STRAPPING ON THE GOSPEL OF PEACE
Ephesians 6:14-15
ESV
Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
KJV
And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
NASB
And having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace;
For the last several weeks we have been talking about spiritual war. And this morning we come to the third piece of equipment in Paul’s catalog of spiritual armor. It is the shoes and having your feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace.
I have to say that this is the one piece of equipment that I’ve been fearing the most. I am hesitant to speak on it because I have a daughter who has a rather significant infatuation with shoes. And I’m afraid that as I describe these today, she’s going to want a pair of these. She’s probably going to be on Amazon all afternoon, seeing if they have something in her size.
Well, with that trepidation aside, let’s consider what God has.
Now, I say shoes, but what I really mean is sandals. The actual name of the Roman footwear was “caligae.”
Some of you may know of the Roman Emperor Caligula. His name, Caligula comes from the caligae sandal. When he was a boy he would go out to war with the military forces and he would be dressed up in a little roman soldier suit, must to the delight of the actual soldiers. They loved it so much that they called him the “little sandal.”
The caligae, when you think about it, doesn’t seem to be much in terms of armor. It was, after all, a sandal. Sometimes there would be a metal plate which would cover the shin, but the shoe itself was not anything like modern day footwear. These were not anything like boots, but just some leather sandals.
I have to say that this is the one piece of equipment that I’ve been fearing the most. I am hesitant to speak on it because I have a daughter who has a rather significant infatuation with shoes. And I’m afraid that as I describe these today, she’s going to want a pair of these. She’s probably going to be on Amazon all afternoon, seeing if they have something in her size.
Well, with that trepidation aside, let’s consider what God has.
Now, I say shoes, but what I really mean is sandals. The actual name of the Roman footwear was “caligae.”
Some of you may know of the Roman Emperor Caligula. His name, Caligula comes from the caligae sandal. When he was a boy he would go out to war with the military forces and he would be dressed up in a little roman soldier suit, must to the delight of the actual soldiers. They loved it so much that they called him the “little sandal.”
The caligae, when you think about it, doesn’t seem to be much in terms of armor. It was, after all, a sandal. Sometimes there would be a metal plate which would cover the shin, but the shoe itself was not anything like modern day footwear. These were not anything like boots, but just some leather sandals.
The sole of the shoe was a thick strip of leather, or a couple strips of leather that would be bound together with nails. And it had smaller strips of leather that would cover the foot and tighten it on, much like something you ladies might wear with one of your summer dresses. It would also have some laces that would tie up around your ankle and maybe even extend up the calf a bit, thus holding the shin guards on.
Now, even though it might not look like much, these were designed to be functional for the soldiers. They were light weight (which would have been nice in comparison to all the other equipment you had). Being light, they would allow you some degree of maneuverability. They would also allow you to remain somewhat cool during the heat of the day.
Another benefit would be that they provided some degree of comfort. You have to keep in mind that soldiers could march up to 20-25 miles. At the end of the day, your feet would be in a lot of pain, but you could quickly recover if you slipped the shoes off and dipped your feet in a river.
What’s also interesting is that these shoes often had metal studs protruding form the bottoms too. They would look a lot like cleats in some of our sporting shoes today. These cleats, of course, allowed you a great deal of traction. When your enemy came at you, you don’t want to be sliding around or losing your footing. Having good footing would be very important to withstand the onslaught of your enemy.
What’s more, the metal would make a good bit of noise when you marched. And so it would provided a little bit of a psychological edge. The clacking and clamor of an army marching with metal clapping upon the ground will make them sound even more deadly than they are.
Even more important, these cleats could allow you to continue to march forward over bodies and soldiers that had been knocked down in front of you. If your enemy was underfoot, you could stomp on him and ensure that he does not get back up and attack you from behind.
As Paul calls us to prepare for spiritual war, he says that, like these caligae, we need to bind on the readiness of the gospel of peace. It’s our goal this morning to learn a little more about what he meant by this.
And, just like last time, I want us to attack this subject by means of three questions.
