughing, please. Okay, the shield of faith will protect the soldiers, protects all the soldiers, and a soldier, they would carry the shield into battle on his or her arm to protect, to protect them from all the attacks.

[15:33] And you know, we're told down in verse 16 that we need the shield of faith to protect us from all the fiery darts of the devil. All the fiery darts of the devil. Now, the devil has many fiery darts which he shoots at.

[15:46] He shoots at our shield. He shoots lies at us, he shoots bad thoughts at us, he shoots hateful thoughts about other people, he shoots angry thoughts that make us, things that make us angry at people and fall out with people.

[16:03] That's why we get so angry and fall out with our brother or sister or mummy or daddy. The devil is firing all these fiery darts at us. But we have to lift our shield of faith, lift the shield of faith and protect ourselves from the fiery darts of the devil.

[16:19] And you know, I believe this shield of faith, it's prayer. The shield of faith is prayer. That's what it is. Which means that we have to pray by faith, we pray by faith trusting that the Lord will protect us.

[16:35] We trust in the Lord and trust that he will protect us. And we have to pray that the Lord would protect us from all the fiery darts of the devil. And I'm sure you all know the Lord's Prayer.

[16:47] We always do that when we're in school. And you remember the Lord's Prayer where we have to pray, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

[16:59] And from the evil one, we're to pray that we'd be delivered and protected from the devil. That's what we're praying in the Lord's Prayer. And you know, boys and girls, you can pray about anything.

[17:11] Absolutely anything. You can pray to God about anything. There's nothing too small and there's nothing too big to pray to God about. Nothing too small. You can pray about absolutely anything.

[17:22] We can pray to God about ourselves and all our struggles. We can pray to God about those in our home or our family or our friends or our teachers or our neighbours.

[17:32] We can pray to God about anything and anyone. That's why it's so important to pick up the shield of faith. It's so important that we can pray to God about anything, anywhere, at any time.

[17:48] And you know, the promise of the Bible is that God will hear us. God will hear our prayers. But you know what's amazing? Is that this shield of faith mentioned in the Bible here, it's able, in the time when this Bible passage was written, they could link loads of shields of faith together.

[18:09] So if you had another shield of faith, you could link it with another one and another one and another one and another one. All the soldiers could stand together and make this long line of shields of faith.

[18:20] And all the soldiers, they would stand, they could link all their shields together like this massive wall. And you know, that's what we are to do. We are to link our shields of faith together by praying for one another.

[18:36] That's what we're to do. Link the shields of faith so that we'll pray for one another and praying that we would all be protected. We'd all be covered by the fiery darts of the devil.

[18:48] And you know, it's important to pray for one another. So important. It's important to pray for our friends and our family and those we know and those we don't know. It's important to link all our shields together and pray for one another.

[19:01] Because as soldiers in the Lord's army, we're not to fight alone. We're to stand against the devil together. We have to fight together and pray together and pray for one another and pray as a congregation and pray as a church together.

[19:18] So we have to hold up our shield of faith against the fiery darts of the devil. And so in order to stand firm, what do we do? We go to our cupboard. We get, what is it?

[19:30] The belt of truth. Breastplate of righteousness. Shoes of peace.

[19:43] Yes, Isla. Isla's awake. Shield of faith. Yeah. Then we're in our cupboard again. In the cupboard. Get into the cupboard. And the next one.

[19:54] The helmet. The helmet of salvation. Every soldier needs a helmet.

[20:06] Do you know that? Every soldier needs a helmet. And we have to put on, every soldier in the Lord's army has to put on the helmet of salvation. Because, you know why? We need to protect our mind.

[20:17] We need to protect our mind from the attacks of the devil. because the devil is always trying to fill our minds with doubts. He fills our mind with worries.

[20:28] He fills our minds with anxieties and horrible thoughts about ourselves and about other people. That's why we get scared of the dark. The devil is telling us it's not a nice place.

[20:40] But we have to trust the Lord. We have to watch. We have to protect our mind. And you know, it was once said that what goes into our mind makes us a strong Christian soldier.

[20:52] What goes into our mind makes us a strong Christian soldier. And that means that we have to fill our minds with good things. With good things. And so we have to think about what we're watching on the TV to think about it and ask ourselves, well, will this make me a strong Christian soldier if I watch this?

