Ephesians 6:17-24 Prepared for Battle

Jimmy begins by discussing Mother's Day and the importance of mothers in our lives. He shares personal anecdotes about his own mother and the lessons she taught him. He then transitions to talking about a recent incident involving his son getting hit by a car and how the experience reinforced the power of faith and scripture. He mentions the importance of the Bible as the sword of the Spirit and how it can help us overcome Satan's devices. The speaker emphasizes the role of prayer in the Christian life and how it is essential for equipping and standing firm in the spiritual battle. He concludes by discussing the concept of praying in the Spirit and the role of the Holy Spirit in our prayer life. Well, good morning. Well, did you enjoy Randy this morning? He said it just like I wrote it. I thought it was good. All right. Well, we're going to finally finish Ephesians. Brother Jack, I have this plan that we'll go through these books and we'll go two lessons per chapter. But this will be our third lesson on this chapter, so we're a little slow on this today. But I wrote a little something, put something together about Mother's Day and printed it up. You may have gotten it coming in. If not, get it going out. A lot has changed about Mother's Day. Many of you can identify when we used to wear red or white flowers on Mother's Day. Yeah. And if our mother was alive, we wore red flowers. If she had passed away, we wore a white flower. We've got way past that now, and we don't do that anymore. But we all owe a great debt of gratitude to our mothers. My mother lived with us for 32 years. So I lived with her for 17 and she lived with us for 32. So 49 years of my life, I had mother in my life. And it was a blessing for our kids to grow up with her in the home. Because Carol Ann and I never really knew our grandparents. Her grandparents were deceased. I saw my grandparents maybe once a year for a couple of days. So we didn't have any regular contact with them. But Mother was great to have around, great spirit. She was crippled. Many of you know she had polio when she was 10 months old. By the time she was 15, she had ridden by herself from central Arkansas to St. Louis for surgeries. Had about 15 surgeries by then. Don't know how she did that. But she was the happiest person I've ever seen. My cousin asked her one time, Aunt Lois said if you'll have to go to a rest home someday. What are you going to think about that? She said, well, I probably won't like it. But if I go, I'm going to be the happiest person there. And she was. And she lived by a simple rule. Don't say anything bad about anybody else. I told her one day, I think you'd have something good to say about the devil. She said, well, he is a hard worker. She always kept us on our toes. I gave Carol Ann a little card. I told her, we both had great mothers. She's taken the best characteristics of both of them and improved on them. So she outshines our mothers by a bunch. And we're grateful for Carol Ann. She's put up with me a long time. And grateful for that. Thank you, sweetheart. And Bailey, good to have you here. Bailey's the one I told you about got hit by a car here a few weeks ago. And I learned something through that. The scariest part of the whole ordeal was the ride in the ambulance. He was hit out in Grandview, Missouri. And it was about 15 miles or more into the Baptist Hospital. And that was the scariest ride was just riding in the ambulance. But he spent several days in the hospital. Carol Ann was going to go home because he was resting. He looked at her and said, well, if you had just been hit by a car, would you want your mother to be with you in the hospital? So Carol Ann said, I got the message. So she slept on the floor that night in the hospital. But she asked him, weren't you afraid? He said, no. She said, well, why? Remember that verse we learned last week, Psalm 56:3. What time I'm afraid, I'll trust in the Lord. And I thought then, you know, I always knew the Bible was good. But I thought if the Bible could comfort and strengthen a seven-year-old kid that doesn't really understand as much as an adult might do, it's got to be pretty important. And it is that. It will work for everybody all the time. So Bailey, thanks. He is our repairman, our son, our driver, whatever we need. Every family needs a Bailey. I woke up about midnight last night, and my fire alarm was chirping. Chirp. About 20 seconds, chirp. And so when he takes us home today, he's going to come in and fix my chirper. We have people stop by wanting to do things, you know. They're advertising what they do. I already have someone that can do that. So thank you, Bailey, for being here. Well, I guess we'll get through with this today. Tell you the truth, I'm not sure where we stopped last week. Let's start w ith 17, because I think we did get through the helmet of salvation. