You Have a Sword...Use It!

Let me open us up in a word of prayer. Lord Jesus, we are so grateful for your word. We are so grateful that you made sure that this, um, book made it to us, that over thousands and thousands of years we still can pick up a Bible in this country where it's not against the law to own one and know what thus saith the Lord to us. So we are grateful that you did not leave us, um, helpless, that you left us with a plan and a laid-out purposeful word. We want to study that word, and as a result of that word, get to know you better, walk in obedience, and experience the blessings of those who follow in line with what your word says. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, so if you have your Bibles, we are on this last piece of armor tonight. This last piece of armor. So if you have your Bibles, open up to Ephesians chapter Ephesians chapter 6, verse 17. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 17. My daddy called me a few weeks ago. He was in Baltimore. He had gone to go visit my grandfather. And as you know, or if you haven't heard, you know, when it rains, it pours. And so in the life of our family, not only are we of course walking with my mom through her health journey, but at the same time, my grandfather who has insisted on not leaving the house, he said, "It all started here and it's gonna end here. I'm not moving out. I'm not going to a nursing home. No assisted facility for me." Could barely get up and down the stairs, but that is home and he was not going in ti where. But he had a mild stroke, and as a result of being in the hospital and going to the rehab center, my dad convinced him just to try it out for a little while. So my dad, in the midst of all that we're going on with here, he made the trip there, and he'll be going back there. He's been back and forth to make sure that my grandfather was being cared for, because you know, when you love your people, you gotta show up and make sure the people who are taking care of your people know that somebody loves the people that belong to you. Amen. So he showed up to do that and was trying to get back here on a Saturday night, because if you know anything about Dr. Tony Evans, you know if he's supposed to be here, he's gonna be here. He may have to take a red-eye, he may get in at 2 AM, but if he's supposed to be preaching the word on a Sunday morning, he is gonna do whatever it takes to get back here so he can do that. And he was taking a late flight, had to drive 30 minutes to an airport that wasn't the closest one, actually 45 minutes, to get on a flight that would get him back here so that he could preach on Sunday morning. Weather was bad. Delay, delay, delay, delay, cancel. And so late, late at night, he finds himself driving around in D.C., not exactly sure how to get back into Baltimore. He's like, if I'm going to be here, I'm going to go back to Baltimore and I'm going to be with my dad. So he calls me and he's at a gas station And he says, "Chrystal, I need you to help me find my way back to the right direction, back to the freeway, and so I can get on the highway to get back to Baltimore." Now, my daddy has an iPhone. He has an iPhone.

And I cannot tell you how many times, how many times I've said to him, "You're not utilizing this device." fully to its capacity.

So here he is late at night with a device that would totally tell him exactly where to go. And he's calling me and I said, "Well, Dad, I don't know where you are." So I'm trying to walk him through on his phone, sharing his location so I could give him instructions. And he said, "Nevermind, this is too much.

I'm just gonna go into the gas station and ask for directions." Now y'all, this is old school. There used to be a time when you could go into the gas station and ask for directions and the person who worked at the gas station could give you directions. Can't nobody do that no more. So he walked into the gas station and I'm still on the line 'cause it's late at night. And although my dad is a grown man, I'm a concerned daughter.

And I just said, "Dad, let me just stay on the line with you while you go in." And he said, "Okay." So I'm hearing him ask the people in the gas station, "Where do I go to get back to Baltimore?" And I hear a lot of mumbling and a lot of conversations and I'm hearing, And then I finally heard somebody say, "Well, I see you have an iPhone. If you just pull up the address on Google Maps or on Apple Maps, you'll find your way." So I said, "Daddy, let me just walk you through how to do it." And many of us are walking around with a Bible in our hand.

And when we get lost, when we get thrown off course, when we're trying to find our way back to the main road, It's not that we don't have what we need. It's not that we're not carrying what we need. It's not that what we have in our hand can't supply our every need. We just don't know how to use it.

Y'all, this Bible that we have that God has preserved over thousands of years to make sure that not only do we have it, that we can carry it, but it is written in a language that we can understand because everybody in the world cannot say that.

