The Full Armour of God 3

standard footwear issue for the Roman
soldier was the simple sandal and we saw
that the sandal for that soldier served
a three-fold purpose number one to
protect the soldiers feet number two to
provide solid footing and number three
to enable quick movement each one of
those we saw as a spiritual significance
in that they correspond to the
provisions that God has made in Christ
to help us remain faithful to God in our
walk with him regardless of what the
devil throws at us and so we saw last
week first of all that in Christ God has
made provision so that our walk will not
be compromised look carefully then how
you walk says the Apostle Paul not as
unwise men but as wise making the most
of the time because the days are evil in
Christ God has provided provision so
that we don't get entangled in
relationships that will will tear us
away from our faithfulness and our
loyalty to jesus and then we saw that in
Christ God has made provision so that we
can stand firm and hold our ground be on
your guard 1 Corinthians 16 13 stand
firm in the faith be men of courage be
strong to Stanford means to occupy your
ground regardless of the pressure that
comes at you it's to remain faithful to
the Lord whether you feel up or whether
you feel
on whether the people around you agree
with you or disagree with you it is
simply to stand where God has planted
you and last week you will recall we
looked at the first two of three areas
in today's society where it is
particularly important for God's people
to stand first the first of that that we
looked at was the authority of Scripture
has God said Satan will constantly
challenged the authority of God and the
second that we looked at was the
centrality of the cross there is no
other way of salvation but through Jesus
and his death and his resurrection that
brings us this morning then to still a
third place where the Lord invites us to
stand I introduced it very briefly last
week want to look at it with you in some
more detail this morning and that is to
leave out our faith biblically Ephesians
4 1 verse i quoted some time ago Paul
speaking to the Ephesians he says as a
prisoner for the Lord then I urge you to
live a life worthy of the calling you
have received to live a life worthy of
the calling that you have received and
when we looked at that verse in some
detail a while back I pointed out to you
that from God's perspective in Christ we
are seated in heavenly places God's
intention for us is to echo the values
of heaven Colossians 3 i believe it is
Paul talks about if you are seated with
Christ in heavenly places then put on
the values of heaven that's one of the
jobs of the church today God wants us to
live out our faith in practical everyday
reality
and the reason for that's threefold god
is holy so he wants us to be holy but
more than that he wants us to be salt
and light in the world every time you
and I refused to laugh at somebody dirty
joke we serve as salt in stopping
corruption each time you and I refused
to compromise our integrity and model
holy Christian living before family and
friends we serve as light we are letting
the light shine that there is an other
way of living than what the world is
living that's what God is looking for
because that's how the kingdom spreads
now you can appreciate that the devil
absolutely hates God's people living out
their faith in the real world and the
reason for that is that it exposes his
darkness and so he will do everything
that he can to dilute our salt to stop
us from being effective in stopping the
corruption around us and he'll do
everything that he can to dim our light
and one of the ways in which he does
this especially in this day and age i
believe is by encouraging us to
privatize our faith and what I mean by
privatize our faith is he tries to let
us buy into this notion that faith is a
personal thing a crutch that we lean on
on the inside but that shouldn't come to
expression on the outside and it
shouldn't dictate to us how we live
and he has been I think extremely
effective in that because when he
succeeds in that then he creates this
huge credibility gap this credibility
gap between who we are in christ and
what we profess to be and how we live
over here and of course the world has
got huge hypocricy tentacles that they
measure and if they can see that kind of
a gap it destroys the effective witness
of god's people let me read you some
statistics these are from a new book
that I hope will come out in the next
couple of months on the book of James
called when when trouble strikes how to
handle the losses in your life and this
is from chapter 12 a chapter that's
entitled faith that works and i quote a
series of statistics here illustrating
the schizophrenic nature of North
American society and I give some
statistics here they are ninety percent
of north american adults profess to
believe in god eighty-five percent would
call themselves christian eighty-five
percent believe in heaven and
sixty-three percent believe that the
Bible is the authoritative Word of God
pretty good so far right now listen to
the actual practice only fifteen percent
of people who profess to be Christian
would declare that God is their highest
priority so much for loving the Lord
your God with all of your heart soul
strength of mine just for the record
sixteen percent profess to read the
Bible with any measure of regularity so
much for believing it to be the
authoritative Word of God and only
twenty-nine percent these are u.s.
