Gospel Shoes

The in Ephesians chapter 6 apostle Paul reminds us that important to be ready for spiritual battle. We have to be equipped for the combat work in the face and well our footwear might not seem like a top priority. The shoes we wear will determine our effectiveness on the battlefield are your feet ready for action today on Truth for Life.

Alastair Begg explains the purpose of gospel shoes shoes are very very important to us all. I think probably every one of us is wearing shoes. I reached into my ancient history to remind myself of the discussions that used to take place as I was getting ready for school once again and how in a particular era where winkle pickers were in fashion and many of you will have to Google that please don't do it now, but when winkle pickers were in fashion. I thought it would be a great idea for me to have a nice pointed pair of those to go to school and then a dreadful adjective that my mother always use no Alastair, I think it is important that you have sensible shoes, sensible shoes all that dreadful experience of having to go back to school wearing of all things sensible shoes, but is entirely sensible to wear sensible shoes and therefore it was sensible that the Roman soldier would wear shoes that were not provided so that he might become a tap dancer or draw attention to himself.

But in order that he might be able to equip himself in battle. Josephus, the Jewish historian tells how part of the success of Caesar as military general Lee in the provision that he made for the footwear of his soldiers.

He provided them sandals that had hauled nails in the soul in order that they would be able to do two things, particularly first of all, to stand securely and then to be able to move quickly. Note surely not pictured is in the back of Paul's mind as he writes here we said on each occasion that it's probably not the primary picture he has in mind.

But that would be the armor of God is anticipated in the fullness that is in Jesus. As we read in the prophets, but to the extent that the Roman soldier would be in the picture.

We understand that it is sensible then for him to say now the Christian soldier has been given the right kind of shoes in order to do what the Christian soldier is called to do in order to be ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Note if you were paying attention you would notice that Paul is asking for prayer that he might be able to boldly proclaim the mystery of the gospel. He began his letter in chapter 1, by reminding his readers that many of them had come to faith in Jesus as a result of an understanding of the gospel. He says this is the this is the gospel that was preached to you, you Harrogate you believed and you became members of his family. Now it is this that lies at the very heart of all that he then goes on to say and that is why we've tried to say on each occasion that what we are dealing with in terms of the armor is the provision that is made in Jesus for those who are the soldiers of Jesus and of course, not everybody is a soldier of Jesus. I may be here this morning and even the idea of being a soldier of Jesus seems remote to you and perhaps even unattractive to and why would we ever want to think in those terms. Well is the way the Bible opens it up to us.

The Bible says that we are in need of this gospel of peace and the reason that we are in need of the gospel of peace is because there is an enmity between ourselves and God and as you read through Ephesians you see that Paul is making it perfectly clear. Jesus is our peace.

It is not that there is peace in religion or there is peace in our endeavors, but that this piece is found in Jesus that he was making peace by his blood shed on the cross. I wonder, do you know this. I wonder, do you believe this is a many men today and women today are searching desperately for peace within, but with no real consideration of the need for peace with God.

And when you read the Bible you discover that it is first peace with God that opens the door to the peace of God, and that piece all of God is a piece which we enjoy in company with others who have experienced that same piece I've ever really understood what we mean when we talk about the gospel or gospel shoes grab some us. As you know, was a talk about this morning and you thalamus. It was about gospel shoes and his organist what what about gospel shoes.

Where have you had these shoes weight on his ABC a. There is something to admit that we have sinned, we have fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal life. There's something to admit be there is something to believe that Jesus is the one who has died in the place of sinners.

The good news of the gospel is not what we are able to do in order to make ourselves acceptable to God, but it is the wonder of what God has done in Jesus opening up the way for us to know and then see to come to him under form some here this morning are trapped in between BNC never actually come to the invitation of Jesus was always to come then to go. Why would we ever go with a message that we ourselves have never understood Jesus on the great day of the feast. John tells us he is. He cried out, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, and out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. The routine gatherings of the people of God.

The routine teaching of the Bible. The primary purpose is not that we might have an increased understanding of the Bible with a few ideas for application, but it is that we might have a direct encounter with the living God through his word, by the Holy Spirit in the person and work of Jesus and it is that that which is the foundation of the shoes which the Army wears going back out into the community to have your gospel shoes three words stability mobility and adaptability stability.