First, I want us to think about the gospel of peace. What is it? The word gospel is not one we use a lot and we need to be clear on the peace that is associated with it.
Secondly, we want to ask what we are to do with this gospel of peace? The ESV says we need to put on these shoes or put on the readiness of the gospel of peace. The NASB says it needs to be strapped on. That’s a better translation as the word means to bind. But what exactly does that mean? I want us to consider what implication that has for the gospel.
Then, lastly, we’ll address the why question. Why should we put on the gospel of peace? What will be the result or what effect will it have on our lives?
But let’s begin with our definitions. Paul is talking about our feet being fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace. And we need to start with the end and clarify this concept of the gospel of peace.
I. What is the gospel of peace?
The word gospel is a very Christian word. It’s one with which many of us may be familiar, but I don’t want to assume everyone knows it.
The English word gospel is actually a combination of two old English words “God spell.” The word spell back then meant news or story. And the word God didn’t actually refer to the divine being, but was a shortened version of the word good. So the God spel (or Good Spel) was a way of saying good news.
And that’s what the Greek word means: good news. So Paul here is talking about the good news of peace.
This is where you have to know the bad news. To under stand the good news, you really have to get a handle on the bad news.
And the bad news is that you are a sinner. And, as a sinner, you are one who stands to be condemned. This is the great predicament of all of mankind. We as humans have been in rebellion against God and have broken His commands. As a result, we all have incurred guilt, and are liable to the consequences. Those consequences, of course, are death and hell.
The bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. And that means that we are liable to God’s displeasure. Sure, we will face a physical death, but there’s a greater death which comes after that. There is an eternal death which we face; an eternity of anguish for having committed treason against God.
So the bad news is pretty bad. But this is where the good news comes in. God provided a way for us to escape his wrath and curse. He provided a way of salvation. And that is in and through his Son, Jesus Christ. The good news is that Christ came to earth and died in our place. When he was crucified, he took upon himself the curse and received the just penalty for sin on behalf of his people.
And, for those who trust in him, there is peace. There is peace with God because God is no longer angry with us. In Christ, we may come to have friendly terms with God.
But there is not only peace with God, there’s peace of mind that may be ours. Since there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ, there’s nothing for us to fear. Our future is no longer bleak. Our conscience can rest at ease because we have an eternity of peace to look forward to.
I know that there are many in this world who lack this kind of peace. There’s a constant worry in the back of their minds of what is to come. Perhaps they do not realize it to the full extent--perhaps they attempt to sooth themselves with rationalizations and justifications, but there’s an incipient fear of what the future holds. Sometimes they try to ignore it. A lot of times they work to suppress it. But in the distance of their minds, it is ever knocking and prodding.
I have, over my years of life, met several examples of this sort of thing. I once was doing evangelism and had asked a young lady if she had ever lied, stolen anything, or taken God’s name in vain. She admitted that yes, she had. I asked her if she would be guilty or innocent before God. She stopped me and said, “I don’t like how this makes me feel. I don’t want to have this conversation anymore.”
While it is a shame that this woman did not want to listen and hear about the good news, we recognize that her conscience was disturbed. She unfortunately chose to suppress those feelings and walk away.
At another time in my life I worked in a manufacturing company. Like many such places, they would have music playing over the speakers. One day someone turned off that music. He just wanted some quiet for once. I have to say, it was weird not having it blaring. All one could hear were the regular clatter and noises of people at their work benches. A few minutes later though, one gentleman began yelling. “Who turned that off? What do you think you are doing? Do you expect me to live with the voices in my head?”
Those voices were not the voices of people so much as it was the voice of his conscience bringing to mind the guilt and the issues for which he is accountable.
The beautiful thing is that one’s future does not have to be ignored, suppressed, or feared. One can actually look forward to the after life. Through Christ and the death that he died, we may have peace with God. Our guilt can be forgiven. The punishment may be taken away. Our consciences may rest at ease knowing that Christ has brought us eternal life.
You understand, then, that this is good news.