figures i'm sure canadian figures are
much lower only twenty-nine percent
claim to attend church regularly and as
i said
I'm sure that doesn't it's a lot lower
in Canada now that's the adult
population let me give you stats for the
youth sixty percent of youth who go to
church call themselves committed
Christians sixty-six percent of these
declare the Bible to be the Word of God
and forty-three percent are active in
the local church pretty good yeah well
seventy-three percent of youth surveyed
indicated that they have been involved
in occult activity does not include
reading horoscopes when you include that
figure it climbs to eighty percent and
twenty-five percent of that group order
their lives by reading horoscope
interesting fifty percent of such youth
will have had sex by the time they're 18
and then this one this one really blows
me out of the water only nine percent
profess to believe in moral absolutes
that is to say some things are always
right are always wrong by a biblical
standard nine percent of the kids
surveyed many of which go to church
believe there is no such thing as
absolute right or absolute wrong why
because we live in a culture that says
right or wrong is what you make it and
what everybody else around you says that
it is so Satan has had considerable
success in trying to create a gap
between what we believe and what we
stand for and the more you strive to
stand for some particular biblical value
the more the pressures of society come
against you because you're standing
nobody cares what you believe as long as
you don't practice
what you believe give you another
example I don't know how many of you
have followed in the news the story of a
professor Jordan Peterson at the
University of Toronto he's gotten
himself in a lot of hot water because he
refuses to be politically correct and
he's been addressing a federal bill
called c16 which has just had second
reading in Parliament but you never
heard of it fair to say bill 16 is
federal legislation that would alter the
Canadian Human Rights Code and the
Criminal Code making it illegal to
discriminate on the basis of gender
identity or expression you get that
gender identity is as you know I
self-identify as something other than my
biological identity right biologically I
may be a boy but inside I'm a girl so I
want you to call me by my girl named I
don't want you to discriminate against
me because I have chosen to adopt one of
what is now 50 or 60 different
identities their our society embraces
well professor Jordan Peterson has had
the courage to say at a university level
I refuse to call you by any other
pronoun than what your biological gender
would indicate if you're a boy i'm going
to call you he and if you're a girl i'm
going to call you shay and that's got a
whole bunch of students up in arms it's
got the University on his case because
it no longer makes the classroom safe
for people who are struggling with
gender identity issues I haven't heard
the outcome but there was
a big public debate I believe at the
University of Toronto just yesterday and
I'm very curious to see what the results
of that were he's in hot water over all
of this but he's particularly upset
because in a university setting you're
supposed to be allowed to debate a
variety of issues and have free speech
whether people agree with you or
disagree with you as a dawn if bill 6 c
16 passes as i understand it if i say to
you i want my name is give me a good
feminine thing jocelyn well we have a
Jocelyn here so anyway no matter what
name we pick it's going to be somebody
right but if I say this is what I want
you to call me and you're going to
address me as she and not he if you
refuse to do that you'll be criminally
liable not interesting that's the world
we live in of political correctness and
let me say again that i have great
compassion for people who struggle with
identity issues a lot of my life and a
lot of my ministry is geared to helping
people finding their true identity in
the person of jesus christ i of all
people know how big that battle is and
how great those struggles are don't call
normal what the Bible calls broken and
what the church needs to do is learn how
to stand up on the issues of the day
with love compassion but with firmness
that says here I stand I can do no other
here's a quotation that is often
attributed wrongly to Martin Luther it
actually comes from a novel written by a
lady by the name of Elizabeth Rendell
Charles she was an Anglican author the
book is called The Chronicles of the
schaumburg caught a family was published
by Nelson
I believe in 1864 but the book is set in
the 1500s and this quotation which is
often attributed as I say to Martin
Luther she actually places in the mouth
of a monk called fritz but even though
it's not a literal quotation from Martin
Luther it's an accurate reflection of
his position in terms of standing firm
and here is how it reads if I profess
with a loudest voice and the clearest
exposition every portion of the truth of
God except precisely that little point
which the world and the devil are at
that moment attacking I am NOT
confessing Christ however boldly I may
be professing Christianity where the
battle rages the loyalty of the soldier
is proved and to be steady on all the
battlefield besides is mere flight and
disgrace to him if he flinches at that
one point B men be women of courage the
devil doesn't care what you believe or
what you do as long as it doesn't impact
the world around you and to have our
feet shod with the equipment of the
gospel of peace not only means that we
try to walk without getting entangled
and tripping up so that we can walk
faithfully before the Lord it also means
that we remain standing firm on issues
like the authority of Scripture the
centrality of the cross and the
integrity of the Christian life don't