The issue of this call to be ready with the gospel is in the context you will notice of standing if your Bible is open, you will see that that's what he is begun in verse 11 that put on this armor, that you may be able to stand again in verse 13 stand your ground and in verse 14.

Again, stand therefore know what is it then that gives us the ability to stand when people around say while we have no interest in this at all. When people around say I can't believe that you would see these kind of things. What is it that gives us the ability to stand. What is it provides our footing. The answer is it is the gospel. The gospel itself.

When Paul writes his great chapter on the on the resurrection in first Corinthians 15. You remember he begins it I would remind you, I want to remind you, brethren of the gospel I preached to you and which you received and in which you stand. Stand using one of the great evidences of somebody was wearing the gospel shoes is that they can stand is very good as it is, but you can stand when all around our soul gives way we can stand possible shoes, we can stand when our family members are opposed to others or are concerned because of our commitment to the very gospel we stand. You see, the reason that the shoes were so important to the soldier was to prevent them from slipping and falling or being encountered by the spikes that were often put in the roadway in a way that landmines are done in modern warfare so that the person the soldier would be so equipped in his footwear that he would actually be able to stand on some of those things he couldn't do it if he was running around in his slippers gospel shoes now one of the great highlights of bike last few days has been to finally get to Wittenberg and to see the doors, albeit not the original doors no wooden doors could last that long. I don't think, but to see the doors.

There where Luther nailed his thesis to the door and where he said here I stand I can do no other. What was it that given the ability to stand against all of the nonsense that was going on.

It was the gospel gospel shoes. What is it that will enable you going back into your lab into your workshop into your school. What will enable you to stand gospel shoes and they are provided for you in Christ to prepare the road for ourselves. Jesus walks in front and gives to us the opportunity to be prepared to say I know this may be unpopular. I know you may think I'm crazy, but I actually love to tell the story in Corinthians again after the chapter on the resurrection. Paul says to them, almost as a as a Sino, he says, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong, act like men you can see, act like men that is politically incorrect. I don't mean that as a joke.

There is no question that, but one of the places in which the gospel is vociferously taken on in our day is in the matter of human sexuality and gender. What then would make you stand gospel shoes. Secondly, it provides for is not only stability but mobility and fight it demands mobility. Hence, this notion of readiness put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. One of the great technical questions. In these few words here is whether were putting on readiness for weather report on the gospel shoes or whether the gospel shoes or the equipment or what whatever you can stay up all night with stuff like this. Trust me, and then think it involves both both the stability that allows us to stand and the more ability that allows us to get about the business. Surely there is there is a hint here in in this of what we had earlier in verse 17 of chapter 2 of Jesus and he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near so he came that this is actually from Isaiah peace to those who are near and peace to those who are far off, and that the prophet writes the sender and generations come and say, I wonder who will be the great messenger of this piece. And here comes the Lord Jesus, how lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news who brings good news in a bad news world Jesus. Jesus and he then places the trail and we follow along. In fact, when you read the movement of Jesus in the early days of his ministry, and you can read this for yourselves in the gospel of Mark and in the very beginning of the of the gospel. Jesus makes very clear what it is he's come to do is what he says 50 inverse of Mark one. The time is fulfilled. That means all the things that have been pointing forward to this have not reached their fulfillment and the kingdom of God is at hand. Why is that because I'm the king. Therefore repent and believe the good news Jesus saying that he came he was.

He was promised and he came as promised, and he came as King and he announced the news that entry into his kingdom, becoming a soldier in his army involved repentance and believing turning from my rebellion turning from my sin, turning to him in all the offer of his salvation. Note that was his message. He also healed people. He also cast out demons and before you're out of the first chapter, the wonder of all that has taken place in these early hours has so filled the minds of the disciples that they are amazed that Jesus is not present when they get up in the morning and Mark tells us that the reason for that is that he is gone away to us a private place in order that he might pray in order they might pray they come and they find him and they say to him. Everyone is looking for you.

In other words, this kingdom thing has got off to a terrific start last night was fantastic. The inference being we should just keep it going right now and then you have this amazing statement by Jesus, how unlikely is this everyone is looking for you and he said to them let us go on to the next town's why that I may preach there also.