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. I pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert. With all perseverance and intercession for all the saints, pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should. Tychicus. You know, there's some interesting names in the Bible that we don't know much about. Well, this is Tychicus. You probably not only don't recognize it, you probably don't know how to pronounce it or spell it. But there it is. Tychicus, our dearly loved brother, our cherished brother, and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me so that you may be informed. I am sending him to you for the very reason to let you know how we are and to encourage your hearts. Peace to the brothers and sisters in love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with you all who have undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ. It shows you that the Bible is meant for us Southerners. It said, Grace be to you all. So, may you all be grace-filled. Now, we'll see what we can do with it. The sword of the Spirit is the first offensive weapon that we have in the armor. All the rest of the armor that we put on as believers is defensive to help us resist things, to help us stand against things, to have victory over things. But the offense that we have is the sword of the Spirit. And the Bible is the sword of the Spirit. Hebrews 4:12 describes it as a living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the ideas and thoughts of the heart. In other words, it cuts through the veneer of our lives. It cuts through the veneer of Satan's devices. And Satan is no match for the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. And it is the very breath of God, the Word of God. It's interesting. When Jesus was tempted, he answered Satan every time with Scripture. Every time. He quoted Scripture. It's a good lesson for us. One mother told her son, she said, when somebody comes to the door and you don't know who it is, well, just send Jesus to the door. He'll go for you. The Word of God. Jesus is the Word. And we have his Word and he blesses it. But even having the Word of God, notice that we're dependent upon prayer. You can read the Bible, get a lot out of it, but you need to be prayerful if you're to get the most out of it. For he said so simply there in that 17th verse and following it, we ought to pray at all times in the Spirit. So we are dependent upon prayer. Everything about our lives, we have every tool necessary. We have the armor. But without prayer, it's not effective. We need prayer. We need to be firm, to stand firm in prayer, take up the sword of the Spirit prayerfully. Prayer is how we call on God's strength for the battle. All true prayer is in the Spirit. We come to God the Father through the Son by the Spirit. So it's the Holy Spirit who is released through prayer. And all the battle that we're in as Christians, and I keep reminding you, remember Romans 7. We're all in a battle. And Paul here talks about how to be equipped for the battle and how to stand in the battle, how to have victory in the battle. But prayer is the air that the Christian soldier breathes. We have to pray. It is all pervasive strategy. When the battle is intense, pray. Pray or faint, you'll do one of the two, but pray. Pray at all times. This is the climax of the books now. The climax of the book. Prayer fits everything together in the Christian life. It's interesting, Ephesians begins in the heavens, chapter 1, verse 3, and it ends up pulling us down to our knees in prayer. God's armor is not enough without prayer. He talks about continuous prayer here. Prayer here is the Greek word for just general request, which tells us God's interested in anything you're interested in. Anything that's of concern to you is of concern to God. So we pray. We make requests known to him. And it focuses on God's power and sufficiency. Satan trembles when the child of God gets on his knees. We can't handle it by ourselves. We need to be in prayer. There are four alls here. There's all times in the Spirit. There's never a time when it's not appropriate to pray. Every time. No time when it's inappropriate to pray. There's no time that God doesn't hear prayers. You never get a busy signal when you pray. He's always listening, always there. And all prayers must be in the Spirit. That's important because the Holy Spirit makes effective our prayers. Otherwise, we'd just be saying prayers instead of praying. There's a big difference. Prayer is the most spiritual exercise we can engage in. Praying in the Spirit. We're not talking here about ecstatic speech. The Holy Spirit does not overpower our mental faculties. He directs us to pray, but he never makes us pray or dominates our prayers. The Holy Spirit is God's assurance that he hears our prayers. I won't get into that. If someone tells me they have a prayer language, that's fine. None of my business what you do to God privately. But he does tell us how it ought to express itself or not express itself. We have limitations on the languages that God gives us to pray. I don't believe this is talking about some kind of ecstatic utterance. Many times we don't even know what's being said. Just praying in the Spirit. Praying in the relationship with the Spirit. The Spirit is in us. He wants to live through