We walk around with it, and many of us, while we come to church, while we do the Bible studies, while we may even read a little here and there, when life hits us, when we get lost and we're a little turned around, can we use and fully utilize what we have in our hand? The Bible is infallible.

That means it is without error.

In Psalm 19:7, it says the law of the Lord is perfect. The Bible is inerrant. There is no error error in it. Psalm 30:5 says every word of God is pure. Every word of God is right. The Bible is complete. Romans, uh, Revelation 22:18-19, it says if anybody should add to the words of God, then God will send plagues on him because everything that's in here, everything you need, it's already here. The Bible is authoritative because in Isaiah 1:2 it says, hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, because the Lord has spoken, and when God speaks, everybody needs to listen. The Bible is sufficient.

In 2 Timothy chapter 3, it says it is sufficient to make you wise unto salvation.

It is effective. The Bible says that my word will go forth out of my mouth and it will not return void. It is divine.

In 2 Peter 1:21, it says that the scripture did not come from a private interpretation.

It came by divine purpose and by the will of God. Into the ears and the minds and the hands of men.

And it is determinative, meaning you can depend on the Word of God to determine what you should and should not do. Not only that, but the Bible is truthful. The Bible says in John 17:17 that thy word is truth.

The Bible tells us over and over again that the man who follows after the Word of God is blessed. He will be happy.

Happy are they, Luke 11:28 says, who hear the word of God and obey it.

When we look at God's word, we grow. In 1 Peter 2:2, it says, as we are babes desiring milk of the word, we will grow.

The word has power.

The Bible is alive and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. It gives us guidance.

In Psalm 119, it is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

It gives us comfort.

In, in Romans 15:4, the Bible talks about the comfort that's offered in scripture. And when we find ourselves in Ephesians 6:17, we find that the word of God is a source of our victory. So why would we not do everything in our power to learn how to use it?

One of the problems with my dad and the iPhone is he said, I just don't feel like learning it. He said, It's just something I don't use often enough. I said, Dad, I've showed you this before. He said, I know, but I haven't used it since then. And if we really believe that the device that we had access to, that we hold in our hand, that it is the source of our victory and that everything that we need, everything that we need, everything that we need is here in its pages. Then why don't we utilize it more often than we do?

In Ephesians 6:17, this last piece of armor, it says to take up, yes, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Now, in Ephesians, you have to understand, in the first 3 chapters, the Bible in Ephesians is telling us we're blessed with everything that we need.

In verses, in chapters 4, 5, and 6 of Ephesians, the Bible is telling us how we should live and the resources that we have to do so. So by the time we get to Ephesians 6, you need this armor of God because everything that God has blessed you with and the instructions that God has given you to live, Satan is trying to snatch it away from you. And so the armor of God is designed for you to be successful in the battle that you are waging with the enemy. Because even if you aren't seeking him, he is seeking you out. The Bible says that the devil is roaring like a lion looking for who he can devour. And if you aren't paying attention, and if you are lulled to sleep by a good service on Sunday morning, and if you are lulled to sleep by a good radio program on the internet or on your radio on the way to work, And if you are lulled to sleep because you are in receiving mode and you never actually learn how to utilize it for yourself in the moments in which you need it, he will come and he will pick the exact portion of scripture or the exact truth that you ain't really learned good yet.

He is after you and you have a sword. He wants to stymie your productivity. He wants to stop you from living out your purpose and position. And the way you overcome him is through the armor. So we've talked about the belt of truth, and we've talked about the breastplate of righteousness. We've talked about the shoes that are the gospel of peace, the shield of faith.

The belt is commitment. The breastplate is holiness. The peace of God is the confidence that we have in his presence. Shield of faith is how we believe in God. The helmet of salvation is the confidence that we carry because of the salvation that we have in Christ.

And then we have the sword.

The Greek word—

now y'all, I done taken a few seminary classes, so for those of y'all who are in here that got your degree, don't knock me if I say it wrong, but I went on the internet and went on YouTube. You can learn a lot of things on YouTube.