Why, for that is why I came out to do what to put on the gospel shoes to move through the communities to proclaim the salvation of peace with God. Now that secure grounding is then the perfect foundation for mobility and when we read our Bibles, we find places for example in first Peter we quoted often don't week that we are to be ready always to give an answer kindly, reverently, for those who ask the reason for the hope we have a wide well because they see that we are filled with hope in a gloomy world tour that we have faced real sadness in our lives or that we have lost a loved one. They they don't want to know about how religious we are.

They want to know how would you have this whole within you.

Surely your circumstances are whole, less noisy. That is what we are to be ready to proclaim we don't have to solve people's riddles. We don't have to try and explain what is inexplicable. Few of us are able to take on the geniuses, and even if we did it would not be my by means of our ability to articulate and argue and apologetic that they would eventually come to trust in Jesus, know all we need to do as I say is, given the ABCs to say like the man who was born blind and Jesus healed and remember the big fiasco that ensued with the religious leaders and eventually they press the man they say can you explain this and can you explain that eventually says no.

One thing I do know once I was blind but now I can see wonder if we are serious in our thinking as a church are not simply about being stable but about being mobile. I don't know very much about the business world.

I do know a little bit because I read the paper and it's and it seems to me that one of the great challenges in business and in every age is the ability to respond to changes in the market, especially if if we are we have a product to to move whether we are able to be agile or whether we become a great behemoth that that can no longer respond quickly and so others who can respond quickly have a greater opportunity to send to get a piece of the market share note is a cynic who who change the words of a mighty Fortress or like a mighty something like a mighty army moves the Church of God and to institute like a mighty tour toys moves the Church of God, brothers, we are treading where we've always draw is the real danger isn't gospel shoes not only provide stability. Not only do they suggest mobility, but in a realistic way to call for adaptability. I just say a word about this and then were through clearly. We do not mean by that adapting our message or modifying our message to suit the tastes of our culture know how we remain convinced is a church.

The regular teaching of the Bible with the primary objective that men and women may have a direct encounter with the living God with all that is in our children's ministry wherever it is that our core conviction is that the entry of God's word does its work that God's word does God's work by God's spirit in the lives of those who encounter it. And so it is for us at the drumbeat that keeps us in time. It is the rudder if you like that guides the ship through the water, but there needs to be with those convictions. Adaptability we can apply it in multiple ways are not suggesting any kind of shakeup at all by the danger for a church even our church is that although everybody thinks the very adaptable. The fact is that most of us are slavishly attached to old forms.

Most of us are better at suggesting new ideas than we are enclosing down old ideas. Z.

Just as in a business. So in a church, a business has to decide what it's doing and why it's doing and when someone comes and says there's 15 other things you could be doing. That's a very important day isn't because it is the central thing that demands the attention and the commitment of the core interchurch of our size. People are constantly coming to his suggesting this, suggesting that suggesting the next day we listen to those things. But we can become like a man who jumped on his horse and galloped off in all directions. Adaptability still has to be within the framework of our core.

I have a picture that I want to show you and then and then I'll start.

I said to the to the boys and girls and I would stop, so here's here's a picture that is a picture there of the Fireman's boots already said in the Fireman's trousers so that when he comes down he can jump straight into his boots pull up his trousers and be gone. The Brentwood fire and rescue Department. That's the picture there has as its standard 60 seconds from the moment that the alarm is raised to the vehicle moves with the people in it. You can do that if you're fiddling around trying to decide what color socks you want to wear and if a church to mix metaphors decides that what he wants to be is a kind of Marina where we sale our little boats around playing Christian music through the stereo than I will determine a lot of things but when we determine that we have been left here as a lifeboat station that changes everything dramatically as well.

And that's why we're given these gospel shoes walk in wisdom, says Paul toward outsiders making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious. Season with salt, so that you may know how you are to answer each person we have been called by God to take the message of the gospel to all who needed listening to Alistair Begg this is Truth for Life. You often hear me talking about how all of Alister's teaching is available for free online and through our mobile app that we hear from people all around the world to tell us how grateful they are that they have access to Alister's entire sermon library without any charge, but the thanks we received does not belong to us. It belongs to our true partners.

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