Fr Ben
Sermons at The Good Shepherd Anglican Church
Sep 1, 2025 - temptation: don’t fight alone or unarmed
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, Ephesians 6 verses 16 and 17, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, please bless me as I preach. Please make my words true and useful in life giving to your beloved people this morning. In Jesus' name. So in the baptismal liturgy, when you were baptized, whether you were a baby and your parents made the promises on your behalf, or whether you were baptized on your own confession, there is an adult. In all the traditional baptismal formula, a threefold renunciation is made. Hey, let's kids and youth. Do you remember one of the three things that I've renounced in baptism? Just say one of them. On the way, there's three things that I've renounced in baptism. Okay, adults to the world? No, you can't answer. I hope you know it in Jesus. What are the other two? The world? But Satan, the devil? The flesh. The world, the flesh and the devil. Well, I'm glad we've brushed up on that. Okay, those are the three things that you renounced, and we'll all word renounced at your baptism. These three work together. The demons take something from the world and present it to try and tickle our flesh into falling into sin. That's something worked together. The demons, the world and the flesh, the work together, tempt us, to trip us to sin. Now, of these three things, the flesh is being crucified with Christ. And as you are being sanctified, more and more, it is getting the evil part puts the rest and your humanity is being redeemed and made well and healthy. And the world also, like your life, is being cleansed. And is in the process of being healed by the gospel, by the power of Jesus. And on the last day, will be fully healed and cleansed. No evil, no death, no sickness, no harm. So the flesh is in the process of being cleansed and healed in us. The world is in the process of being cleansed and healed, but the demons, different story, they're irredeemable. They lack the very capacity for repentance. They permanently chose the evil and therefore punishment awaits them. That's what Jesus says is the reason hell exists is as a place of punishment for the demons. That's why it exists, card and other. So the demons are irredeemable. That's why we can sort of zoom in and say, that's where our battle lies in Ephesians 6. A battle isn't against flesh and blood, it's not against people. People are never your root enemy. They might be harassing you. A person can cause you harm and you might need to get away from that, but you know, however, but people are not the ultimate enemy. The demons are the ultimate enemy. That's what it says in Ephesians 6. Because it's the demons who weaponize something of the world to incite the passions of our flesh. And the image of this sort of inciting is that of a fiery arrow, an arrow where some sort of fabric was wrapped around and near the head of the arrow dipped in a pitch like a sort of sticky gasoline lit on fire and shot, which was often used in ancient warfare. I learned all this this week. I knew nothing about this until this week, which was often used in ancient warfare at nighttime for sort of additional kind of intimidating shock and awe effects, like fiery arrows that could like pierce and then set on fire was the war strategy. It's a pretty scary image, right? An arrow on fire coming at you. It is a bit scary. Now imagine, put your mindset in first century warfare, nighttime battle lines, opposite side, firing fiery arrows, and some soldiers like, no, it's got to take out this enemy and just walks out alone and unarmed into an onslaught of fiery arrows. That's not brave soldiering, right? That's folly. That's insanity, that sort of would kill. What was this elite? For the folly, for the pride. But it does seem that that's how a lot of Christians head into spiritual warfare, alone and unarmed. Actually, even worse to kind of extend the metaphor of the flesh, we're wearing clothes that are soaked in pitch and a going out into a fiery onslaught, alone and unarmed. So if you were tempted by a fiery dart this weekend, this week, maybe you gave in with your will, you acquiesced to the temptation and that sin. And before God, your conscience went up in flames. If that's the case, the first thing I want to say to you is welcome to the club of sinners. There's not a Christian in this room who doesn't have a hundred bone scars or a thousand scars from falling into temptation, similarly. So the first thing I wish to say is don't despair. One of the lies from the enemy, the devil always is the father of lies, is to say, oh no, you're uniquely bad. This is uniquely shameful. There's nothing uniquely bad or uniquely shameful about you. We all have a common temptation and a common struggle, common sins, common scars, and are all alike, bad, unworthy of heaven, but saved by the mercy of Jesus. The second thing I want to say as well as welcome to the club is allow Ephesians to explain why you may have fallen into temptation, into sin. Why temptation was the reason you fell into sin. Ephesians would suggest that at root, it's because in pride, you probably thought that you could handle the temptation by yourself. And I've got some good habits now. Oh, that's not a problem anymore. I'm pretty tough at these things. Pride which would fight alone and unarmed. The armor imagery in Ephesian 6 is not the armor of a lone fighting gladiator. It's the standard equipment of a soldier. And soldiers don't come in once. They come as a phalanx or this other came in the first century. There's many, many soldiers beside them. The shield, the word for shield is described as a shield of faith, is that one you might remember from my middle school history, like that long rectangular slightly curved shield that's almost as tall as the human body, and which in combat formation of Roman soldiers would be so next to each other that the shields would be right next to each other. So you were protected also by the shield of faith of the person next to you. You need to stick with the platoon in order to survive the onslaught of temptation. This means as so many of you do so faithfully coming regularly to church, to be