Thank you, Jesus.

The word for sword here in this word. It's spelled like machaira, but it is pronounced machaira. Okay?

And it is a sword, not a large wielding chop off your head sword. It is a sword that is about 18 inches long, meaning as the Romans walked through the streets of Judea and of Israel, they carried them in a sheath on their side. It was like a handyman sword. You had it with you all the time, and if you're going to use it, You actually have to be very specific about what you want to do. I can take a long, long sword and just swing it any old kind of way and chop you to pieces. But if I have a sword that's 18 inches, it has a specific use.

That means that whatever I want to do with it is probably right in front of me.

This idea of the sword of the Spirit is not this random, just swing it at anything all the time. It is I want you to have this and to be able to specifically use it in circumstances that are right in front of you. How do you learn how to use God's word? You start with what's right in front of you. What's going on in your marriage? What's going on with your kids? What's going on at work? What's going on in you? What's going on in you emotionally, physically, Mentally, what's going on with you? And whatever that is, that is the first place you go to class.

My oldest son is a dual credit student, and I'm so glad because as a homeschool kid, as they get older, I look forward every year to more and more doing less and less.

Thank you, Jesus. And so you have to pass the TSI, and it is an exam that says I'm ready to take college classes. And when he said to me, "Mom, what class should I take?" I said, "Well, when you take the test, let's see what you do the best on.

That will be the thing that we start with.

It's obvious. It's right there. We're gonna start with what's right in front of you and build from there." You don't have to study what everybody else is studying necessarily. What's right in front of you. And I said it before a few weeks ago on a Wednesday night. Listen, I knew about scriptures in the Bible that talked about healing, but you better believe I got a whole bunch of them memorized now. I have been at the kitchen table with my boys with scriptures on a ring. I punched holes in cards and they are written down on cards and we're flipping through them, praying for my mom and their grandmother. And while we're doing that, I'm teaching them this is how you pray God's word back to him. Now I could have picked Ephesians 6 and we could have memorized the whole chapter. That would've been good. But what's right in front of us is where I'm practicing using and utilizing the sword of God.

What's right in front of you?

Because sometimes we look at this Bible that has thousands of pages and we overcomplicate What we need to do to get to know his word and use it.

And I've said this before too, y'all. If you don't know where to start, you Google.

Because somebody else has already gathered scriptures for healing, gathered scriptures for depression, gathered scriptures for praying for your children, gathered scriptures for praying for your marriage, gathered scriptures for praying over your finances. Somebody's already done the work. And if you don't like the internet, We have a bookstore. Get on Amazon and Amazon Prime will have a book on a prayer series that you need on your doorstep in 48 hours. There is no excuse. That's what I'm trying to say.

The Bible is a weapon, but the weapon will only work as well as you know how to use it. This weapon was the same type of sword that the Romans would have had when they got Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

It's the same type of weapon that Peter, when he lopped off the ear of the Roman guard, it's the same type that he used, and he used it to attack what was right in front of him.

So in order for you to be effective in using the sword, you have to learn to be precise and learn to take the scriptures, the word of God, and to use them And you do that by taking the time to study. Now, you may say, well, I've tried reading, or I've tried to study, and Chrystal, what you're saying, it's good, but the reality is, is that there's some stuff I just don't understand. Listen, there's some good news I want to share with you. It's in 1 John 2:27. It says, as for you, the anointing which you receive from him abides in you, and you have no no need for anyone to teach you, but as his anointing— you—

anointing teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie. And just as it has taught you, you abide in him.

There is a place for preaching and teaching.

There is a place for Bible studies. There is a place for the radio shows. There is a place for the podcast. But there is no replacement for you picking up the word of God and letting the Holy Spirit who lives in you point out to you what he needs you to see. And there is a place for study. The Bible says, 2 Timothy 2:15, study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who needs not be ashamed. Yes, you need to apply yourself.

Yes, you need to learn.

