{"id":2752,"date":"2018-10-22T15:52:50","date_gmt":"2018-10-22T04:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/?p=2752"},"modified":"2018-10-22T15:54:22","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T04:54:22","slug":"the-armour-of-god-20-10-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/?p=2752","title":{"rendered":"The Armour of God 21-10-2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Armour of God<\/i>. <\/i>[Eph. 6]<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ephesians\u00a0 <\/span>6: 10 \u2013 24<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

What does the story of Noah share with the Armour of God in Ephesians?<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The armour of God<\/i> <\/i>in Ephesians like the story of Noah has been well used in children\u2019s ministry.\u00a0 <\/span>Boys love the swords and shields. Children can place the animals in the Ark. They both provide tactile interactive lessons. All very good, isn\u2019t it? I pride myself on having a competency in children\u2019s education. When I was the General Editor of a National primary school religious education programme I edited out these texts in the lower levels and reserved them for grade six.\u00a0 <\/span>Why?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

You see both Noah and the Armour of God are adult texts with very sophisticated thoughts. What do they have in common?\u00a0 <\/span>In the first place they deal with evil at an advanced level. \u00a0 <\/span>Secondly they both encourage us to stand against the evil.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Evil is addressed in both texts, albeit in different ways. The armour of God\u2019s description in Ephesians is preceded with the reason for it.\u00a0 <\/span>We are standing <\/i>against evil in all its power: the forces of evil, principalities, heavenly beings and demonic powers. \u00a0 <\/span>Now all this language has been purged from our conversation in most Western churches. We don\u2019t talk about the Devil, or demons, or spiritual powers. We Westerners know that reason tells us all we need to know.\u00a0 <\/span>Therefore we are the one\u2019s who do the evil. That is, any evil is purely a human activity. We just need to educate ourselves and set some rules and all will be fine. It has nothing to do with the demonic in life. But is it really as easy as all that?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Now I am not asking you to believe in the Devil, or demons, or cosmic forces of evil, if that is what you don\u2019t believe in. Personally I keep an open mind on the question as to whether there is or not a Devil, or demons or powers of evil in the world. I am asking to consider something about the nature of evil. Let us consider what happens in our institutions, community structures and workplaces. You join a company, a club and even a church and you find that there is a spirit or atmosphere in the place. I recall my brother, who claims not to be a Christian, when entering the Biblical research centre where I was working remarking in the entrance hall, \u201cThis place feels so peaceful!\u201d He immediately on entering the building felt the atmosphere.\u00a0 <\/span>There was something there that was more than the sum of the individual people in it. The research centre had its own spirit. You say, \u2018that\u2019s absurd\u2019.\u00a0 <\/span>Have you never been to a place and felt something about the place, the environment.\u00a0 <\/span>You enter a place and something about it makes you want to respond in a certain way. My brother felt that on that occasion. We talk of friendly churches. Of course individuals determine the friendliness, but the friendliness can reach a level that is bigger than the individuals. The notion that something can be greater than the sum of its parts is as old as Aristotle and we call it synergy.\u00a0 <\/span>Take a beam that is 6×4 (150x100mm). A single beam of that size will not be as strong as a laminated beam of the same size. Synergy does not only apply to the physical world but human communities.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When reading for my undergraduate degree in divinity I learnt that institutions and systems have a force that can be demonic.\u00a0 <\/span>That is, the culture of a place affects those who enter that culture driving and controlling the behaviour. Create a culture of \u2018making the most money as you can\u2019 which is rewarded by individual bonuses, and don\u2019t be surprised to find that the outcome means those in power serve their own interests before those they serve. The evolving culture will be characterised by greed and self-interest. Correspondingly values like trust and integrity will slip. As these trends grow and become integrated into the institution they drive the group. Those entering the institution will be caught up in it. If a new person protests they will be put aside. Most who enter will take on the culture. That is what I see as a form of the demonic, where the culture drives us down a pathway of self-interest at the expense of others.\u00a0 <\/span>This is what has happened, I believe, with our banking and financial institutions. This is what happens in politics.\u00a0 <\/span>A culture becomes evil when it sets aside respect and justice for others. Evil is present when injustice and elitism, truth and unity are compromised. When the collective wrong-doing becomes greater than the sum of the individuals then the demonic has entered and toxicity emerges. The forces flowing from these cultures are powerful.\u00a0 <\/span>This is what Paul is writing about. And we ignore this wisdom at our peril. It is not easy to combat such evil.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