us. Randy said it well. God doesn't want us to do something for him. He wants to come in us and do something through us. That's what the Holy Spirit does. So pray. Every confession, adoration, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, praise. In every prayer we are confident that God is sufficient and God will hear our prayers. Oh, and stay alert. The thing that's interesting, in the middle of this own prayer he says stay alert. I'm not sure what all he might be thinking about. He might be thinking about the time when the disciples went to sleep when Jesus told them to pray. He may be remembering back to things he heard about that night in Gethsemane. But stay alert. Literally, that word means lying sleeplessly. Now, insomnia can be a gift from God. When you can't go to sleep, pray. Satan hates for you to pray. He might let you go to sleep when you pray. That's okay too. But he says stay alert. And Jesus himself said in Luke 21, be alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man. So all prayer. And stay alert in prayer. With all perseverance and inheritance, don't give up. Keep at it. Don't stop praying. Most of us are old enough to have witnessed the conversion of an older person whose mother or wife or friend would say, I've been praying for him for 40 years. What if they prayed 30 years and gave up? Keep praying. Be persistent. It's a gift that God gives you to be able to communicate with him. And be persistent in prayer, Romans 12 says. Philippians 4:6 says, don't worry about anything but in everything through prayer and petition. With thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 1 Thessalonians 5 says pray constantly. Acts 2 gives us the pattern of the early church praying. Intercession, praying specifically for specific people. And then he says pray for all the saints. Now elsewhere, Paul tells us how to pray for unbelievers, for government leaders. And so here he says pray for all the saints. Spiritually healthy persons ought to be devoted to praying for the welfare of other believers. That's what he's telling us. It's a specific prayer. Pray for me, he said. Now he didn't pray for good health. He didn't pray when he was asked. It's not a selfish prayer. He said pray for me that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth and I'll have the courage and the boldness to speak it clearly. So he wanted to be anointed for his assignment. Specific prayer. I keep thinking of Lynn Byers. Lynn was a dear, dear friend. Many, many years. If they weren't here when we came, they got here pretty quickly. But I remember him for one thing. Bill Anderson and I were doing the thing we did every summer for about five years. He'd preach one night, and I'd preach the next night in June. And I was getting ready to preach, and they had Lynn pray. So Lynn is praying for me as I get up to preach. He said, Lord, bless Brother Jimmy. Anoint him, whatever that means. And then he went on and finished his prayer. He had such a simplistic faith. He knew the anointing was good. He wasn't sure what it was. I'm not sure what it is either, but I sure know what it's not. So every one of us who preach knows what it's like when the anointing's there. We also know what it's like when it's not there. And you know the good news? Even when it's not there, God still blesses. The two worst sermons I ever preached, they were bad sermons. Acts 5.32 and the Ten Commandments, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. I was preaching through the Ten Commandments. In San Antonio, I preached on where his witnesses of these things. I was so proud of that sermon. It was so terrible. And yet when I gave the invitation, if I could have sneaked out the side, I would have just left. But I said, well, it says invitation, so I better give the invitation. We had a young man shoot out like he'd been fired out of a shotgun. First down the aisle, got saved, gloriously saved. We've been praying for him for several years. And the other was in Kansas City. Now, how many people can get saved with a poor sermon on remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy? When I got through, here came one of our men whose wife had been saved and we baptized her. Got saved. Two bad sermons. You know, isn't it good that God blesses us in spite of us? Do you know that God doesn't bless any of us because of us? You know, there's no reason for any of us to get big headed. God blesses. Someone said God can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick. And he really can. So the anointing of God, in the spirit of God, praying, pray for me. You know, that's hard to say. One of my most vivid memories, someone mentioned Jacksonville to me here a while ago. We're going to talk about Jacksonville here one of these days. When God really got a hold of my heart, as a teenager, my 13, 14 year old, I had several friends that we were really good friends, prayed together. But I had something on my heart, I don't even remember what it was, but I wanted to ask one of those friends to pray for me. It was the hardest thing I ever did to say those three words, pray