[21:12] And we have to think about what we're listening to on the radio or on music and ask ourselves, will these words what I'm listening to? Will they make me a strong Christian soldier?

[21:23] We have to watch what goes into our mind. And then we have to think about, well, where we go and what we do and ask ourselves, will that help me be a strong Christian soldier? Because what goes into our mind, it makes us a strong Christian soldier.

[21:38] And if we're filling our mind with things that aren't good, then we're going to be a weak soldier. We're going to have no helmet at all. We're going to be a weak soldier. And the devil can come and attack us very, very easily.

[21:50] And he can make us doubt and he can make us worry and he can make us think bad things about ourselves or about others. But you know, in order to be a strong Christian soldier, we need to think about Jesus.

[22:06] That's why it's called the helmet of salvation. We need to think about salvation and about what Jesus has done. We need to think about Jesus and focus our minds upon him and cling to the promises that are in the Bible.

[22:20] Because there are so many promises. So many promises. And the greatest promise, which I'm sure you all know, you all know the greatest promise in the Bible, don't you, about salvation.

[22:31] John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever, that means anyone, whosoever believes in him, will not perish, but have eternal life.

[22:47] And so, boys and girls, that's the greatest promise. The greatest promise that we need to fill our minds with to be strong Christian soldiers, to fill our minds with Jesus and God's salvation.

[22:59] We need to focus upon Jesus and upon the cross because what goes into our mind will make us a strong Christian soldier. Okay?

[23:09] And so, in order to stand firm against the wiles of the devil, we need to open our armor cupboard. We need to find the belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation.

[23:35] salvation. Then we go to our cupboard again. Open the cupboard. Kenny Murdo, open the cupboard. And we come out with, oh, sword.

[23:50] The sword of the spirit. The sword of the spirit. It's the last one. And this is an important piece of armor. Do you know it's an important piece of armor because every other piece of armor which we've mentioned, we've mentioned the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, well, every other piece of armor, they are there to protect us from the attacks of the devil.

[24:18] But the sword of the spirit, it's not a piece of armor. It's a weapon. The sword of the spirit is a weapon. And it's the only weapon that we've been given to attack the devil.

[24:31] And the Bible tells us that the sword of the spirit, it is the most powerful weapon against the devil. Because we're told in verse 17 that the sword of the spirit is the word of God.

[24:45] It's the word of God. That's the Bible. The sword of the spirit is the Bible. And the Bible says that the word of God is living and active.

[24:57] It's living and active, meaning that the Bible isn't some dead book. It's not old fashioned and outdated and that it has no importance in our lives. No, the Bible it says it's living and active.

[25:10] It's relevant and it's necessary for our lives. Whoever we are, wherever we are, and whatever century we're living in, the Bible is necessary. It's living and active and it's sharper.

[25:24] You know that knives are very sharp and we're not meant to touch them. We don't touch knives. But the Bible it says it's sharper than a sword, a two-sided sword.

[25:36] Sharper than that. Because the Bible it's able to pierce right to the heart. Isn't it? And that's how we attack the devil. Right to his heart. And as Christian soldiers in the Lord's army were to use the sword, the sword of the spirit, were to use it to attack the devil when he comes to tempt us.

[25:56] Because that's what the devil does. He tempts us. And that's what the devil did with Jesus. When Jesus was in the wilderness, he was tempted by the devil. And the devil, he wanted Jesus to disobey God, didn't he?

[26:12] But every time the devil tempted Jesus, every time the devil came and tried to tempt Jesus to disobey God, Jesus used the sword of the spirit. He used the Bible, which is the word of God.

[26:25] He used the sword of the spirit by telling him. He told the devil what the Bible says. The devil came to him and Jesus said to him, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

[26:41] So Jesus spoke to the devil with the words of the Bible. Jesus used the sword, the sword of the spirit in order to attack the devil. And when Jesus attacked the devil, the devil fled.

[26:55] The devil left Jesus alone. And that's what will happen when we put on the whole armor of God and attack the devil with the word of God, with the sword of the spirit.

[27:05] The devil will flee from us, the devil will leave us, but sadly he'll come back again. He'll come back again and again because, as we said, the devil doesn't want us to listen to God.