ever be one of those persons who says
well my personal position is this but I
would never speak out against somebody
else's position because everybody is
entitled to believe what they
want to believe it's not how it works
before God and I'm not suggesting we be
a rabble rousers and not suggesting we
be the extreme right crazy people to do
all kinds of crazy things but we are
called with gentleness and with
reverence to stand up for what the Bible
declares to be truth amen that said it's
not enough to walk safely it's not
enough to stand and to hold our ground
it's equally important and this might
even sound contradictory at first we
have to be flexible in our methodology
we have to be flexible in our
methodology now methodology is how we
present the gospel in a world that is
undergoing tremendous change I love the
slogan of one of our local churches i
think it's hastings park if my memory
serves me correctly they have a slogan
that i hear on the radio periodically an
unchanging message for changing times
you've probably heard it and it really
captures this issue of both standing
firm and being limber on our feet and
being able to change our position in
places where with integrity we can
change our positions because you see
historically God's people have had the
challenge of how do I remain faithful to
the gospel and not compromise where I
stand in what I believe and how I live
and at the same time how can I stay
connected to the world in such a way
that I have integrity and a hearing
among the world to win them for Jesus
and historically the church hasn't all
he's been very good at it because we
tend to fall into one extreme or another
the one extreme and you'll see this and
among a lot of Christians is to dig in
surround you know circle the wagons they
look out of the world and they see all
the stuff that is happening over there
and they're against everything that is
out there they isolate themselves in
order to keep themselves and their
children safe the problem with doing
that is that you lose any salt influence
or light influence in the world you're
just a bunch of weird people who are
living in isolation from the rest of
society true but the other extreme you
see there are other Christians who say
well we're supposed to be salt and light
so we're we're in the world let's let's
but they end up compromising their
Christian values to the point where they
stop being salt and light because
there's so much like the world they're
so anxious to win their friends to Jesus
that they compromise the gospel they
compromise the authority of Scripture
they compromise their walk with Christ
and why in the world should their
friends become Christians when they're
just as worldly as the friends are so
how do you live in the world without
being part of the world that's where you
have to know the difference between
standing firm in what you believe and
being flexible in your methodology I
love how the Apostle Paul puts it 1
Corinthians chapter 9 22 and 23 2 verse
you've heard many times it's part of a
much broader passage but he says in
these two verses I have become all
things to all men so that by all
possible means I might save some I do
all this for the sake of the gospel that
I may share
in his blessings you'll find the same
thing in Jesus there was nobody more
righteous and more holy than Jesus
you've noticed that he never compromised
ultimately cost him his life but he was
in the world without being of the world
he could rub shoulders with sinners
without catching their see him and
that's what you and I need to be able to
do we need to be able to live in the
real world rub shoulders with quote
unquote sinners without being polluted
by their seein in the hope and in the
expectation that there's something about
our life and something about our witness
that will in fact make an impact on
their lives so how do we do that to
suggestions don't know if we'll get to
the second but let me introduce the
first we need to understand the seismic
changes that have been happening in our
culture the seismic changes that have
been happening in our culture
particularly within recent years let me
see how far I can get in this but I want
to identify with you out of the many
changes that you will find in culture I
want to identify three in particular
that have a huge bearing on how we
relate to the world and why the world at
this point in time very seldom listens
to the church because the train has long
left the station the first is our
understanding and ER view of authority
our understanding under view of
authority
the biblical view of authority that is
who has the right to tell you what to do
and how to live that's what i mean by
authority the biblical view of authority
is that authority derives from God why
do you think ad arise from God because
God has this thing about I made you so I
can tell you what I want you to do
that's not conceit on God's part of just
reality God has the ultimate authority
and then he creates institutions in
leaders who are to reflect that
authority is an entry creates government
creates parents creates teachers creates
law men and women and and creates
institutions that are responsible for
for rewarding good and punishing evil
and that's what's supposed to shape the
world and how the world operates it's
not that complicated he raises up
leaders who have the ability to define
what is right and what is wrong now it's
society as a whole hasn't always honored
this there are lawbreakers and there are
rebels and there's you know prisons are
filled with people who have committed
crimes but understand this until
relatively recently in North American
society and I'd say last 30 or 40 years
even unbelievers recognized the
authority of God the authority of
Scripture and the authority of
institutions that were assigned to guard