And there's nothing wrong with using resources and commentaries, and the internet means you have no excuse. But stop expecting that if somebody doesn't spell it out for you, that the Holy Spirit can't He spelled it out for you himself. You have the power of the living God on the inside of you. And sometimes the best word you need doesn't come from the preacher. It doesn't come from the woman's Bible study teacher. It doesn't come from the podcast or the radio show. It doesn't come from Chuck Swindoll, John MacArthur, or Tony Evans. It comes from the Holy Spirit who lives in you.

This is a sword.

It is supposed to be on you so that you can pull it when you need it and use it precisely and effectively. And the Holy Spirit who lives in you makes that possible.

It is a good word. It is a good word because it's an amazing book.

If any other textbook was like this, we would praise it much more than the Bible gets its props. Penned by different authors over 15 centuries, the Bible does not contradict itself. It does not contain any errors. It is made of 66 books written on 3 different continents in 3 different languages by more than 40 authors, most of whom never met each other. And over a period of 1,500 years, they did not contradict one another. And many of the findings in the Bible have been confirmed by over 23,000 archaeological digs. And even though the authors represent all different types of perspectives, they all proclaim the one true God and the same one way of salvation. If there was any other textbook on the market today that could boast this, it would be praised, but people are not interested in the one true way. You have an amazing, an amazing book at your disposal, so use it.

The consistencies here mean that you can trust that the God who laid out the word is consistent and that he will be consistent in keeping his word and that word being effective in your life too. His word is a compilation but it is also a general written word that you do have to do your work to understand.

As I mentioned before, you do need to study to show yourself approved. And so when you come on Wednesday nights and when Pastor has walked through books of the Bible, you're studying. When you take notes on Sunday morning, yes, and if you review them when you go home, you're studying. If you're in a small group and you wrestle with what you did or did not understand, or you look at the scriptures on the bottom of the study guide and you look them up, you're studying. If you're here and if you have ever heard of other types of Bible studies, Kay Arthur's Precepts, Bible Study Fellowship, YouVersion reading plans, uh, Kay Arthur's Precepts. I mean, all of these are ways to study, but here's the wonderful thing. In any study program that has been created. Do you want to know how that program got created? It got created because the person who created it studied the Bible. And then they said, let me help you by showing you what I did. Kay Arthur, if you've ever heard her testimony, she'll tell you her life was a mess and she just said, I need the truth. I need direction, and I believe that God in his word has provided to me everything that I need. So I need to study the entire, the whole counsel of God. And she took colored pencils and colored markers and colored pens because that's the way it made sense to her. And then somebody said, oh, can you show me how to do that? And then a whole ministry was birthed out of that. But it still comes back to one woman who simply decided, "What's in here, I need, and I gotta figure out how to dig for gold until I find it." Are you putting in the time to study God's word?

'Cause a verse a day that keeps the devil away, I don't know who said that. But the, you know, the devil knows the Bible too. The word is a graphe, a compilation. It is logos, a general and written understanding and meaning of the word. It is a general reference and it's also a rhema word. See, that's if you're real churchy, that's the word you like, you know, ooh yeah, I got a rhema word.

It is when God's word that is compiled, that is a work of art, grafe, and when logos, it's general and anybody can read it, becomes specific and real and applicable to you. The word leaps off the page. The sermon hits straight for you. But you simply don't get it. If you won't pick it up.

There are some specific and precise uses that God has for you with his word, but you will never see what the sword can do for you in the physical and in the spiritual if you don't get really familiar with how to use it. And the good news here is practice makes perfect. That same oldest son who I told you about a few years ago was— the only class available to him at the homeschool co-op to fill a space was Latin. I wasn't intending on him taking Latin. I'm not one of those people who thinks that Latin is the holy grail. I mean, it's good, but I just did it because you got to be there all day so I can have a day off from y'all and Latin was going to fill the spot.

He hated it.

He cried over it. He begged me to take him out of the class. In this class, there was a lot, a lot of writing.

It was difficult. He struggled to keep up.

But I asked the teacher, "Do you think he can do it?" She said, "Oh yeah, if he applies himself, he can do it." So I just said, "I think this is just a good growing experience for you. You'll be all right. You'll be all right." Stay in the class.