In this time I have sought to define for you what this good news is. I hope that you have it firmly fixed in your minds. I hope though that it is more than merely a clarification. I hope that you find it news that you personally embrace.
But we must move to the second question that we want to examine this morning. What does Paul want us to do with this gospel of peace?
II. What are we to do with this gospel of peace?
As is clear from our text, Paul wants us to strap it on. Paul tells us that the gospel of peace needs to be fastened tightly, just like a pair of shoes would be laced up and tied nice and secure.
But what exactly does that entail spiritually speaking? What are we to do with the gospel of peace?
I would like to say that this means that the gospel is something you rehearse daily. Just as you put your shoes on every day, you need to be constantly reminding yourself of the peace Christ affords you. When you tie your shoes in the morning, remember Jesus and how he has satisfied God’s wrath and curse. When you kick off those boots at night, think about how nothing can take away the gift of life that God has granted you. And all throughout the day have the glorious thought of Christ’s cross (and the peace that it grants you with God) be tightly wrapped around your mind.
In other words, the gospel and the resulting peace that it brings should be something that you call to mind every single day. Not only every day, but all day. You should be making it a practice to, as they say, preach the gospel to yourself each day.
You see, one of the great problems among Christians is that they do not see the gospel as pertaining to the whole of the Christian life. We see it as the gateway of Christianity. We think that we are saved by the gospel, but the rest of the Christian life doesn’t have anything to do with it.
The gospel is not a “one and done” thing. It is important that you believe the gospel and be converted. You need to confess your sins to God and put your trust in Christ. But you must recognize that this is only the first step in the Christian life. And the gospel does not stop there. It is to permeate your entire life. It is to be repeated over and over. You are to come back to it again and again.
I do not just become a Christian by means of the gospel of peace. I remain a Christian by means of the gospel of peace. I grow as a Christian by means of the gospel of peace.
What I’m trying to say is that this is the key to your spiritual life. You put the gospel of peace on as shoes because it is to go with you wherever you go in life.
We have talked about putting on and putting off. I’ve sought to emphasize the need for us to be identifying those thoughts and behaviors that are evil. Those need to be put off and systematically replaced with godly actions. You need to identify the kind of thoughts and behaviors that you need to put on. You need to be taking radical steps to become holy and righteous.
All of that is certainly necessary. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of the puttting on and putting off process. But you must understand that those are fruitless practices if you are not constantly saturating your mind and your heart with the gospel. It is absolutely pointless if you are not first putting on the gospel of peace and constantly preaching to yourself the forgiveness and grace of almighty God.
You can put off and put on all you want, but you will not budge an inch spiritually if you are not soaking in the reality of the gospel.
In the preface to his book “Transforming Grace” Jerry Bridges sums up exactly what I’m saying. He says,
“My observation is that most of us tend to base our personal relationship with God on our performance in stead of on His grace. If we’ve performed well--whatever well is in our opinion--then we expect God to bless us. If we haven’t done so well, our expectations are reduced accordingly. In this sense, we live by works rather than by grace. We are saved by grace, but we are living by the “sweat” of our own performance.
“Moreover, we are always challenging ourselves to ‘try harder.’ We seem to believe success in the Christian life is basically up to us: [it is] our commitment, our discipline, and our zeal, with a little help from God along the way. We give lip service to the attitude of the Apostle Paul, who says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am,’ but our unspoken motto is ‘God helps those who help themselves.’
What Bridges wants us to understand is that the key to victory in the Christian life is not our exertion. It’s not our put offs or put ons, no matter how great and necessary those things may be. The key to our growth is the gospel and the grace that God works in us by it.
Another scholar has said, “One of the detriments of of our day is that we teach people just enough gospel to get them saved, but then move on to other things…[But what we need] to understand is that we never move on from the gospel.”
The message of the gospel is not “try harder.” The message of the gospel is “You are forgiven. God loves you. Christ is your Savior. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
And that is not just something that you start out with. That is the message you need today, tomorrow, and the rest of your life. And that’s why you need to bind it on and keep rehearsing it over and over in your mind.