for me. But it was good. I'm glad I did say it. But, you know, it's just hard for us to sometimes ask for prayers. So Paul, as a great Christian and minister, church planner, missionary, theologian, 13 books in the New Testament he wrote. Even Paul, the great apostle, said pray for me. Pray for me. Specifically. So we probably would all be better if when we had some need, there was somebody, and we all have somebody we know, that we could just say pray for me. And we know they would. Very, very important. So that's what he told me. It was a purposeful prayer. Purposeful prayer. Open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. That was the focus of it. Boldness to declare the gospel clearly. He said, I'm an ambassador in chains. Now, chains could not change the fact that he represented Jesus Christ. Whenever he moved his arms, his chains rattled. He was very aware of the enemy's opposition. But prayer would enable him to face opposition. And so he prayed. And in verses 19 and 20, both verses mention boldness. He prayed for boldness. And included in boldness in this prayer, he wanted it to be clear. He didn't want it to be confusing. You know, we have a tendency, if somebody explains something and it's really complicated and we don't understand it, we think he's really smart because we couldn't understand it. Well, the truth is, if you're really smart, you can speak where people can understand you. That's why academia is such a paradox today. Professors, they have more degrees than they have temperature. We need to be bold and speak clearly so people can understand us. And that's what he's talking about. Paul was Christ's ambassador in Athens, in Antioch, in Paphos, in Philippi, Corinth, and Crete. Now he's in chains. But he's still the dauntless ambassador for Christ. Satan could not change that. It was not a selfish prayer because he was praying for the furtherance of the gospel. Now, in verse 21, we see he turns now to the compelling love and service. Here's where we meet Tychicus. Now, Tychicus was a native of Asia Minor, according to Acts 20, verse 4, possibly from Ephesus. He delivered a lot of messages for the Apostle Paul. He delivered the epistles of Ephesians to Ephesus and to Colossae. He delivered that message. By the way, I don't know of any record Paul ever went to Colossae. But he wrote a letter to Tychicus was the messenger that took that message to Colossae. He accompanied Paul on his third missionary journey. He was with Paul in his first imprisonment. And when Paul took the gift that the churches of Asia Minor gave for the church in Jerusalem, and he went back to Jerusalem to give it to him, Tychicus was the one who went with him. So here he is. And see how he's described. He's described in verse 21 as a cherished or dearly loved brother. Now, the family of God makes brothers and sisters out of all believers. We're brothers and sisters. Some become beloved, beloved family, beloved brothers, even nearer than flesh and blood. But not only is he cherished and dearly loved, he was a faithful servant. It's the word for deacon, diakonos. He was an active servant. Saul had chains on his arms. John Phillips says Tychicus had chains on his heart. I like that. He had chains on his heart. People like Tychicus are invaluable to the work of God. You don't hear much about him. The only time we are acquainted with him is in relation to delivering messages for Paul. And then Colossians 4, 7 has the word sunnulos, slaves with, fellow slave. Two titles that are Hall of Fame titles for believers. Beloved brother and faithful servant. This is what Tychicus was. Can't get any better than that. Those are titles of nobility in the kingdom of God. So he was a faithful servant. He was a messenger of hope according to verse 21. Because he will tell you all the news about me so that you can be informed. He was going to tell them how Paul was doing. What he needed. How they could help him. How they could pray for him. What his health was. What his finances were. What was his emotional condition. How many soldiers did he win to Christ? You know, Philippians talks about the saints in Caesar's household. Did you ever wonder how they got there? Paul was in chains and had Roman soldiers with him 24 hours a day. He led many of them to the Lord. They became saints in Caesar's household. He was faithful in witnessing while he was in prison. And verse 22 tells us he was a great encourager. Don't you like encouragers? People just, you feel better when they're there. Bill Anderson is like that. When I see Bill Anderson walk into a room, I just think, everything is going to be alright. I've known him 70 years. Just have that feeling. It's going to be okay. And by the way, pray for Bill. He's struggling with some things now. Doing okay, but he's not himself right now as far as strength. He wears out real easy. But this church, and certainly my life as a friend, has been greatly blessed by the faithfulness of Bill Anderson who was always an encourager. Bill Anderson recommended me to this church. When he went to Florida, he recommended me. He also was chairman of