At the end of the year, the son who struggled with it, the son who struggled with keeping up with the assignments, the son who didn't want to be in it, who didn't understand how all of these words fit together, that son had an A in the class. There are some things that you only get good at when you practice them. There are some things that you only come to understand when you keep at it, looking at it again, and again and again until you get it, until something clicks. And I don't know why we think in life that there are so many things that should come if we work for them and don't want to put the Bible in that category too.

Listen, salvation is free, but sanctification takes work.

And a large part of our sanctification process comes as we are renewed in our thinking, Romans 12, and as we are washed with the word.

So you have to show up for the word. It is a proactive weapon, a weapon in which you can go out and conquer, win battles over Satan's dark kingdom.

When you stand up and you proclaim the word of God over your situation, you are on the offensive. When you speak life and not death based on what God's word says, you are on the offensive. Offensive. When you talk about the word to your friends, when you pray over your spouse, when you teach the children the word of God, you are on the offensive. That before you need it, you are using it. When you are in your place of work, in your school, and you choose to bring the positioning of God's word to bear in your situation, you are on the offensive. And sometimes the sword that you use if you know how to use it, it can be a defensive mechanism too. Because when Satan comes at you seeking who he can devour, knowing which moves to make and where to place the swords to extinguish the darts of the enemy, the sword is a defensive mechanism as well.

Listen, many of y'all remember the old Karate Kid, not the new one. Anybody remember the old Karate Kid?

And the kid wanted to learn karate and the teacher appeared not to be teaching him karate.

He had him doing all kinds of things, washing cars, painting fences, waxing on and waxing off.

And that kid said, what in the world does this have to do? With me learning how to fight. Some of the moves were offensive. Some of the moves were defensive. And he got a chance to see how each of those moves that he used could serve him in the midst of the battle. But the bottom line was they were all moves that came from the same handbook. And he, in a situation where he had to be on the offensive or be on the defensive, just took what he had learned that he had muscle memory for and used it. A lot of what the Bible study that you need to do is a lot of using the sword of the Spirit is muscle memory. If I sit down at the piano today, and if you put a Bach two-part invention in front of me, or better yet, Minuet in G, any musical people in here that had to learn Minuet in G?

Mm-hmm. You would know it if you heard it.

When my sons are practicing the piano and I say, "This is how it goes," it takes my youngest son especially to say, "But you're so old. How do you even remember that?" I try not to be offended.

It's muscle memory. I can play a 2-octave scale in most of the keys on the piano. Not because I practiced in 10 years, but because during a season when I was practicing them a lot, I locked it in. Annie Mercer, who is the wife of one of our assistant pastors on staff, Larry Mercer, had a season, a very dark season where she was walking through a very difficult diagnosis of breast cancer. She was very, very sick. And she said to me one Sunday, as she saw me walking with my children, She touched me as I walked up the aisle and she said, "Teach 'em the word." She said, "I need you to know that there are days when I don't have the strength to even lift my arm to get my Bible off of my nightstand. And the verses that are in my mind and in my heart, the ones that comfort me, the ones that bring me joy, that remind me of God's love for me even in the midst of my pain are the verses my my mother taught me.

When I was not even old enough to realize I was memorizing them.

Muscle memory. It'll serve you well.

Many of us wait until we're in the midst of the battle to do our homework. No, no, you need to do your homework right now so when the test comes, you are ready with the answers. Cramming is not the way to work the sword. Ongoing, consistent discipline, dynamic study, immersing yourself in the word, memorizing it before you need it. That's how you practice your waxing on and waxing off. And then when the enemy shows up, your muscle memory will kick in. You didn't know why you learned that verse, but now you do. You didn't know why you understood that Bible story or where God led you to that Bible study, but now you do. You don't know why you, you were so locked into this series and why God led you to go deeper every Sunday through the small group study guide or to plug in during a campaign, but now you do. And the tragedy is that many of us look back when— from the stance that we have in the midst of our mess and we said, "Man, I had the chance to learn that lesson, but I was too lazy to do the work then. So now I gotta go through and double time it." I want to encourage you to do the work.