nourished by the fellowship of fellow spiritual soldiers, to be given the nourishing rations of the sacrament and that the word read. Especially in seasons of heavy temptation to come to church as often as you can. That's one of the reasons we have the daily office always going at church. This is, there's this opportunity of "I'm feeling so spiritually weak this week" to come and repair to the team, to the squadron. To bring the warfare up into the 21st century, the imagery, in order to survive spiritually in this combat, you need a fire team. And my marine neighbor explained this to me because I don't think about the military from first hand, but he explained that the core, the most smallest unit of the military is four, you and three others. And that really resonates with the testament of many saints of the past, of how to live well in this Christian life, to have three others to whom you bear your soul, when you fall, when you're tempted, when you succeed by the power of the Holy Spirit, that's about the right size of the people who should really let them into your actual spiritual struggles. And if you don't know who those three could be, I highly recommend your spouse, your best friend, and I also, your priest. That's one of the reasons I'm here, to be a spiritual ally in your fire squad, your fire team. And that in swapping notes with each other we can be comforted at all, you've suffered in that way too. How did you ever figure that out? You can swap strategies, you can encourage each other in success as well as in failure. So if you are presently sharing your inner spiritual life with at least one of the person, if not three, I encourage you to do so and see if it doesn't make a noticeable difference in how you face temptation, and in how the Holy Spirit powers you and encourages you in the moment of temptation, knowing that you are not alone, that you are being prayed for, you are being covered by the shield of your friend or your spouse. Don't fight alone. Also don't fight unarmed. It takes the humility to say, "Yeah, God, I can't fight this spiritual battle by myself." None of us has by nature. We usually have to learn by a number of falls first, but say, "God, I need your armor. I need your equipment to be able to survive this temptation and not fall into sin." No temptation will be conquered without this humility of asking for God's help. And I want to zoom in on the three pieces of armor. Obviously there's six pieces of armor that are named in Ephesians 6, but the three that are most related to this sort of moment of combat. The shield of faith is what the Spirit calls it in Ephesians, the shield of faith. Truly believing that what God has said about himself in his book through his church is true, like we have in Deuteronomy. There is no people that has a God so near as us to claim that and not imagine or live that God is far away or doesn't care which are lies from the devil. To believe that God is who he says is that he's done, what his policy is done need, has taken care of the guilt of our sins. He has reconciled us to himself. We belong to him and he delights us. We are his beloved. That's what the shield of faith is. And the helmet of salvation, which means keeping your head on straight about those things, the helmet protects the head. To remember that you aren't saved by the amount of which you resisted temptation or not. You could resist temptation every time from now until your deathbed. That doesn't make you more worthy of heaven. Heaven's already been given to you. Keep your helmet of salvation on. Keep your head straight about how it is that you are saved. It's not by your moral success or by your moral failure. It's by the success of Christ. The shield of faith and the helmet of salvation, defensive armor. And the third is the sword of the spirit, which I confess I think until really thinking through this week, I kind of imagined like because of this fiery dark imagery. Maybe there's some like Zelda where you kind of like sawed out the arrow as it came. And I forget that no one would have ever tried to hit an arrow with a sword. That's not in the imaginative realm of Ephesians 6. So the sword of the spirit, the sword of course is an offensive weapon. But when there's the chance to actually push back the darkness and the lies of the enemy with the sword of the spirit, that in between the onslaught of arrows to then reassert the truth of God's word in the face of what it is you're dealing with in your life. Not only for yourself, but also for others. When your spouse or your friend or a fellow member of the congregation sees how you're claiming something true in faith, standing in the words of the old animal, the promises of God, I'd encourage that, defends and strengthens all of us. It pushes the darkness back a little bit more for all of us. And the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God he says, the message of God, which for us is now also contained in the holy scriptures. It's a sword that if you only know a few verses of the Bible, if I almost imagine it's like you have the hilt of the sword with a tiny little stub of a blade, whereas we've got a blade Smith in the congregation, it's a with a tiny little stub of a blade, which is not going to be very helpful. The more of the word you know, the more of a sword that you have, the more of the word of God you have to wield to push away lies, to remember what is true for yourself and for others. The sword is to be sworn against the enemy, which is the devil, which is his lies. It's not to be sworn against each other. And this is the way that the Bible is sometimes misused in the, among the people of God, right? Like here's this truth and I'm going to steer my neighbor with it. That's bad soldiering. That's friendly fire or an unfriendly fire in this case. That's bad soldiering. The goal of the sword is to even defend yourself and your brother and sister from the attack of the enemies. It's to be used for their good, not for their harm. So don't fight alone. Share your spiritual struggles with another. Don't fight unarmed, thinking that just by your own strength, you're going to be just fine. Don't use the word of God against your brother and sister. Use it on their behalf. Amen.