If you thought when you became a Christian you were leaving the fight to get into peace and tranquility, Paul says you were wrong. The Christian life is a fight. But now you have divine resources.  We come now to the last piece of the armor of God: “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” At the beginning and at the end of talking about how to live a victorious Christian life, Paul talks about the Bible. It shows that everything we do in putting on the armor is a matter of taking...

In the Bible, salvation is a broader term than what we usually use in the Christian church. We’re looking at the armor of God, and we turn now to another piece: the helmet of salvation. A lot of churches use the word salvation in the past tense: “I’ve been saved,” or “When were you saved?” If you’re accustomed to this, you might get confused when you see that often in the Bible, the word salvation for Christians is used in the present or future tense.  Let’s look at: 1) the past tense of...

Fiery arrows do not come all throughout the battle. When do they come? Right when you’ve decided to storm the stronghold of the enemy.  We’re looking at the armor of God—it’s an illustration Paul uses as a way of saying we have everything we need to meet the battles of life, but we must make use of those resources. And in looking at the shield of faith, we see that the more we decide to get our lives together, the more likely we are to find fiery arrows coming at us. This passage on the...

If you’re trying to do anything more important than to just get ahead in life, you’ll know the shield of faith is extremely important. Because let’s face it: the enemy attacks at the front line.  Your front line is the place where you go out on a limb to do something because you know it’ll make a difference—perhaps in this neighborhood, this city. When you go to the front line, there are all sorts of flying missiles with your name on them. That’s the reason we’re talking about this piece of...

Paul says a Christian should be characterized by readiness, a spiritual buoyancy that comes from the use of the gospel of peace.  We’re looking at the armor of God and we’re in the third part of our examination of the shoes and this one little phrase about the gospel of peace. There are three basic parts this phrase teaches us: 1) there is a joy through the gospel, 2) that brings peace with God, and 3) that brings peace with people. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer...

When Paul talks about shoes, he’s talking about a kind of spiritual athleticism.  The idea behind the armor of God is that God has given us all sorts of things we aren’t using. The shoes were part of the armor, and the shoes of the Roman soldier had to be gripping, tough, and light. The only kind of shoes in our culture that need these qualities are athletic shoes.  We’re going to continue our look at the shoes of the readiness of the gospel of peace by looking at 1) what is spiritual...

Some of you may be surprised that when Paul thinks about armor, he lists the shoes.  Paul goes through the pieces of equipment that a Roman soldier would wear. It’s an illustration on how to live the Christian life, and it gets at a balance that is critical to understand: the balance of how much of the Christian life is your exertion and how much is God’s working in you. To understand this particular piece of armor, we have to ask ourselves a couple of questions about the footwear of a Roman...

When you fail, when people accuse you, when people reject you, how do you defend yourself? How do you look yourself in the mirror?  We all have a problem of feeling unpresentable, of deeply seeking to be examined and approved. In Ephesians 6, Paul talks about the breastplate, about the fact that we all have to have a righteousness to cover our hearts. We have to have some way of defending ourselves against accusation.  In continuing our look at the breastplate of righteousness, let’s look at...

If you’re on your back and you’re a Christian, it’s because there are resources in your faith that you’re not using. Paul exhorts Christians to take the benefits and resources in the gospel, and to not just believe in them but to use them—so that in day-to-day challenges you’re able to stand. Each piece of the armor of God is one of those benefits, and we’re looking now at the breastplate of righteousness. In this series, we’ve talked about what this righteousness is not. Let’s continue our...

When you become a Christian, there’s a sense in which you receive all of the blessings and all of the privileges and power and benefits instantly. But there’s another sense in which you don’t.  You’ve received the armor when you became a Christian, but then the process of growing in grace is actually a process of sticking each piece on, piece by piece. We’re continuing our look at the armor of God by looking at 1) what it means to put on the belt of truth, and then, 2) what it means to...

The armor of God is the benefits, the privileges, and the freedoms you have in the gospel.  To put on the armor of God means to get a new mindset. It’s to look at yourself and look at the world in a new way—through those truths and through those freedoms.  Let’s continue our look at 1) what the armor of God is. Then we’ll turn to the first item of armor, the belt of truth: 2) what it is, and 3) how to put it on. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on...

What are we supposed to do so we don’t lead defeated lives? Ephesians 6 tells us about spiritual warfare, about the problems that get thrown at us. And it also tells us about our arsenal, the full armor of God. We’re now going to look not so much at what is being thrown at us, but at what we can do to respond to it, how we can defend ourselves.  We’re beginning a series on the full armor of God, looking at 1) what is is and 2) how to put it on. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller...

You make or break your life on the basis of your choices. In Hebrew Scriptures, the word for guidance is usually derived from the word for rope because the ropes were the method of navigation for sailors. They used ropes to lower or move or raise the sails. Without them, they’d be blown totally off course. So the question is how do you get God’s guidance? How do you get God’s navigation, so that when you have all these choices, you know the right course to take?  By looking at these proverbs...