That’s what the Lord is calling you to do. You are to strap on the gospel of peace and remind yourself how precious Jesus is to you. You lace up by remembering that Jesus has shed his blood and satisfied the demands of God’s law.
So you understand now, what the gospel of peace is. You understand what Paul wants you to do with it. Let’s think now about why this is important. Why does Paul emphasize the gospel? What will end up happening if you make it your aim preach the gospel to yourself daily?
III. Why? What will be the result?
We’ve actually already hinted at the answer. If you make a habit of preaching the gospel to yourself, you are going to grow. You are going to get stronger as a Christian. You are going to find that you have a greater ability to withstand temptation. You are going to be more apt to suffer for Christ. You are going to be more steadfast in your obedience. In a word, your spiritual life will flourish in a world that is hostile to it.
Think again about these shoes. I mentioned earlier that they would have had studs in them that would act like cleats to give you more traction. Paul also talks here about the readiness of the gospel of peace.
Look again at our illustration here. You have a soldier who is in the ready position. He’s got his legs bent and his feet dug in. You can imagine the enemy coming at him in full force of his attack. Now if this soldier didn’t have good shoes, imagine what would happen if he was hit with the force of the enemy running full boar at him. He’d fall back, loose his balance, and he would be cut down. If he didn’t have good shoes, his readiness wouldn’t be what it should be. He wouldn’t be prepared to withstand the attack.
Paul’s saying that we need to put on the gospel and preach it to ourselves so that we are ready. We are going to be facing a lot of temptation. How do you withstand that temptation? The gospel is the only thing that will prepare us for it.
You are going to be tempted to be angry with your brother. You are going to want to yell at them and be bitter because they did something to you. And you know you have to put off anger and bitterness. And you need to put on love and patience and kindness. But the temptation is going to rain down on you. The spiritual forces in the heavenly places are going to be coming at you.
The only way to be ready--the only way to be successful in loving him is if you’ve been preaching the gospel to yourself. If you have been preaching peace to yourself, that’s the only way you can maintain peace with your brother.
Alexander MacLaren, was a Scottish Baptists pastor at the turn of the last century. In his sermon on this passage, he put it so beautifully.
“There is only one thing that deepens the spiritual life, and that is keeping near the Christ from whom all the fullness of the spiritual life flows. If we will hold fast [to the] Gospel, and let its peace lie upon our minds, … then we may laugh at temptation. For there will be no temptation when the heart is full of Him, and there will be no sense of surrendering anything that we wish to keep when the superior sweetness of His grace fills our souls.
“It is empty vessels into which poison can be poured. If the vessel is full there will be no room for it. Get your hearts and minds filled with the wine of the kingdom, and the devil’s venom of temptation will have no space to get in. It is well to resist temptation; it is better to be lifted above it, so that it ceases to tempt. And the one way to secure that is to live near Jesus Christ, and let the Gospel of His grace take up more of our thoughts and more of our affections than it has done in the past.”
If I can change the metaphor, the gospel is an inoculation against temptation. The more it permeates your heart and mind, the more your heart will be inflamed to live for God. And the more you are in love with God, the less desirable you will find temptation to be.
Think about how appealing popularity is. It is nice to be admired by people and to have people who accept you, isn’t it? It’s great to have a crew of friends who you click with. And there’s a deep longing in all of us for these things, isn’t there?
And that’s why it can be really hard to go against our friends. There can be the temptation to gloss over certain sins and justify certain actions because, well, I don’t want to be the bad guy. I know my parents told me to do this. I know that I’m supposed to do that, but right now my friends are expecting me to the opposite.
What will make you ready to do battle with this temptation? When it comes on you, how is it that you will be able to withstand the desire to be accepted and fit in? You know that there will be a clamor of dissatisfaction if you do what’s right.
There’s only one way to be ready for that kind of temptation. You will not cave if the acceptance you have with God is more meaningful to you than the acceptance of your friends. The gospel has given me peace with God and that is more needful, more desirable than any kind of peace I can have with my peers.
