Ephesians 6 | Why Every Christian Needs the Armor of God

Ephesians 6 concludes the epistle with powerful teachings on spiritual warfare and Christian conduct. The chapter starts by emphasizing the importance of family relationships, urging children to obey their parents and fathers to nurture their children in the Lord without provoking them to anger. The chapter then addresses the relationship between bondservants and masters, presenting a radical perspective that, while not condemning slavery outright, calls for mutual respect and recognition of each person’s value before God. This reflects the broader theme of unity and equality in Christ.

The most notable section of Ephesians 6 is the description of the "Armor of God." Paul uses vivid imagery to illustrate the spiritual tools that believers must equip themselves with to stand against the devil’s schemes. Each piece of armor symbolizes an essential aspect of the Christian faith: truth, righteousness, readiness to spread the gospel, faith, salvation, and the word of God. This armor underscores the reality of spiritual warfare and the need for constant vigilance and prayer, as the struggles believers face are not merely physical but deeply spiritual.

Paul's concluding remarks emphasize the importance of prayer and alertness, urging believers to pray for one another and for boldness in proclaiming the gospel. He also introduces Tychicus, who will inform the Ephesians about Paul’s circumstances, showing the interconnectedness and support within the early Christian community. The chapter ends with a benediction of peace, love, and grace for all who love Jesus Christ.

This chapter reinforces the practical application of faith in daily life, whether in familial relationships, work environments, or spiritual battles. It challenges believers to recognize the spiritual nature of their struggles and to rely on God's strength and armor to live victoriously. Ephesians 6 serves as a powerful reminder that the Christian life is one of both active service and spiritual warfare, grounded in the truth of the gospel.

#ArmorOfGod #Ephesians6 #SpiritualWarfare #ChristianFaith #BiblicalTeaching #ChristianLiving #FamilyValues #Prayer #GospelTruth #GodsPlanYourPart

Transcript

 Ephesians 6

Ephesians 6

[00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Welcome to God's plan. Your part year two, where this year we're reading through and studying the entire new Testament one chapter at a time. Thanks again for joining us in discovering God's plan and your part in it. Today, we are closing out the book of Ephesians. It is. Fairly short and sweet.

Um, we've covered it in a little over a week and we are closing out the household code that we talked about yesterday. There's some things to dive into that. Uh, we also are talking about the whole armor of God, which is probably a very popular Bible school theme. , it's probably, if you've been around church for a long time, passage that you are aware of, uh, there's plenty here to dig into and I'm excited to do it today.

Yep. Continuation from yesterday's conversation. We're shifting now from children and parents, bondservants, and masters. So we're going to see more examples of unity at work. And again, we referenced the whole armor of God yesterday as being kind of like an example for husbands and wives. And I think that that is actually really important, but also I think it's a good example [00:01:00] for all things, all, all situations seeking unity.

And then finally, we just end with Paul's sayonaras. One of the things we talked about yesterday is that, uh, the, it was very common in Roman cultures to have a household code and the men, the husbands and fathers were always like the ultimate power brokers in the family and essentially the way you.

We're honoring is you just did whatever they said and they held power over everyone. Um, there is another really unique Christian take on a household. In this chapter, you see in chapter six that children are supposed to obey their parents. That's not super surprising. Uh, but if you look at verse four, fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

I think it's very important to highlight. And it's another one of those deals where like, if you. Over highlight one side without recognizing the other, you're probably doing injustice to this passage. So if you are someone who's [00:02:00] constantly reminding your kids, uh, that they are meant to obey you in the Lord, it's not necessarily a bad thing, uh, but if you forget that you're not supposed to provoke your children to wrath, and that you are expected to be bringing them up in discipline that comes from the Lord, like, You're, you're missing a significant part of this chapter and it, it's not an easy task.

Um, we have several children. Um, it's not always easy, uh, to not provoke them to, to anger. I think it says anger. It's wrath in my head, probably from King James stuff, but, um, it's not easy to not provoke your kids. And if you have kids, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Well, even sometimes you, like, want to feel justified in how you are, like, how you're saying, like, well, you need to obey me, period, bottom line.

