Grace for Your Day May 10

In his Commentary on Ephesians, James Montgomery Boice says:
"I preached my first sermon when I was thirteen years old and the text I preached was [Ephesians 6:10-17 on the Armour of God]. I preached it with visual aids because I played football at the time. So I brought my football equipment into the pulpit and held it up as I developed the parts of the sermon. When I talked about the “breastplate of righteousness” I held up my shoulder pads. When I talked about the “helmet of salvation” I held up my helmet . . . I can visualize how that sermon went, because I had my notes taped to the back of the pieces of my uniform. 
It has been almost thirty-five years since I preached that message, and in all those years I have preached on these great verses only one other time . . . That strikes me as unfortunate because it suggests that the warfare in which we are engaged as Christians is relatively unimportant, when actually the opposite is the case.
The opposite was obviously the case for Paul. These verses are the culmination of this book, and the point on which they end is that each Christian is engaged in a spiritual battle and must equip himself for it."

James Montgomery Boice is correct. The armour of God is important for a Christian because we are engaged in a spiritual battle. We are involved in a great struggle with the enemy and we need to be ready for it. We need to be prepared by using the resources that the Lord has given us and the part of the armour that we are going to look at this week is “the breastplate of righteousness.” Ephesians 6:14 says,
Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness . . .

To explain that verse, Roman soldiers would often wear a piece of armor over their chest to protect it from injury. It was made out of leather or rough linen onto which pieces of metal and bone were sewn. It was heavy because it would guard a soldier from a frontal assault. It would protect his heart from a sword or spear thrust.

In a similar way, Paul says that believers should put on the righteousness of Christ as they go into battle. They should wear it over their chest like a breastplate because the enemy likes to attack us where we are most vulnerable. He likes to attack us in our heart. He likes to go after our sinful lusts passions and desires so, in order to stop him, we need to put on the righteousness of Christ which is what we are going to talk about this Sunday morning at Grace Fellowship Church.

The sermon will be preached at our 9:15 and 11:00 services on Sunday and it will also be available on our You Tube Channel for those who cannot make it out in person. I am praying that the Lord will use it to remind us that we are involved in a great conflict as Christians. We are involved in a great struggle with the Devil but we can defeat him if we use the tools that God has given us. We can do it if we put on the armour of God which is what we are going to explore further this week. – Jeremy Cagle