‘Hello friends! We are in week 5 of our series “Armor of God”, where we are taking a deep dive into the full of armor of God, the defensive and offensive pieces and weapons God grants us to stand tall against our adversary the devil! God has truly blessed us with INCREDIBLE tools with which to combat sin, shame, and the sometimes broken circumstances and seasons we find ourselves in. This week we are talking about the Helmet of Salvation and how our God calls us to work out our salvation, to become more like Him and love the world like Him! Well, let’s make a start of it!
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. —Ephesians 2: 4-10
If the shield of faith is the first line of defense, the helmet of salvation is the last line of defense! The helmet, our salvation, protect our sense of self, our very identity and life in Christ. Our salvation is a gift of God’s grace, there is no way to earn this blessing. No matter how many good things we do, they are not enough to measure up to God’s standard. But thankfully, we serve a God rich in mercy and love, and because of the great love that He loved us by, Christ came and made us alive by His death and resurrection. It is truly by the grace of God that we have been saved! When we place our faith in Jesus, that is when we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we are saved by God’s grace. It is a free gift of God and it is for us. You see, God made us to be masterpieces, works of art, hand crafted vessels of His mercy and love, so that we would live and be like Him, so that the broken world would be filled with His love and light! We have been uniquely designed with gifts, talents, personalities, affinities, and filled by His Holy Spirit, in order to be conformed, remade in His image, to be imitators of God and His grace! Peter wrote about our salvation as well and the glorious life God has called us into.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. —1 Peter 1: 3-9
We have been born again, made new and whole and free into a living Hope, not a dead one. The world promises us that if we work hard enough, we may be able to achieve somethings, greatness perhaps, wealth, popularity, sex, a following. But none of these things can sustain us. They are hollow and dead and lead to hollowness and death. They don’t see us through difficult times or when we try as hard as we can as still fail, they are not enough. All those dreams and wants and passions abandon us.
But Christ is alive and the hope He gives is alive as well! It is a hope not based on our trying or abilities, it is a hope that is based on God Himself. God’s love and mercy does not run out on us or abandon us, He is with us through all trials and storms. Life is filled with grevious trials, hardship and contention, because the world is broken. The world and our enemy the devil wants to crush us so he tempts us and presses against us. But God allows us to face these battles head on because the hope we have is alive and the life and salvation that we have been saved by and are being saved by and will be saved and perfected by is everlasting and unfading. So as we fight and maintain our faith through the power and might of God, we are being made more and more into His image. Our identities in Christ become closer and clear to the image of God Himself. This is what is means to not see Him but believe in Him and love Him and be filled by His inexpressible joy and glory, the fullness of God Himself. So we have been saved by God and we are being saved by God, that is we are being made like Him!
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. —Philippians 2: 12-13
Paul spent a lot of his letters describing this process of having been already saved, having the status of child of God, and still being saved, being continually remade in Him image and likeness. This process is called Sanctification. Being sanctified, made holy, consecrated, set apart, becoming and sharing the attributes and blessings of God. Paul in fact commands us to work out this process with awe and passion and zeal and initiative and drive.
Before our salvation by God’s grace, we cannot do this. When we try to work for our salvation under our own strength, we fail. As good as I try to be, I cannot save myself. My sinful, selfish side of myself will always win out. But on this side of our salvation, we do not serve God strive for His love and goodness on our own. We have been filled by the Spirit and power of God. In fact, as we are striving to live and love in this world like Jesus, He Himself is working as well in and through us to accomplish His will and purpose in and for us!
I appeal to you therefore, brothers,[a] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.[b] 2 Do not be conformed to this world,[c] but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.[d] —Romans 12: 1-2
As we strive to live lives of holiness, kindness and grace towards all, we are presenting our lives as living sacrifices, expressions of worship of our gracious and loving God! God doesn’t want mindless worship, empty words and no follow-up actions, He wants our lives to be living expressions and acts of worship. How we live in this life, how we treat and love the people around us, all of our actions and words and living are meant to conform to look and speak and act and be a living reflection of Jesus Himself!