law in order Satan doesn't like that
very much
because he knows that as long as we
honor our father and mother that is to
say honor authority figures that God has
established we will live long in the
land that God is a sign to us and so for
years and years and years every time he
has an opportunity Satan is at work
undermining the authority of God and the
leaders in the institutions that God has
ordained for the safety and for the
security of human society so first we
get rid of God because we don't longer
need him to explain the origins of life
we now have our own scientific
explanations then we get rid of the
authority of Scripture because well it's
just an other book that is the
reflection of people searches for God
historically and we all know the bible's
got all kinds of mistakes in it though
most people who claim that I've never
read the Bible enough to know what those
mistakes are but that doesn't stop them
from you know spouting that off and not
only that and I don't know if you ever
noticed this but there's been a
systematic attack on institutions that
represent Authority so generally
speaking what's our view of politicians
well they're not very high in our list
of credible people right what's the
world's view of the church particularly
after the scandals in the Roman Catholic
Church bunch of hypocrites right well it
wasn't enough to stop there if you look
carefully you will see institution after
institution has had scandal exposed to
undermine their integrity in their
authority we have the business world the
world of big business filled with crooks
who have line their own pockets at the
expense of the little guys in entry we
have sports often elevated as the
epitome of integrity and the human you
know for well we've had an out drug
scandals and enough child abuse cases in
the sport world that that glamour has
worn off just a little bit hasn't that
and then well the RCMP the police they
are people who walk with integrity until
now we discover they've been full of
filled with with sexual harassment and
abuse from one end to the other of
course then we have all these cases
coming forward of policemen shooting
black people whether just the fight or
not and the question of the police
forces are increasingly being challenged
so we have the same thing with teachers
we have the same thing with parents and
I'm not saying there isn't truth to
those claims but you understand what's
happening do you know if you can no
longer trust authority and authority
figures because of their failures and
you no longer trust God now who becomes
the high priest of what is right now
it's the individual is it not I don't
trust anybody except myself the problem
with trusting myself you may remember
from last week the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil is that when I have no
authority outside myself to tell me the
difference between right and wrong I go
by my own values but now I have the
infinite capacity of being deceived
because nobody ever listened to us
nobody ever leaves long enough to know
the outcome of their decisions long term
and so God says this tree is going to
kill you I look at this tree and I think
I'm pretty smart why should I listen to
government why should I listen to police
why should I respect parents
why should I respect teachers I know
better than the mall and so now the high
priests of wisdom I no longer the
trained leaders of society that have
been uniquely gifted by God to run the
world it's now run by every Tom Dick and
Harry who sits in front of a computer
and who searches the internet and who
thinks he's got ultimate wisdom and
ultimate truth and that becomes the
measure of what runs society you want to
see proof of that the world is still
reeling from Donald Trump's election as
everybody and his uncle all the pundits
said he'll never get nominated then when
he could nominated everybody said oh
he'll never get anywhere and that's
certainly what it looked like until
Election Day and on Election Day he
swept the electoral college votes and
he's now president-elect whether you
like him or not and of course now all
the pundits are analyzing what in the
world happened how could we miss this
well you know hindsight is always
twenty-twenty right but I'll tell you
one thing they missed of the more than
270 newspapers in the United States
Hillary Clinton was supported
editorially x 240 of them Donald Trump
was supported by forget this 19
newspapers all of those editorials were
ignored in Donald Trump one
how did he win because he used social
media do you know that forty four
percent of people in North America now
get their news daily from facebook only
two out of ten get their news from his
papers well what's the difference
between Facebook and newspapers what's
the difference between internet articles
and articles in the newspaper well at
least until recently newspaper articles
at least had to be researched because
they were liable for libel and so they
tended to be historically as accurate as
they could make them well Facebook the
internet doesn't have any of those kind
of provisions in fact there was a news
story out just this past week of some
you know high-profile internet kind of
person boasting that he helped Trump win
because he planted all these falls and
his stories in the media that everybody
passed on to everybody else truth didn't
matter because you see when you lose the
biblical concept of authority and i
become the authority then i can believe
anything that I want to believe whenever
I want and I can pass it on without any
regard for truth and make you believe it
too you see what I'm going to add
authority the view of authority in
today's society has profoundly changed
I'll give you one more hour view of
family and sexuality as profoundly
changed now we've talked about that on
and off here in the past and I don't
