Spiritual Warfare – 16

THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESSOriginally preached by Dr. David Platt at

Secret Church 7 on 11/06/09

Adapted by Rev. Chas. Pendleton

for

Fitchburg Nazarene Church

July 5, 2015

(These are the Pastor’s notes. He may have said more which is not noted here. He could have ignored certain portions of these notes in our actual service.)

READ: Ephesians 6:10-14

In the “Whole Armor of God,” this is a piece of armor that is given to us.

Note that this is not a breastplate of self-righteousness.

One of the strategies of our adversary is to convince men and women all across our culture that we can be righteous on our own.

As we talk about spiritual warfare this morning, I want you to think about the righteousness mentioned in Paul’s writings from two angles.

First we will look at positional righteousness, and second, we will look at practical righteousness.

First - Positional righteousness.

Now, I’m convinced that this is huge because many, many Christians are weak in spiritual warfare because they are weak on this truth.

I know so many people who have asked Jesus just to come into their heart time and time again; over and over and over again

because they don’t know who they are in Christ.

I want you to feel the weight for a minute of Colossians 1:27.

Remember our reading of this text earlier this morning. In this passage, Paul is telling the Gentile believers at Colossi about the “glorious riches of the mystery of God” pertaining to them.

The glorious riches of the mystery….

And in verse 27, Paul tells them that this mystery is

“CHRIST IN YOU – THE HOPE OF GLORY.”

Christ is in you, brother and sister!

Christ is in you, the hope of glory!

What this verse means is that we have been given the empowered life.

We have been blessed with this spiritual blessing, which is CHRIST IN YOU… the same

as it was for those early believers in Jesus Christ.

These Colossian believers were being tempted to believe low things about Christ, false teachings about Christ.

And so Paul gave them a picture of Jesus in Colossians 1:15-20.

The image of God.

The Author of creation.

The head of the church.

The Savior of the world.

Let’s just let this soak in. Pause for a second and realize if this Christ is anywhere near you, you’re radically different.

And then… the mammoth truth of Colossians 1:27 is

- the image of God, - the Author of creation, - the head of the church and - Savior of the world …

…is living in you. He is in you!

Talk about the empowered life… the exchanged life.

Turn with me to 2 Corinthians 5. We are going to read from verse 16 thru 21.

READ 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

So, here is the whole picture.

In Christ – we are new creations. (Vs 17)

Look at verse 18

We have been reconciled to God through Christ.

What does that mean???

It means that there used to be something between us and God that separated us – namely, our sin.

But it has all been made right.

The account has been straightened out.

RECONCILLED

(Vs 21) He has taken our sin, and now we are clothed in His righteousness.

Galatians 2:20-21 tells us that we have been crucified with Christ, and that we no longer live, but it is Christ that lives in us. He died our death, and we now live His life.

Christ is in you.

READ it with me out loud.

PERSONALIZE it as Paul did. Own it! This is what God has done through our lives of faith in Christ.

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

WOW!!!

Do you get that!

This is real… it is personal, and it is the truth for every believer who has placed their faith in Christ for their salvation.

What happened when you were saved?

Christ came into you.

And in the power of the Holy Spirit, He is sealed in you.

Turn to Ephesians 1:13-14.

READ

Here we see that the Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance.

How good is your guarantee??

I don’t know about you, but mine is suspect. Oh, I mean well, but I am after all human. What about you??

But God’s guarantee – how dependable do you think that is!!

Christ is not going anywhere!

Christ is in you – is in you forever.

But here’s the beauty. Paul doesn’t just talk about how Christ is in you.

He talks even more about how you are, what?

In Christ.

Okay. Now you are in Christ.

So Christ is in you, and you’re in Christ. Things are looking pretty secure.

But the story doesn’t end there. If we actually study the scriptures which have been given to us for our edification, we see

the next level of our security in Colossians 3:3.

“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

So Christ is in God.

Christ in you.

You in Christ.

Christ in God.

Now, do you realize what this means, brothers and sisters?