The helmet of salvation, this process of being made like Jesus, transforms our minds and hearts to look like the mind and heart of Christ. Literally, when it comes to the world, to its brokenness, to temptation and sin, to how treat and live with the people in this life, the question should always be, “what would Jesus do???” And to know the answer to that, we must be transformed in our minds, not conformed to the world, we must know Jesus, deeply and intimately.
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. —Philippians 3: 8-11
We read through these verses a few weeks ago but I thought that it would be good to read them again, given the context of what we are talking about. Paul counted the world and all of its temptations and traps and promises of a better life as garbage. Are friends bad, is family bad, is working hard at our jobs, making a life for ourselves, working on improving ourselves, taking time to vacation and rest, is all of this bad? NO!
But when we know Christ, the power of His glory and suffering and life, when we know the abundance that His calling us into, the worthy living that wants us to strive for and Him to work out in and through us, it makes all that the world offers pale in comparision and it makes the good things that He has blessed us with so much sweeter and joy-filled. But when we get those things backwards, when we pursue the world and our own desire, we become disciples of the world and our desires. We conform our image to our own desires and we become self-focused, selfish, and ultimately, self-defeating. God wants to work in and through us, to fulfill us with His sustaining power and life, so that we can love our family and friends, our neighbors, the whole world through His love and grace, not just through our own efforts, which can tire and fade with weariness. God is not a God of wearniess, He gives strength and power to weary, lonely and down trodden. When we are down, He lifts us up to Himself!
The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. —1 Peter 4: 7-11
You see, God wants us to be like Him, to live and love and act and think and speak and be His vessels. Be self-controlled and sober-minded, literally be aware and in control of ourselves because God has great work for us to do. If we are going to be remade in Jesus’s image and live like Jesus, then that means doing what Jesus came to do. And what did Jesus come to do? He came to teach us to love God with all that we are and love our neighbors, everything hangs on these two commands.
Love literally covers up sin, since it was God’s love that sent Jesus in the first place and Jesus’s love for the Father and us kept Him obedient to dying for our sakes and living again for us. Showing hospitality, how we welcome and treat and dwell and forgive the people in our lives are tangible expressions of this love acted out in real life. The gifts and abilities that God has given us were meant for us to enjoy but to also bless others, to love them and show them the way to Jesus. Whether we are speakers and teachers of God’s truth or servants with God’s strength, all is done through God’s grace and in order to point people towards Jesus in order that He be glorified and lifted up. We have the greatest responsibility and joy and burden of living out our salvation in fear and trembling, in order that God would be glorified and magnified, so that people might see Him and feeling His love clearly through us and that they too might be saved. Your actions, my actions, how we work out our salvation matters on an eternal scale!
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained. —Philippians 3: 12-16
No friends we are not perfect. We won’t get this right every time. We will fail. Chances are, I have already failed this morning. But God’s love and mercy are for me and for you. He does not abandon His children as orphens, He picks us up and heals us and walks alongside us further down the road of this salvation. And so we do learn from our failures of the past but we also leave them, in the past and strain forward towards what lies ahead of us. God has more for us to do, more people to love, more opportunities to be transformed into His image, more changes to be like Him and allow Him to work through us to draw people to Himself.
We press into the goal that God has called us in Jesus: to be remade in His image, to love Him and be love by Him, to be covered by His mercy and grace, to be speakers of His truth and reflections of His love, to show our neighbors and the whole world a better way, the way, the truth and the life, Jesus Himself. And though we have not obtained perfection yet, the promise of Heaven says that one day we will be perfected and whole and fully know Him, even as we are fully known.
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. 18 For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. —Philippians 3: 17-21
Let keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and on those who are endeavoring to follow Him closely. The world is a broken place filled with people and circumstances that the enemy is using to steer us away from God. That’s why we must remember that we belong with Jesus. He is our ultimate reality, His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control the means by which and how we live our lives, because they are who He is.
One day we will rejoin Jesus in paradise and we will be fully made like Him, gloried like Him. He has saved us, He is saving us, He will fully save us. That is His promise that was sealed in us through the Holy Spirit. But until that day comes, we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Be like Jesus friends because He loves you, because He died and lives for you, because He is working all things for your good, because He is glorious and true and worthy.
You are loved.
Believe it!