want to beat the horse to death what we
need to understand why we're not being
heard by society what's the biblical
view of gender and sexuality
well it's called binary you listen to
today's discussion it's all about binary
versus non binary binary is a computer
term computers are binary because all
data is either a one or a zero binary in
terms of gender means you're either a
male or a female a boy a girl a man or a
woman non-binary means you're not
restricted to those categories you can
make up your own category this is what
we've been talking about in terms of
your own gender identification which
people have been doing for a long long
time but now is being elevated into
legal positions of anti-discrimination
you cannot disagree with me if I say
what I am which doesn't fit a binary
position so from the biblical notion of
God created everybody male and female
out of that you get the traditional
model of marriage therefore a man shall
leave his father his mother cleaved his
wife that he will become one and out of
that you have a marriage commitment and
you have children and you have the
foundations of society and up until very
recently that was the understanding in
the Western world now that doesn't mean
that we have not had broken families or
divorces or families that have been
highly dysfunctional in a fallen world
they've been with us for as long as
history as it is then but understand the
difference until recently that was said
to be broken in need of healing and now
we are saying
this is normal and if you disagree with
it you are abnormal you see the
difference I want you to hear this
because this is what's happening right
under your noses and it's going to have
huge impact we've already seen it with
the Trinity Western issues with a law
society we have seen it just this past
week with cornerstone christian academy
in nappanee having to defend themselves
against the Human Rights Commission I
understand that hearing went reasonably
well it'll be months before the single
Human Rights Commissioner files her
report and only time will tell where
that goes but understand that these
changes are huge because they have a
profound effect on what life looks like
going forward not only for society but
also for the church because consider
this we've talked about how personality
is shaped and how fundamental healthy
family life is for raising a healthy
generation of children and I won't go
through all of it in detail except we've
talked about legacy making a huge
difference and that if you have trust
and autonomy and initiative and industry
and identity you can you come to a place
where you can do intimacy you know who
you are you can have a relationship you
can sustain a marriage you can love your
kids it's not just about you it's about
your children you learn how to sacrifice
and give yourself up but the more broken
society becomes the more messed up my
legacy is the more messed up my life
becomes down here now I have no idea who
I am anymore I live in isolation and we
live in a world did you know that in the
last two years
the first time in North America singles
out way married people percentage-wise
never happened before and of course a
history there's nothing wrong with being
single and there's lots of reasons
people are single you can be single for
the Gospels sake but understand that
part of the brokenness in today's
society is that our ability to form
relationships and to be men and women of
our word and to control our lusts and
our passions in our desires is all read
it in the fundamentals of what we grow
up with and that's why Satan is making
such a determined attack on the nuclear
family today in the hope and in the
expectation that he can just move into
all of these places of vacuum and drag
people to where he wants them to go
because of their pain because of their
brokenness and because of their
confusion now that's just two places
where society is changing do you
understand how those changes in society
directly affect the church not just in
terms of the people that we get to
minister to but the way that we
communicate with people that were trying
to minister to if you try to share the
gospel with your neighbor and challenge
him on his lifestyle or her lifestyle
and you say well this is what God says
in his word guess what happens I don't
believe the Bible so why should i submit
to the Bible's Authority I don't believe
in the integrity of the church so why
should i submit to the integrity of the
church why do I think you have anything
to offer me and if you try to criticize
my lifestyle family wise we talk right
past each other why do you think that in
the most recent years
the pro-life forces have made no in
roads whatsoever on the pro-choice
people because the arguments are long
laid to rest we talk right past each
other because we don't even speak the
same language and we don't have the same
values and if we're going to be salt and
if we're going to be light and we'll
talk about this more going forward lord
willing we need to be able to find the
places where people do their living and
we need to be able to identify their
places of hurt and their places of need
and then we need to be able to talk
about Jesus in those places in ways they
can understand because far from being
panicked by what is happening in today's
society it creates an unspeakable
opportunity to proclaim Jesus in ways
that are relevant and real because the
more people's lives are falling apart
the greater the stress that people are
living under the greater the confusion
that people are living under the more
important it is for you and me to love
people the way they are speak into the
lives with power and authority and to
believe that Jesus is at work and that
he is still able to save to the
uttermost those who call upon his name
that's our challenge that's why God
you