If the adversary wants to come at you, first he has to get through God the Father, which he does not have a good track record of doing.

And if that were possible he would then have to get through God the Son, the one who absolutely made a public spectacle of him at the cross.

And then just assuming he can get through God the Father and God the Son, he’s still got to get through God the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ that is living in you.

Here’s the beauty: you have no reason to fear, Christian.

You have no reason to fear anything in this life, anything in this world and anything in spiritual warfare.

You are as secure as secure can get. Christ

in you is the hope of glory.

Here’s the beauty. Christ in you now means Christ in you forever.

CS Lewis said, “The goal toward which God is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection, and no power in the whole

universe except you yourself can prevent him from taking you to that goal.”

So there’s positional righteousness. This is who you are in Christ, Christ in you.

We need to live all that out. Live it out.

We need to experience the effects of that position of being “In Christ” every single day of our life.

This is what Paul’s talking about in Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3.

Your old self is dead so walk in this reality.

Jesus died for you so that He might live in you.

This is more than Jesus simply being your Savior.

Awesome as that is – Jesus is your life!

Next (and quickly) the breastplate of righteousness includes practical righteousness.

You see, God doesn’t simply pronounce you righteous because of Christ and then ignore the very real fact that you are anything but righteous!

He counts you as righteous (positional righteousness), but then makes you righteous in the process of sanctification.

He makes you like your elder brother – Christ Jesus.

Now, this “making you righteous” is not the waving of a magical wand – that’s not who God is.

The “making” is done from the inside out as the Holy Spirit – placed into every believer at salvation – works to bring us into conformity with Jesus Christ.

Turn with me to Romans 12:1-2

READ

This second verse has a lot to say about authentic spiritual transformation happening from the inside out.

You see, Jesus does not desire to improve you.

Jesus desires to transform you.

And Christianity is nothing less than the outliving of the indwelling Christ.

As a believer, Christ is eing formed in you.

We’ve been headed here for months now , and I want you to really “get it” this morning.

This is spiritual warfare !

Christ being formed in you.

If you don’t think that this is what spiritual warfare is, then think about it again.

This is what the enemy of your soul desires to thwart at every turn and at all cost.

“Christ being formed in you.”

Notice that according to Romans 12:2, this transformation is not a magical occurrence.

Neither is it a lazy, haphazard occurrence!

It involves recognizing the pattern of this world, and how that differs with the pattern of Godliness as expressed in the life of Christ Jesus.

It involves our having our minds made new.

Do you remember the old saying,

“You can’t keep doing the same thing, the same way, and expect different results.”

It’s true!!

We must be TRANSFORMED, and the word of God tells us that this is accomplished by making our minds new.

I can’t leave this passage of scripture without giving you a little Greek lesson this morning.

Does anyone know what word the apostle Paul used which we translate as “ transform ?”

Metamorphosis

I looked up the Dictionary synonyms for metamorphosis: (here is what I got)

Transformation

Conversion

Alteration

Mutation

Transmutation

Change

Transfiguration

I urge you this morning, to strap on the breastplate of righteousness.

Know who you are IN CHRIST.

Know you are PRESERVED IN CHRIST.

Know that you have the RIGHTEOUSNESS of Christ.

But further than that – allow the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ to transform you into the man or woman of God that HE HAS IN MIND.

I want us to turn to one more passage of scripture this morning before we end the preaching of the Word.

God to Ephesians 4:17-32

I said earlier in this message that no one can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

BUT – we can separate ourselves from Him!

Before we read this whole passage I want to jump down to the 30th verse.

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

There really is an entire sermon to itself in this verse, but I want us to look as “an

overview” at the passage this one statement is found in.

Let’s begin reading at verse 17.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God…

Allow the transformation He desires to take place within you to continue.

I urge you, not to keep failing the same lesson again and again, but be trainable.

Submit to the Spirit – be students of the Word.

Be students of the Way.

Here is what our Spiritual Armor looks like so far.

Truth.

Righteousness.

Next week we will look at how our feet must be prepared with the gospel of peace.

Let’s pray