SUIT UP: PUTTING ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

Sermon Notes, October 7, 2018

Rev. Garry McGlinchy

            Pastor Garry continued his sermon series based on Ephesians 6:10-20.  This week’s sermon was titled “Suit Up! Putting On the Breastplate of Righteousness.”  We go so fast in our lives, sometimes God has to slow us down.  Sunday morning’s fog reminds us that when we slow down, we see more. 

            The Belt of Truth not only helps us speak the truth, but it is a way to discern the facts.  One of the devil’s tactics is to lie to us.  When the Belt of Truth is tight, we don’t believe him.  The soldier puts on the belt first because it holds everything together.

            The Breastplate of Righteousness protects the heart.  There is a lack of purity all around us.  When we face the world, we need a moral compass.  When we’re right with the Lord, we have that moral compass. There’s a story in 1 Kings 22 about Ahab, King of Israel, who disguised himself as an ordinary soldier since he knew the enemy wanted to kill the king.  An enemy soldier shot a random arrow and it caught Ahab between the joints of his armor, and he died anyway.  Satan attacks us to get at our heart, our integrity. 

             The Old Testament talks about Integrity in Exodus 20.  We call them the Ten Commandments.  Some people think that when Jesus came as the Messiah, he freed us from all those things.  But if you study what Jesus said and did in the New Testament, He didn’t do away with those Commandments. He expanded them.  He quoted from them, and so did the apostle Paul.

1.    You are to have no other gods before me.  Remember the story of the professor who put big rocks in the pickle jar and asked his students if it was full; they replied “Yes.”  He did the same with gravel, then sand, and finally with water.  The lesson from that story is to put the big things in your life first, and the rest will fit in.  Don’t put anything between you and God.

2.    No images: He is a jealous God, and He wants you to worship Him, not money or wealth or fame or power or anything else.

3.    Don’t misuse God’s name: don’t swear—let your yes be yes and your no be no.

4.    Keep the Sabbath holy.  Our bodies were not designed to work 7 days a week. We need rest.  We need to worship Him.

5.    Honor your parents—the first commandment with a promise, a long life. 

6.    No murder.  Jesus included murdering someone’s reputation in this commandment.

7.    No adultery.  Jesus included looking on someone with lust as the same thing.

8.    No stealing

9.    Don’t lie.  There are lies of omission as well as just outright lies.

10. Don’t covet what other people have.

God gave us the Ten Commandments as a guide for righteous living.  Jesus summarized them in two statements: “Love God.  Love each other.”  In the last 50 years in our country, we have lost the guidance of the Ten Commandments.  The Ten Commandments help us to keep our purity, our integrity, our identity and our integrity intact.  They are the Breastplate of Righteousness.  They help us teach others.  Christians, and Seniors, teach us by your example what the Ten Commandments mean: model them for us.