So that when you need to use the word offensively or defensively, you can do so well because it's a sword. And of all the other things that are in the armor of God, all the other things— the belt, the breastplate, the shoes, the shield, and the helmet— this is your one offensive offensive piece of equipment. Everything else is to help you with defense, and the sword is a double whammy. Are you treating it like it is? There was a man who said as he looked out of his window looking at his garden, He said, "First I saw a butterfly. That butterfly was beautiful and it would alight delicately to a flower for a few seconds and jump off and fly around to another flower and flutter around. And for a while it would go around the garden touching as many flowers as quickly as it could. And then it flew away. I watched a little longer and I saw a botanist.

And the botanist had a big notebook." And under his arm he had a big magnifying glass and he took his time walking around the garden examining everything in great detail, taking notes and looking ever so closely. Then he would write some notes, look again, write some notes and look again. And after a while he left the garden. He said, but the third thing I noticed was a bee. The bee would get on a flower, sink down deep into the flower, It would extract all the pollen that it could carry, and every time the bee went in empty, it came out full. He said, so this is with people who approach the Bible. There are some people that flutter around from sermon to sermon, class to class, study to study, bringing nothing and gaining nothing. What a nice feeling. Then there are spiritual botanists who show up at church every Sunday and take copious notes, but they don't have the capacity to draw anything out of the flowers. It's just pure academics.

They have as many notes as would sink a tanker, but they don't utilize them. And then there are bees that draw out of every precious flower all that there is to make honey that makes them blessed and make other people blessed because of their work. Invested. Which are you? You can be a butterfly and just skip around to all the things that are good for the hearing of the ear. You can be a botanist and show up with your beautiful notebook and your Bible and your special pens and take all the notes.

Or you can be a bee and come in empty, do the work, dig in deep, and always leave the word full.

The word is a sword. Which one are you? The tragedy of tragedies, John MacArthur says, is for someone to be a Christian for a long time and not be able to use the sword. You may say, "Oh, I'll tell you, I've kind of picked my way here and there, understand some things and don't understand others." And he says, "Listen to me, don't give me any of that baloney. Don't tell me you don't understand it." He not only gave you the book, he planted in your heart the resident truth teacher. And he will teach you if you will simply submit to his teaching. The other day, my dad called me again and he said, "Now, Jonathan told me that I should use Waze." Anybody know what Waze is? It's another alternative to Apple Maps and Google Maps.

And I said, "Well, yes, you can use Waze. It'll take you a little bit here and there, but—" It'll get you where you need to go.

So he tried Waze out and Waze will take you off the freeway into a neighborhood, into places you've never been.

And you have no idea how you're gonna get where you're supposed to be, but Waze knows. And if you follow the direction, it will get you where you're supposed to be. And we were in the middle of a neighborhood and Daddy said, I just don't understand how this thing is gonna get me where I need to go. But the question I asked him was, Well, you either gonna trust it or you're not.

And eventually we did make our way out of that neighborhood into a place none of us had ever been and back onto the main roads and reaching our destination. It doesn't matter if you use Waze, Google Maps, or Apple Maps, even though Apple Maps is normally wrong. It's true. The bottom line is they all know more than you do about where you're going.

And if you carry the device in your hand, and if you won't use it and then trust it to help you navigate places that you have never been, and you don't want to learn the hard way how to figure out where to go, if you will decide to use it, you will not only find that it is a good book, but that it is a great book, and that everything you need is right in it.

Its pages. Lord Jesus, help us to use your word.

Help us to understand that what you have given us in your armor is all for our utilization, but your word is the only offensive weapon that we have.

Even you in Matthew 4, when the devil came at you, you responded with the word. Then how much more do we, your children, your sheep, need to know your word in order to fight off the schemes of the enemy. Lord, as we continue to move forward in our discussion tonight, I just ask that you would convict, that you would direct, and that you would enlighten so that we can see your word for what it truly is and stop making excuses for not utilizing it well. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.