trustees and brought me to the Sun School Board. And I'd been there about 16 years and he called me one day and said, Hey bro, you need to come back. I'm here. I'm in the church. You need to come back here and get in the church too. I said, well, might as well come. You've been telling me what to do for 25 years. But he's an encourager. That's what Tychicus was. Everybody needs a Tychicus. Barnabas was that way. When they had trouble up in Antioch and they heard that the Holy Spirit was moving in Antioch among the Gentiles, the Jerusalem church was not happy about that. They sent Barnabas with Paul. Aren't you glad they sent Barnabas? What if they had sent Peter? Or one of the more volatile, James or John, who were called Sons of Thunder. They sent Barnabas. Why? He's an encourager. Everybody needs encouragement. Most important thing my dad ever told me was, be kind to everybody because everybody's having a hard time. And that's true. Tychicus is a valuable person. An encourager. The Greek word for encouragement is a word that means to come alongside. He just comes alongside you and things are better because he's there. Tychicus was a faithful servant and he went to encourage people and encourage Paul. He was an extension of Paul's own ministry and Paul's encouragement. So we meet Tychicus and just a reminder that like Onesimus, who we meet in Philemon, we don't know much about him but we just know that we're glad that they were there and that we need people like that today. The result of this is these last verses. You have peace among believers. This is a Hebrew salutation, irony. We're not at war with brothers and sisters in Christ. Disputes will arise but we're not at war with brothers. If we are, it's the wrong battle. We've never intended to be at war with one another. Peace. I said to you last week, every epistle that the Apostle Paul wrote, he greeted the church with unity, call for unity, peace and grace every single time. He did it here in Ephesians and he's come back to it now saying that if you do what we're talking about, there will be peace among believers. God desires that to be true. There will be faithful love. It's a Christian salutation. John Phillips says love is the source and faith is the force. Love reigns supreme and faith is how we take hold of it. Faith lets us embrace love. Provision for God himself, verse 23. Father, Son, co-equal, co-eternal. Paul does not emphasize God as judge, though he is. He does not emphasize God as creator, though he is. He did not emphasize that God is a holy God, though he is. Rather, he emphasized God as Father. God is our Father. A Father who loves his children. Grace, verse 24. That's a Gentile salutation. The epistle begins with grace and now it ends with grace. Grace saves us. It empowers us on the journey. It brings us safely home. Can we ever make it to heaven without the rapture, which I hope won't happen? I'm afraid none of us have to go through the things that are going to happen after the rapture, but I hope the rapture is soon. But when we get there, it will be all grace. We contribute nothing to the conversation. All we bring to God is a dirty life, and he cleanses it. The righteousness which we have is imputed righteousness. It's God's righteousness. It's Christ's righteousness. Paul elsewhere says, Christ in you, the hope of glory. It's his righteousness. But he also calls for us to seek righteousness. We're not seeking our imputed righteousness. We don't have that. He's talking about seeking a holy life. If we have been saved, if we have been redeemed, then our lives ought to reflect the holiness and the righteousness of God. We had a young man that grew up in our church in San Antonio that was visiting with us here this last fall. He and I were talking. He was retiring from pastoring the church he grew up in. He said, you know, it seems like the preachers today are afraid to call people to righteousness and holiness. I said, well, I'll have to tell you that that's not my experience. I said, all the guys I know, and I believe the Bible teaches, we're all called to be holy. But we can't be holy by ourselves. That's why God plants the Holy Spirit in us. And the Holy Spirit will be through us and will do things that we could never do on our own. We'd be helpless without him. And just as the righteousness of God by which we're saved is received, God gives it to us, the product of that is that we live lives that are exemplary of the faith that we have and the righteousness that we receive. And so grace, there it is again. And then he says, an undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ. This is not just a sentimental closing. Jesus is Lord. He is master. He is mediator. We bow before him as Lord. Our love is to be without compromise. It is faithful, devoted, undying, permanent love. And Ephesians, this may be, many people believe Ephesians is probably the greatest epistle in the New Testament. For me, it's kind of like people say, well, what is your favorite verse? Well, the one I'm reading right now. They're all precious. And I wouldn't want to have to choose between. But