As you preach the gospel of peace to yourself, you are digging your feet in. You are making yourself ready to do what God wants you to do. And you will find that it plays out in all kinds of ways. We talked about being proactive in righteousness last week. The temptation is to be selfish and slothful, isn’t it? How do you withstand that attack? How can you be ready to serve? It’s by remembering the gospel of peace. Jesus served me. Jesus brought me peace. And that’s going to make you less likely to be thinking only of yourself.
It’s just how the Christian life is lived. The gospel is the vital core of living for Christ and overcoming temptation. It is the only way to get ready; it is the only way to move the needle in your fight against sin.
Conclusion:
So there you have it. That is why you must preach the gospel to yourself. It makes you ready. You become more prepared to resist temptation. You become less inclined towards those temptations.
This is why Paul wants you to be putting the gospel on. So I want to encourage you to be intent on doing just that. Don’t think that you are done with the cross. It’s not just for you to get saved by and leave behind. You are to remember that it will continue to pour forth its saving power every time it rings in your heart and mind.
Make it a practice then to think about how Christ has broken the curse of sin and death. Meditate on it, sing of it, and thank God for it in your times of prayer. The more you bind it on, the more ready you will be to face the difficulties of the day.
Now, even though it might not look like much, these were designed to be functional for the soldiers. They were light weight (which would have been nice in comparison to all the other equipment you had). Being light, they would allow you some degree of maneuverability. They would also allow you to remain somewhat cool during the heat of the day.
Another benefit would be that they provided some degree of comfort. You have to keep in mind that soldiers could march up to 20-25 miles. At the end of the day, your feet would be in a lot of pain, but you could quickly recover if you slipped the shoes off and dipped your feet in a river.
What’s also interesting is that these shoes often had metal studs protruding form the bottoms too. They would look a lot like cleats in some of our sporting shoes today. These cleats, of course, allowed you a great deal of traction. When your enemy came at you, you don’t want to be sliding around or losing your footing. Having good footing would be very important to withstand the onslaught of your enemy.
What’s more, the metal would make a good bit of noise when you marched. And so it would provided a little bit of a psychological edge. The clacking and clamor of an army marching with metal clapping upon the ground will make them sound even more deadly than they are.
Even more important, these cleats could allow you to continue to march forward over bodies and soldiers that had been knocked down in front of you. If your enemy was underfoot, you could stomp on him and ensure that he does not get back up and attack you from behind.
As Paul calls us to prepare for spiritual war, he says that, like these caligae, we need to bind on the readiness of the gospel of peace. It’s our goal this morning to learn a little more about what he meant by this.
And, just like last time, I want us to attack this subject by means of three questions.
First, I want us to think about the gospel of peace. What is it? The word gospel is not one we use a lot and we need to be clear on the peace that is associated with it.
Secondly, we want to ask what we are to do with this gospel of peace? The ESV says we need to put on these shoes or put on the readiness of the gospel of peace. The NASB says it needs to be strapped on. That’s a better translation as the word means to bind. But what exactly does that mean? I want us to consider what implication that has for the gospel.
Then, lastly, we’ll address the why question. Why should we put on the gospel of peace? What will be the result or what effect will it have on our lives?
But let’s begin with our definitions. Paul is talking about our feet being fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace. And we need to start with the end and clarify this concept of the gospel of peace.
I. What is the gospel of peace?
The word gospel is a very Christian word. It’s one with which many of us may be familiar, but I don’t want to assume everyone knows it.
The English word gospel is actually a combination of two old English words “God spell.” The word spell back then meant news or story. And the word God didn’t actually refer to the divine being, but was a shortened version of the word good. So the God spel (or Good Spel) was a way of saying good news.
And that’s what the Greek word means: good news. So Paul here is talking about the good news of peace.
This is where you have to know the bad news. To under stand the good news, you really have to get a handle on the bad news.