We all at certain times have a lot of trouble dealing with the deep, conflicting, confusing, powerful, sometimes warring dynamic impulses and feelings that just roll through our hearts.  Sometimes we don’t feel we have any power over it. We don’t know how we got to feeling like that. We don’t know what to do about it. We need wisdom with regard to the complex realities of the inner being, the inner life, or what we would today call the psychological life. Proverbs shows us that we won’t be...

We’re looking at qualities you must have in order to live a wise life. Today, we come to self-control.  A man or woman without self-control is not going to live a wise life, is not going to make wise choices. They’re going to mess up their lives, and they’re going to mess up the lives of people around them.  We learn three things from Proverbs about self-control: we learn 1) the problem of self-control, 2) the principle of self-control, and 3) the practice of self-control. This sermon was...

Anybody who reads the book of Proverbs will see how often the book talks about the subject of work.  It talks positively about work under the heading of “diligence.” It talks negatively about work under the heading of “sluggard” or “sluggardliness.”  Proverbs says if you want to have a fulfilled human life, you have to do four things regarding work: you have to 1) do your work, 2) love your work, 3) re-narrate your work, and 4) redeem your work. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller...

Americans are how-to oriented. We want a technique. But Proverbs doesn’t give methods for wise decisions. Instead, it says, “Here’s the kind of person you have to become to make wise decisions.”  And here is the one character quality that’s most crucial for becoming a wise person. Over and over, the Bible says, “If you think you’re wise, you’re a fool; but if you’re aware of your foolishness, you’re on your way to becoming wise.” This is about pride and humility. We’re going to learn three...

Very basic to the development of wisdom is the ability to understand and channel the deep currents of our hearts. The book of Proverbs looks at the subject of wisdom. And in these passages, we come to a theme the Bible says is very important to understand: envy.  Let’s look at three things: 1) how to understand envy, 2) why to deal with envy, and 3) where to take your envy. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 7, 2004. Series: Proverbs:...

You will have a mess of a life if you only follow the rules and don’t have actual wisdom in the area of money. Wisdom is not less than being moral and good; it’s much more. It’s knowing the right choice in the majority of life situations that moral rules don’t address. People who only look to the rules in the area of money are going to be destructively unwise in their lives. Proverbs shows three things you need to know to be wise in the area of money and possessions: 1) the power of money, 2)...

In order to be wise, we have to learn how to understand and manage the power of sexuality.  Wisdom is not less than being moral and good, but it’s quite a bit more. It’s knowing the right decision to make in the vast majority of life situations that the moral rules don’t address. If we’re going to be wise with regard to sex, we have to know three things: 1) why and how we tend to undervalue sex, 2) why and how we tend, at the same time, to overvalue sex, and 3) how we can solve that. This...

If you’re going to live a wise life and have a discerning heart, you need to understand anger.  Wisdom is knowing the right decision in the vast majority of life situations that the moral rules don’t address. And in order to be wise, you need to be able to understand and handle anger—not only in yourself, but in other people as well.  There are four things we need to learn about anger: 1) its dangerous power, 2) its basic goodness, 3) why it goes wrong, and 4) how it can be healed. This...

One of the main themes of the Bible is that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. But what does that mean?  There’s a place in Job where God shows how important this term is when he says, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him in all the earth; a man who fears God and shuns evil.” It’s obvious the term “fear of the Lord” is something that summarizes everything we’re supposed to do and be. So why is it important and what in the world is it?  From these passages...

The appeal of legalism—of multiplying more and more rules—is so we don’t have to think. We want a rule to cover every situation. We don’t want to have to actually think out the implications.  But you know what? No matter how much you multiply rules, you’ll never cover all of the situations. It just doesn’t work. You need wisdom. Wisdom is being in touch with and understanding reality. What does it mean to be in touch with reality?  In these passages in Proverbs and Revelation we’re taught 1)...

Most of the situations you face in life aren’t covered by moral rules: “Do I say something, or do I wait? Do I act, or should I be more passive?” The rules don’t cover those things. And yet, you will sink, and the people around you will sink, unless you get wisdom.  Wisdom is not having a technique for making choices. Wisdom is having the character of mind and heart that enables you to make the right choices. How do you get that character?  Proverbs 4 shows us 1) how this character develops,...

It’s not good enough to be a person of vision, a person of high principle, a person of high moral values. Not if you’re not a person of wisdom.  Wisdom is knowing the right thing to do in the 80 percent of life situations to which the moral rules don’t apply. For most of our decisions, there are four or five different options, and they’re all moral. Which is the right one? We have decisions to make, and if we don’t make them wisely, we’re going to blow up our lives and the lives of people...