the epistle of Ephesians is written to the church. And we can be blessed by that and know that this is describing the unity of believers who have received the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and love him with all of our hearts. Because of that, we dwell in peace, peace with God, the peace of God in our lives. We are saved by grace. We are kept by grace. And we arrive in the new Jerusalem one day by grace. That's kind of the message of Ephesians. And we finally made it to the end. But it's a great, great book written to a great church about believers and how we ought to behave and how we ought to live. So, we finally got to the end. And I'm going to just suggest that you take what I put together on Mother's Day home and read it. It's just a little history to start with. And the conclusion is that one day a year is not enough for mothers. Really, Mother's Day ought to be every day. Because ask any mother, and they'll tell you that their work is never done. They do it every day. And we ought to be grateful for that. I think I've told you this, but when Randy, he and Elizabeth, had their first baby when Kyle was born, every day after they got home, every day for about two weeks, Randy would call Carol Ann every day and just say, thank you. I had no idea how helpless I was when I was born. And thank you for taking care of me and for raising me. Thank you. That's what our mothers do. You never saw a football player say, hi, Dad. I don't know. They always say, hi, Mom. That's what our mothers are. We cherish them and also treat them always with respect and with love. I want the last three words Carol Ann ever hears. The last three. I love you. If I could die with those words on my lip, I'd be happy. Because we ought to have undying gratitude for our Lord and for the mothers that he gave us. And I pray that you'll have a great celebration. Now, don't run out thinking you can get something to eat easy today. When we were in San Antonio, one Easter, one Mother's Day, I told Carol Ann, I said, we're going to go out and eat. We drove to the best restaurant in San Antonio and the line was around the block. The wait was hours. We drove to another one the same way. Finally, at 2.30 in the afternoon, or is it 3.30? (Carol Ann 3.15). 3.15. We stopped at the Dairy Queen and had Mother's Day lunch at the Dairy Queen. So don't think you're going to just pop into a restaurant and find a place today. So you might go to Chicken Express or something like that. Have a good one. But this is not a good day to eat out unless you have reservations. But it is a good day to always say thank you for our mothers and our gratitude to God for them. Just know that Brother Jack and I are very grateful for you allowing us to do what we do. It's a blessing to us, which is great because it doesn't matter whether you get blessed or not. I get blessed every Sunday. And especially when Jack teaches, I learn something every Sunday. But we are enjoying doing that. You realize we've been retired 18 years. So we've been in this class 18 years. And Jack's been at it a whole lot longer than that. But we are grateful for you giving us the opportunity to use the gifts that we have to prepare lessons. Because I learned a long time ago that the teacher's always blessed more than the students because the teacher has to study more. We're happy to have you too. Well, thank you. You're giving me a pleasure. I never thought I'd like to teach a Sunday school class. But it's been wonderful because nobody else seems to want me and you do. So I'm grateful for that. And so it keeps me studying. If I didn't have to study to teach, I wouldn't probably study as much as I do. So it's been great. Yeah, Brenda? I'd like to say I've not been in the class for very long. But the first time I heard you speak, it just made me well up with just such warmth and knowing that you do your stuff. And I pray that y'all live a whole lot longer because I want to hear a little more. Well, we do thank you. And we are very grateful. Jack and Barbara have been friends for about 67 years. That's a long time. Who ever thought we'd live that long? But they came to Lake Jackson in the first year after we married. That's where Carol Ann grew up. And so he came to be the minister of music and youth and education, I guess, the whole thing. And that's where we met. And it's been a joy and a delight to be able to teach along with them. And so thank you. Now, I want you to know, it is 12 minutes till 11. Don't ever expect this again. So let me pray with you. Father, thank you for our mothers that you've given to us, the influence and impact they had and still have on our lives. We're grateful. Bless each one of these mothers here, their family, their children. Thank You for them. Thank You for this time for us to study each week and just to study Your Word. We glean truth and treasure from the Bible every week. And we're grateful. And we thank You for Brother Jack. Bless him and Barbara in a special way. And thank You for always giving us another chance to serve You as the days go by. We're grateful in Jesus' name. Amen.