[27:18] The devil doesn't want us to listen to Jesus. The devil wants us to listen to him. But we have to fight against him. We have to put on the whole armor of God so that we will be able to stand firm and fight against the devil.

[27:35] And you know, every day we have to do it. Every single day we have to put on this armor. Every single day. Every day we have to go to our cupboard, what do we do?

[27:46] We have to go to our cupboard and open the cupboard doors and then we have to get the belt of truth. We have to get the belt of truth to hold our armor together. Then we have to take and put on the breastplate of righteousness to protect our heart.

[28:01] Don't we? To protect our heart. Then we have to put on our shoes of peace to go and tell people about Jesus. Then we have to take up the shield of faith to pray for one another so that we protect ourselves from all the fiery darts of the devil.

[28:19] Then we have to pick up the helmet of salvation. Helmet of salvation to protect our mind. Because what goes into our mind makes us a strong Christian soldier.

[28:31] Then last of all, we pick up the sword of the spirit. The sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And we need the word of God to attack the devil so that the devil will flee from us.

[28:46] But you know, boys and girls, every good Christian soldier, they know their sword. They know their sword very well. And that's what we need to do.

[28:57] We need to know our Bible. We need to know our Bible well by reading it and memorizing verses. I know you do that in Sunday school. you memorize verses of the Bible.

[29:09] And it's good to know your sword. Good to know the Bible by memorizing it so that we'll be able to stand against the devil. And when we go out to fight, we have the greatest promise.

[29:23] If God is for us, who can be against us? That's the greatest promise in the Bible. The great promise. So we need to put on, open our armor cupboards last time.

[29:34] We need to put on the belt of, truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and then we have to pick up the sword of the spirit.

[29:56] Well done. So my last question to you all is, and this includes the mummies and daddies, the grannies and grandpas, are you in the Lord's army? Are you in the Lord's army?

[30:08] Because it is the best army to be in. And we have the great promise that we can put on the armor of God every day. And you remember that song we always sing in the school?

[30:20] Every time I ask, what's your favorite? They always say it's the one, I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot with the artillery, artillery, I may never zoom over the enemy, but then it says, but I'm in the Lord's army.

[30:37] I'm in the Lord's army. So I hope that each and every one of us will be able to say, I'm in the Lord's army. Cara's doing the actions, aren't you?

[30:48] Well done. Okay, so make sure that every one of us can say that we are in the Lord's army. Okay, so thank you for listening. We're going to close in a word of prayer.

[31:00] Heavenly Father, we give thanks for the beauty of this armor, that it is able to protect us against the wiles of the devil, and help us, Lord, to put it on each and every day, to put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, those shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and to take up the sword of the spirit, that we might hold it firm and stand firm against our greatest enemy, O Lord, protect us each and every one.

[31:31] Bless the children, we pray, and we pray, Lord, that these things would be sown in their heart, that it would bring fruit to thine own glory. Guide us, we ask, and go before us, for Jesus' sake.

[31:43] Amen. We're going to sing now in Psalm 46. Psalm 46.

[31:55] That's page 271. Psalm 46. We're singing from verse 8 down to the end of the psalm. Psalm 46.

[32:13] And then after this, I'll do the benediction, and then I'll come down and we'll do the prize giving. So you're all going to get your prizes from Sunday school this year. You've been so good and working so hard.

[32:26] So Psalm 46 from verse 8. Come and behold what wondrous works have by the Lord been wrought. Come see what desolations he on the earth hath brought. Unto the ends of all the earth, wars into peace he turns.

[32:38] The bow he breaks, the spear he cuts, then fire the chariot burns. Down to the end of the psalm of Psalm 46. To God's praise. Is this phrase by the May the Lord be brought, and see what desolations he on the earth hath grown.

[33:23] On to the ends of all the earth, Washington peace he turns.

[33:39] The holy grace the spear he cuts, in fire the child burns.

[33:56] Be still and hope that I am gone above the heaven I will be exalted.

[34:18] I will be exalted high.

[34:30] Our God who is the Lord of hosts, is still upon her side.

[34:47] The God of Jacob's earth, refuge for death, the rare life.

[35:05] The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, now and forevermore. Amen.