And that is true, but at the same time, like, I know myself, I have very high expectations of my children. And sometimes it's, like, out of [00:03:00] my own desires for what I want from them, not necessarily only what God wants from them. Like, I can be Overwhelming, I've heard. I'm reminded of the passage in James. I don't, I don't have chapter and verse off the top of my head, but there's a passage in James that essentially says the, uh, the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

And it's, it's been a very helpful verse to me for a very long period of my life. Just basically reminding me that you can't anger somebody into following God's design for their lives. Like you can't yell someone into being convinced or, you know, like, um, They just become very, like, bitter or, like, have something odd against you and I, I don't know.

I definitely struggle with that. I think that's been something that I have struggled with as a child too, so, um, just like weird stuff of, it feels like you obey, period. And sometimes there's like goofiness that goes along with it. Love my parents, but there's, there was goofy [00:04:00] stuff like that. Well, again, children are expected to obey their parents, but parents are expected to not provoke their children to anger and to bring them up in the instruction of the Lord.

So that is disciplining them when they are doing wrong, but it's also, ensuring that they are, uh, learning who God is and they are following the example that you set to, to follow God. So that's my encouragement to parents. And we feel the weight of that as well. I think we talked about that a lot. Um, we, we just want to do that.

Like the, the primary disciple. Maker, uh, in the household is the parents and, and it's, it is something I'd like to point out that like your youth pastor is not going to disciple your kids. Your kids ministry pastor is not going to disciple your kids. Um, you need to do that because all of those other people, the teacher at school or, you know, whatever it is, they might disciple them, but there's nothing that That they can do that a parent that's exactly better, they will support whatever you are already doing.

So if you were [00:05:00] discipling your kids, well, a really great teacher is going to help you a lot with that. Um, but the reality is a really great teacher is going to just move on the next year to some other kid or a really great. Kids pastor is going to be, you know, moving on eventually. So you cannot be replaced.

Like you are called if you're a parent to disciple your children. And my invitation to you is to take that very seriously. Um, so moving on there, there's a section on bond servants and masters. I think it's worth touching on that because it can be very controversial. Um, this is talking about essentially.

household servants. Um, it's basically slavery. Now, the reason I hesitate to say slavery is because it does not, it would not have looked like, um, what comes to our minds as, you know, it's like financial things. Like, I'm gonna sell my, like myself out to work for you so that I can repay. Is that the idea? So Ancient Hebrew slavery was a [00:06:00] financial tool to actually give people financial stability and financial promotion.

And it was not chattel slavery that Americans are very familiar with from the, you know, early 17, 18 hundreds. Um, this is Roman slavery. It's not exactly like ancient Hebrew slavery. Um, but they are like live in household servants. And the reason that they're included in this is because a lot of these folks were just Part of the family and they were, they were expected to be servants.

I don't want to sugarcoat it, but they were also seen as valuable parts of their family. And, and a lot of times, um, there would not have been like the incredible violence and incredible mistreatment that we associate with 17, 1800s slavery that I know was not just in the United States, but, um, that's what comes into my mind is this is different.

Now, the other thing I want to point out is that. There are study. Bible makes the case that at this time in Ephesus, [00:07:00] probably one third of the population were people that were household servants. So it was very, it was a significant amount of people. And we can be fairly confident that the early church had household servants.

Sitting next to their masters, worshiping together at the same level. And that would have been very unique. What I do want you to notice from this passage is that he does say like, Hey, if you're a, if you're a servant, you obey your master. Um, but again, there's this unique Christian spin on things because he also has expectations on the masters.

And if you look at it, It's no small thing. Masters is verse nine. Masters do the same to them and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven and that there is no partiality with him. He's essentially saying like you are equal. And God sees you the same. This is a very scandalous thing for Paul to say.

So if you don't catch that context, um, you will be misled by people [00:08:00] that say the Bible endorses slavery. That's not true. It doesn't. And that is actually clear from the context of this passage. Now, granted, Paul, I guess could have said like free all the slaves, but he didn't, um, he, he essentially said like, Hey, treat these people with respect and care for them and, you know, bring them up.

