Spiritual Warfare Armor, Pt. 2 – Sunday School Lesson

We’ve been talking about the Armor of God.

It’s a set of weapons and tools the Lord has gifted us with so that we can fight spiritual battles.

Last week we looked at the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness and having our feet shod with the gospel of peace.

 

Today we are going to cover the other pieces of armor.

Turn to Ephesians 6:16 –

16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. (NIV)

The enemy is going to attack you – he’s a roaring lion looking for someone to devour [1 Peter 5:8 –  Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (NIV)]

That’s why we have to be on guard at all times.

When he throws his assaults, attacks, and lies at you, you can use your shield of faith to stop them.

You can stop these attacks by choosing to trust and have faith in God to take care of it and to prevent it.

You can call on God to protect you.

You can refuse to accept the attack and not let it in by instead standing on the truth of who God is, what He said He’ll do for you, and what you’ve seen Him do for you- secure in the knowledge that you are His and are hidden under His wing and protected.

This is standing in faith or as we often say it, standing on our faith.

 

This doesn’t mean bad things won’t still happen.

Sometimes they will.

We live in a broken world.

It does mean a lot of things will be stopped in their tracks, ended and even prevented.

Other things will not be as bad or will not be allowed to spiral into something more or worse because you are trusting God to handle, sort, and/or prevent the situation.

 

It can be hard because we aren’t always sure we have enough faith.

Sometimes, we aren’t sure about God.

We might know He can do it, but aren’t sure He will do it for us.

Here’s the thing, when we doubt God or ourselves, we hinder things and prevent God from working fully in our lives.

Part of receiving is believing and having faith He will help.

 

Do you remember the story of the mustard seed found in Matthew 17:20?

Some of Jesus’ disciples had tried to heal a boy but couldn’t.

When they asked Jesus why they couldn’t He told them it was because they didn’t have enough faith.

Then Jesus said, “ I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible to you.”

 

A mustard seed is very, very small.

They measure approximately 1 – 2 millimeters, which is .04 – .08 inches.

That’s not 4/10 of an inch – it’s 4/100 of an inch to 8/100 of an inch.

Pretty tiny.

Not much bigger than a grain of sand or salt.

That’s how little faith you have to have.

You just have to have that little bit.

Then, once you’ve used it, it will begin to grow.

Faith is like a muscle, the more you use it, the more it grows and the stronger it gets.

Over time as you have trusted God more and begun to see a pattern in your life it becomes easier to trust Him and to look to Him for help, guidance, and protection because you can look back and see where He has been working and trust that if He did that for you, He’ll do this.

This is your faith growing.

So, even if your faith is very small or shaky, use it.

In time, it will become bigger and stronger.

 

So, we use our faith to trust God and to believe He can help us and that He will help and protect us.

 

The other side of this, and an important part, is that when these attacks come, we can instantly look at them, say to ourselves, nope, not accepting that, not falling for it, that’s not what God says, it goes against His will.

Or, as I heard on tv once, “yeah, that’s gonna be a no from me.”

You aren’t talking to the enemy.

You are talking to yourself and you’re keeping your eyes focused on Christ always.

What you are doing is realizing what the enemy is throwing at you doesn’t belong in your life and immediately refusing it.

This eliminates a lot of heartache and disappointment in your life because you are staying focused on God and what He said, how He would have you to do or not do things.

 

When you use your faith as a protection, a lot of those fiery darts sent to you to bring you down or cripple you will bounce right off and fizzle out on the ground.

That’s your shield of faith.

 

Verse 17 –

17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Let’s look at the helmet first.

The helmet of salvation protects your mind.

This is where the battleground starts.

Like we talked about last week, your thought life can make or break your walk.

This is where we hold on to and remember that we have the hope of salvation.

Jesus has saved us.

We’re safe.

 

Listen to 1 Thessalonians 5:8-9 – in it Paul is talking to the Christians about the difference between the unsaved who live in the night and darkness and the saved who are now in the light and the day.

These verses say, 8but since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. 9For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. (NIV)

We put on, or take on faith and love, and the hope of salvation.

This hope is knowledge that when we die we will go to Heaven to be with God for eternity.

We are now His.

We use this as protection for our minds.

In battle, the purpose of a helmet is to protect the head from getting hit and to prevent the person wearing it from having their senses knocked out of them.

When we get hit on the head we can’t focus.

We lose orientation.

The helmet prevents that from happening.

It is to help us keep our mind intact.

 

The helmet protects our mind and helps us keep focused on the situation and on the fact we are operating from a position of already being saved.

God wants us to receive salvation through Christ.

Once we’ve received it, we are permanently saved.

Nothing can change that.

It’s a done deal.

We can stand firm on the fact that Jesus does what He says He will.

Using this knowledge of our salvation as a comfort and as a true fact of our reality changes things.

It causes us to look and think about things differently.

When we know we are saved and safe we can view life and its troubles a lot differently.

It helps us to remember God is on our side, fighting with and for us.

We aren’t out there alone.

We are safe and protected.

We have the rights and privileges God has given His children.

 

We act differently because now that we are saved we are different.

 

We start to appreciate what Christ has done for us more and more.

we start to cling to that, and to Him, more and more.

 

We also can better see that we need to fight for others and just how big of a deal it is to fight for them.

We see how high the stakes really are.

 

This knowledge that we are saved and safe in Him protects our thoughts and our ideas.

If that is taken away from us it wrecks us and weakens us.

Makes us vulnerable targets.

The helmet prevents that.

 

Next week we will finish up our study of the Spiritual Armor.

 

This week’s homework:

Which part of today’s lesson spoke to you the most? Why?

Which part of the armor do you think you use the most? Why?

Which part of the armor do you think you use the least? Why?

 

Links to the other lessons in this series: Intro to Spiritual Warfare, –Spiritual Warfare Armor, Pt. 1, Spiritual Warfare Pt. 3

A list of all available lessons can be found on my Lessons Outlines page

Free Downloadable/Printable PDF of this Lesson Spiritual Warfare Pt 2 Lesson Plan