And the bad news is that you are a sinner. And, as a sinner, you are one who stands to be condemned. This is the great predicament of all of mankind. We as humans have been in rebellion against God and have broken His commands. As a result, we all have incurred guilt, and are liable to the consequences. Those consequences, of course, are death and hell.
The bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. And that means that we are liable to God’s displeasure. Sure, we will face a physical death, but there’s a greater death which comes after that. There is an eternal death which we face; an eternity of anguish for having committed treason against God.
So the bad news is pretty bad. But this is where the good news comes in. God provided a way for us to escape his wrath and curse. He provided a way of salvation. And that is in and through his Son, Jesus Christ. The good news is that Christ came to earth and died in our place. When he was crucified, he took upon himself the curse and received the just penalty for sin on behalf of his people.
And, for those who trust in him, there is peace. There is peace with God because God is no longer angry with us. In Christ, we may come to have friendly terms with God.
But there is not only peace with God, there’s peace of mind that may be ours. Since there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ, there’s nothing for us to fear. Our future is no longer bleak. Our conscience can rest at ease because we have an eternity of peace to look forward to.
I know that there are many in this world who lack this kind of peace. There’s a constant worry in the back of their minds of what is to come. Perhaps they do not realize it to the full extent--perhaps they attempt to sooth themselves with rationalizations and justifications, but there’s an incipient fear of what the future holds. Sometimes they try to ignore it. A lot of times they work to suppress it. But in the distance of their minds, it is ever knocking and prodding.
I have, over my years of life, met several examples of this sort of thing. I once was doing evangelism and had asked a young lady if she had ever lied, stolen anything, or taken God’s name in vain. She admitted that yes, she had. I asked her if she would be guilty or innocent before God. She stopped me and said, “I don’t like how this makes me feel. I don’t want to have this conversation anymore.”
While it is a shame that this woman did not want to listen and hear about the good news, we recognize that her conscience was disturbed. She unfortunately chose to suppress those feelings and walk away.
At another time in my life I worked in a manufacturing company. Like many such places, they would have music playing over the speakers. One day someone turned off that music. He just wanted some quiet for once. I have to say, it was weird not having it blaring. All one could hear were the regular clatter and noises of people at their work benches. A few minutes later though, one gentleman began yelling. “Who turned that off? What do you think you are doing? Do you expect me to live with the voices in my head?”
Those voices were not the voices of people so much as it was the voice of his conscience bringing to mind the guilt and the issues for which he is accountable.
The beautiful thing is that one’s future does not have to be ignored, suppressed, or feared. One can actually look forward to the after life. Through Christ and the death that he died, we may have peace with God. Our guilt can be forgiven. The punishment may be taken away. Our consciences may rest at ease knowing that Christ has brought us eternal life.
You understand, then, that this is good news.
In this time I have sought to define for you what this good news is. I hope that you have it firmly fixed in your minds. I hope though that it is more than merely a clarification. I hope that you find it news that you personally embrace.
But we must move to the second question that we want to examine this morning. What does Paul want us to do with this gospel of peace?
II. What are we to do with this gospel of peace?
As is clear from our text, Paul wants us to strap it on. Paul tells us that the gospel of peace needs to be fastened tightly, just like a pair of shoes would be laced up and tied nice and secure.
But what exactly does that entail spiritually speaking? What are we to do with the gospel of peace?
I would like to say that this means that the gospel is something you rehearse daily. Just as you put your shoes on every day, you need to be constantly reminding yourself of the peace Christ affords you. When you tie your shoes in the morning, remember Jesus and how he has satisfied God’s wrath and curse. When you kick off those boots at night, think about how nothing can take away the gift of life that God has granted you. And all throughout the day have the glorious thought of Christ’s cross (and the peace that it grants you with God) be tightly wrapped around your mind.
In other words, the gospel and the resulting peace that it brings should be something that you call to mind every single day. Not only every day, but all day. You should be making it a practice to, as they say, preach the gospel to yourself each day.