I think Paul is trying to, uh, help this culture, understand what it means to honor Christ. And if the masters would have taken this seriously, um. It would not have been a contentious relationship. Well, I don't know if you want to keep going. No, that's that. Yeah. Um, but then we move into the whole armor of God, the full armor of God, whatever you want to call it.

Um, and I think this opens up really, really well. Verse 10, finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might for actually it's verse 11 as well, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. So I love this because [00:09:00] it's like. It's like the whole entire, like the entire get up of how to keep yourself prepared against whatever the devil may set against you.

And I do like the, the one verse that refers to flaming darts. Um, so when darts apparently back in the day, uh, they set them on fire and when they were You know, shot at other things, they would catch fire to whatever it was, but it was common practice to like cover your shield specifically in wet leather.

That's what our Bible, our study Bible tells us. So that if the arrows hit it, they like have absolutely no effect. So I love this visual of having this shield, uh, the shield represents in verse 16, uh, the shield of faith, uh, which can extinguish all flaming arrows of the evil one. And to me. Like actually having faith, knowing what we believe and being grounded in that is like, it almost seems like the first defense, like that [00:10:00] is the strongest one.

And I really do. I don't know. I just really appreciate that one the most, because it feels like that should be what we stand firm in first, first and foremost. Um, and all the other pieces obviously have significance too, but I just, I really appreciated that one and like the prominence, I guess, that it has.

Um, because this is a spiritual battle that we face as well. So it just, I don't know, that one stuck out to me. I like that you're pointing out that this is a spiritual battle. This is another passage from Ephesians that I like to think about often. Um, because I like being reminded that many of the problems that we encounter seem like they're physical problems, but they're actually spiritual problems.

If you look at verse 12, he says, for, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood and think about the things that they were encountering. Like. It's pretty hard for Paul to preach that he's not wrestling against flesh and blood when actual flesh and blood people are throwing stones at him, are beating him, like, and for him to make this [00:11:00] statement is significant for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers or the present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

He's saying. We fight a spiritual war and we need to fight a spiritual war with spiritual means. It is very tempting for me, even still today, to be drawn into personal physical wars. Now I'm not fist fighting people, but it's easy for me to think that person, if they would just figure it out, then they would be a better person.

And anytime I come into a situation, um, Like essentially drawn into personal conflict, I tend to forget to pray for that person. I tend to forget to seek the Lord for wisdom about that person. I tend to ignore what the Holy Spirit is revealing to me about that person. And so it's, it's a really helpful reminder, um, that we don't want to fight personal battles.

We want to fight spiritual battles and we have unique ways of doing that. [00:12:00] It's, it's not a violent struggle. It's a spiritual. Um, armor of God. So I really like, like I said about the, the shield of faith is that it does seem to be like that, it feels like the first line of defense in a way. And I think if you think about your own struggle, if that is something that is pretty easy for you to do, um, not you specifically, Ryan, but just anyone.

Um, if that is something that's easy to do to fall into those thoughts or even those Actual actions. I just envision like, what does your shield look like when an arrow hits it? Like, is it, is it like this wet covered shield that's ready to like douse out anything that comes their way? Do you even have a shield?

Um, is yours just your arm that's like in your face, like keeping you protected, but actually just, you know, catching whatever else on fire, because all of these things work together in order that we could be unified. Um, and that we are able to confront these different things as they come up. Um, so it just, I, I think of what does it look like [00:13:00] when those arrows hit my shield or my lack of shield, um, and how does that look in my own life?

How do I, how do I make that shield more prominent? I keep thinking of the story of Gideon. Didn't you, didn't you teach the kids about Gideon this week? We just learned about Gideon. Yep. And, uh, our, our kids were really wound up and like drawn to the story because essentially like Gideon was expecting to lead a physical army.

And the story of Gideon is that Started out with thousands. Yeah. God just kept being like, nah, cut it down. Nah, cut, cut your numbers down. Cut your numbers down. Especially like the fact that God said, when, when your men go to get a drink, Yeah. The ones that drink. The water, like dogs have to go home. I'm sure there's motions with that and everything.