You see, one of the great problems among Christians is that they do not see the gospel as pertaining to the whole of the Christian life. We see it as the gateway of Christianity. We think that we are saved by the gospel, but the rest of the Christian life doesn’t have anything to do with it.
The gospel is not a “one and done” thing. It is important that you believe the gospel and be converted. You need to confess your sins to God and put your trust in Christ. But you must recognize that this is only the first step in the Christian life. And the gospel does not stop there. It is to permeate your entire life. It is to be repeated over and over. You are to come back to it again and again.
I do not just become a Christian by means of the gospel of peace. I remain a Christian by means of the gospel of peace. I grow as a Christian by means of the gospel of peace.
What I’m trying to say is that this is the key to your spiritual life. You put the gospel of peace on as shoes because it is to go with you wherever you go in life.
We have talked about putting on and putting off. I’ve sought to emphasize the need for us to be identifying those thoughts and behaviors that are evil. Those need to be put off and systematically replaced with godly actions. You need to identify the kind of thoughts and behaviors that you need to put on. You need to be taking radical steps to become holy and righteous.
All of that is certainly necessary. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of the puttting on and putting off process. But you must understand that those are fruitless practices if you are not constantly saturating your mind and your heart with the gospel. It is absolutely pointless if you are not first putting on the gospel of peace and constantly preaching to yourself the forgiveness and grace of almighty God.
You can put off and put on all you want, but you will not budge an inch spiritually if you are not soaking in the reality of the gospel.
In the preface to his book “Transforming Grace” Jerry Bridges sums up exactly what I’m saying. He says,
“My observation is that most of us tend to base our personal relationship with God on our performance in stead of on His grace. If we’ve performed well--whatever well is in our opinion--then we expect God to bless us. If we haven’t done so well, our expectations are reduced accordingly. In this sense, we live by works rather than by grace. We are saved by grace, but we are living by the “sweat” of our own performance.
“Moreover, we are always challenging ourselves to ‘try harder.’ We seem to believe success in the Christian life is basically up to us: [it is] our commitment, our discipline, and our zeal, with a little help from God along the way. We give lip service to the attitude of the Apostle Paul, who says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am,’ but our unspoken motto is ‘God helps those who help themselves.’
What Bridges wants us to understand is that the key to victory in the Christian life is not our exertion. It’s not our put offs or put ons, no matter how great and necessary those things may be. The key to our growth is the gospel and the grace that God works in us by it.
Another scholar has said, “One of the detriments of of our day is that we teach people just enough gospel to get them saved, but then move on to other things…[But what we need] to understand is that we never move on from the gospel.”
The message of the gospel is not “try harder.” The message of the gospel is “You are forgiven. God loves you. Christ is your Savior. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
And that is not just something that you start out with. That is the message you need today, tomorrow, and the rest of your life. And that’s why you need to bind it on and keep rehearsing it over and over in your mind.
That’s what the Lord is calling you to do. You are to strap on the gospel of peace and remind yourself how precious Jesus is to you. You lace up by remembering that Jesus has shed his blood and satisfied the demands of God’s law.
So you understand now, what the gospel of peace is. You understand what Paul wants you to do with it. Let’s think now about why this is important. Why does Paul emphasize the gospel? What will end up happening if you make it your aim preach the gospel to yourself daily?
III. Why? What will be the result?
We’ve actually already hinted at the answer. If you make a habit of preaching the gospel to yourself, you are going to grow. You are going to get stronger as a Christian. You are going to find that you have a greater ability to withstand temptation. You are going to be more apt to suffer for Christ. You are going to be more steadfast in your obedience. In a word, your spiritual life will flourish in a world that is hostile to it.
Think again about these shoes. I mentioned earlier that they would have had studs in them that would act like cleats to give you more traction. Paul also talks here about the readiness of the gospel of peace.
Look again at our illustration here. You have a soldier who is in the ready position. He’s got his legs bent and his feet dug in. You can imagine the enemy coming at him in full force of his attack. Now if this soldier didn’t have good shoes, imagine what would happen if he was hit with the force of the enemy running full boar at him. He’d fall back, loose his balance, and he would be cut down. If he didn’t have good shoes, his readiness wouldn’t be what it should be. He wouldn’t be prepared to withstand the attack.
Paul’s saying that we need to put on the gospel and preach it to ourselves so that we are ready. We are going to be facing a lot of temptation. How do you withstand that temptation? The gospel is the only thing that will prepare us for it.
You are going to be tempted to be angry with your brother. You are going to want to yell at them and be bitter because they did something to you. And you know you have to put off anger and bitterness. And you need to put on love and patience and kindness. But the temptation is going to rain down on you. The spiritual forces in the heavenly places are going to be coming at you.
The only way to be ready--the only way to be successful in loving him is if you’ve been preaching the gospel to yourself. If you have been preaching peace to yourself, that’s the only way you can maintain peace with your brother.
Alexander MacLaren, was a Scottish Baptists pastor at the turn of the last century. In his sermon on this passage, he put it so beautifully.
“There is only one thing that deepens the spiritual life, and that is keeping near the Christ from whom all the fullness of the spiritual life flows. If we will hold fast [to the] Gospel, and let its peace lie upon our minds, … then we may laugh at temptation. For there will be no temptation when the heart is full of Him, and there will be no sense of surrendering anything that we wish to keep when the superior sweetness of His grace fills our souls.
“It is empty vessels into which poison can be poured. If the vessel is full there will be no room for it. Get your hearts and minds filled with the wine of the kingdom, and the devil’s venom of temptation will have no space to get in. It is well to resist temptation; it is better to be lifted above it, so that it ceases to tempt. And the one way to secure that is to live near Jesus Christ, and let the Gospel of His grace take up more of our thoughts and more of our affections than it has done in the past.”
If I can change the metaphor, the gospel is an inoculation against temptation. The more it permeates your heart and mind, the more your heart will be inflamed to live for God. And the more you are in love with God, the less desirable you will find temptation to be.
Think about how appealing popularity is. It is nice to be admired by people and to have people who accept you, isn’t it? It’s great to have a crew of friends who you click with. And there’s a deep longing in all of us for these things, isn’t there?
And that’s why it can be really hard to go against our friends. There can be the temptation to gloss over certain sins and justify certain actions because, well, I don’t want to be the bad guy. I know my parents told me to do this. I know that I’m supposed to do that, but right now my friends are expecting me to the opposite.
What will make you ready to do battle with this temptation? When it comes on you, how is it that you will be able to withstand the desire to be accepted and fit in? You know that there will be a clamor of dissatisfaction if you do what’s right.
There’s only one way to be ready for that kind of temptation. You will not cave if the acceptance you have with God is more meaningful to you than the acceptance of your friends. The gospel has given me peace with God and that is more needful, more desirable than any kind of peace I can have with my peers.
As you preach the gospel of peace to yourself, you are digging your feet in. You are making yourself ready to do what God wants you to do. And you will find that it plays out in all kinds of ways. We talked about being proactive in righteousness last week. The temptation is to be selfish and slothful, isn’t it? How do you withstand that attack? How can you be ready to serve? It’s by remembering the gospel of peace. Jesus served me. Jesus brought me peace. And that’s going to make you less likely to be thinking only of yourself.
It’s just how the Christian life is lived. The gospel is the vital core of living for Christ and overcoming temptation. It is the only way to get ready; it is the only way to move the needle in your fight against sin.
Conclusion:
So there you have it. That is why you must preach the gospel to yourself. It makes you ready. You become more prepared to resist temptation. You become less inclined towards those temptations.
This is why Paul wants you to be putting the gospel on. So I want to encourage you to be intent on doing just that. Don’t think that you are done with the cross. It’s not just for you to get saved by and leave behind. You are to remember that it will continue to pour forth its saving power every time it rings in your heart and mind.
Make it a practice then to think about how Christ has broken the curse of sin and death. Meditate on it, sing of it, and thank God for it in your times of prayer. The more you bind it on, the more ready you will be to face the difficulties of the day.