Um, but what's interesting about that particular story is it makes sense that Gideon thought that he was going to be fighting like a kinetic physical battle with soldiers. Well, they weren't even allowed to take weapons. Exactly. And God was like, no, just trust me. And let me handle this. And so they, they handled [00:14:00] what looked to be a physical battle with spiritual means and God caused the enemy to fight themselves and destroy themselves.

And so, and you know, I think that is a powerful example of what it looks like. To trust God to handle problems. And I do think we'd be in a much better place. And I am speaking for myself, I would be in a much better place. So we're dealing with some, some struggles right now. Uh, I would be in a much better place if my primary form of handling that is.

Seeking the Lord in prayer and asking the Lord for wisdom and asking the Lord to move. And, and it's not that I don't do that, but I'm sure I could do it more. And it could be my first response and not like my 10th or 11th or, uh, the thing that I finally do when my wife looks at me on the couch and says, have you prayed about that?

I've had that conversation a couple times, but overall, I would say it's really cool to look through all of these pieces of the whole armor of God and really resonate with, like, it. All of them, like [00:15:00] which one of these, um, I don't know, are you potentially feeling like maybe there's a lack of, or things that are really, um, I guess like going well for you.

That sounds kind of silly, but, um, I, it is really cool to think about each of these pieces as just being prepared for whatever the devil will throw at you, because he will continue to do it, whether you feel like you're on top of the world or you're falling to pieces. Um, so being prepared in this is really cool.

And I like how Paul encourages them with that. Right. Before he closes out. So what do you think would be a good, your part for the end of Ephesians and this final chapter? I love the idea of what I just talked about. Like, remind yourself, remind yourself constantly that you're not fighting a physical battle.

Like you are not at war with another person. You need to seek the Lord and you need his wisdom and his guidance. You need, um, discernment from the Holy spirit, uh, to deal with things like a lot of times, even just looking at the world, it's like, Oh man, I wish the world would be more [00:16:00] Christian. Like that's, that's, that's.

Yeah, I do wish that and that's a spiritual thing. So spiritual problems tend to have spiritual solutions. Uh, let's, let's seek the Lord. Let's put on the full armor of God and trust, uh, that he will do the work. Uh, much like Gideon had to trust that he would. He would do the work. So I have thoroughly enjoyed the book of Ephesians.

It's always been one of my favorite books of the Bible, and I've enjoyed walking through it on the podcast. We will be back again tomorrow and we will be starting Philippians, which is just as good. So we'll see you then. Hey guys, if you enjoyed the episode today and are enjoying God's plan, your part, we would love it if you could help us in two ways.

First, if you would Give us a rating and review for our podcast. We would really appreciate that. And second, tell your friends, tell all your people that you rub shoulders with every day, uh, to listen to the podcast and also give us ratings and reviews as well. That being said, here is the reading for today.

Ephesians chapter 6 Children, obey your parents [00:17:00] in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, this is the first commandment with a promise, that it will go well with you, and that you may live long in the land. Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Bond servants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling. With a sincere heart as you would Christ. Not by the way of I service as people pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with goodwill as to the Lord and not to man knowing that whatever good anyone does this, he will receive back from the Lord.

Whether he is a bond servant or is free. Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening. Know that he who is both their master and yours in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the [00:18:00] devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication. Amen. To that end, keep alert with the perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me, and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for [00:19:00] which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

So that you may also know how I am and what I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will tell you everything. I have sent him to you for the very purpose. That you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts peace be to the brothers and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace, be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love Incorruptible. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of God's Plan, your part. Don't forget, you can find us on just about every social media platform and YouTube. Let us know what you thought of today's episode, and if you have any questions, go ahead and post them there.

You can also reach out to us directly at godsplanyourpartatgmail. com. As always, if you don't have a Bible, or if you'd like to use the one that we use, uh, reach out to us via email and we'll be happy to send one to you. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you again [00:20:00] tomorrow.