[I could go on to talk about how criminalising refugees leads naturally to showing less compassion to these displaced people. Examples abound in history of how we characterise a people so that we can empower ourselves and the total force of this leads to discrimination, injustice.\u00a0 <\/span>Apartheid, Nazism, Sexism, Chauvinism all exhibit the same characteristic and have become toxic and demonic forces that gather people up into them.]<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Now the only way we can combat such forces is by standing against them. We need to stand together\u2013 shoulder-to-shoulder as the ancient soldiers did.\u00a0 <\/span>On the battlefield the soldiers would stand shoulder to shoulder making a wall of defence with their shields and weapons. This is why we are encouraged to put on the armour of God.\u00a0 <\/span>The military image of this passage should not distract us from the truth here. The Armour of God <\/i>reflects the spiritual nature of the warfare.\u00a0 <\/span>There is the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of proclamation, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword, which is the Word of God.\u00a0 <\/span>And above all we are to pray. We are to pray together sustaining our unity and praying to speak with boldness.\u00a0 <\/span>Notice how the first Christians prayed for boldness\u00a0 <\/span>[6: 18-20; cf. Acts 4: 26-28]. Our attention was drawn to this last week when we heard the story of Pastor Christian Reger. Notice too that the military equipment symbolises the very things that make for peace and harmony, unity and well-being: truth, rightness, faith, forgiveness and God\u2019s Word.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I want to tell you about Peter Norman, because his stand illustrates what Ephesians is teaching. You may not have heard of him. Peter Norman was born in Coburg, Melbourne, in 1942 and was raised in a Salvation Army home. He died in 2006. He was an Australian Olympian at the 1968 Olympics and he is known for the stand he took.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

He did very well and earned a silver medal in the 200m final at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. His time of 20.06 seconds still stands as an Australian record.\u00a0 <\/span>That alone would make him stand out, but \u2026 !\u00a0 <\/span>At the 1968 Olympics an iconic Olympian moment involving Norman took place. After the final, Carlos and Smith had told Norman what they were planning to do during the ceremony. As journalist\u00a0Martin Flanagan<\/a>\u00a0wrote: “They asked Norman if he believed in human rights. He said he did. They asked him if he believed in God. Norman, who came from a Salvation Army background, said he believed strongly in God. We knew that what we were going to do was far greater than any athletic feat. He said, ‘I’ll stand with you’. Carlos said he expected to see fear in Norman’s eyes. He didn’t; ‘I saw love.’\u00a0On the way to the medal ceremony, Norman saw the OPHR [Olympic Project for Human Rights<\/i>] badge being worn by\u00a0Paul Hoffman<\/a>, a white member of the US Rowing Team, and asked him if he could wear it.\u00a0It was Norman who suggested that Smith and Carlos share the black gloves used in their salute, after Carlos left his pair at the Olympic Village.\u00a0This is the reason for Smith raising his right fist, while Carlos raised his left.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Standing in solidarity with the two black USA Olympians Norman was part of one the iconic moments in Olympian history. The US Olympic Committee sent Smith and Carlos home from Mexico in disgrace, while Norman also suffered a backlash for his role in the Black Power salute. Norman, in spite of maintaining his fitness, was also sidelined by a racist \u2018keep Australia white\u2019 culture. His standing shoulder to shoulder earned him the censure of the Australian Olympic Committee and the nation. The AO Committee denied any sense of blacklisting Norman.\u00a0 <\/span>However what happened says it all.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In 2006 Peter Norman died.\u00a0 <\/span>Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave eulogies at his funeral and the date of his funeral, the 9th<\/sup> October 2006, was declared a Peter Norman Day by the US Track & Field Federation in the USA.\u00a0 <\/span>Australia first recognised Peter Norman on 11th<\/sup> October 2012 when the Australian House of Representatives passed a motion apologising to Peter Norman\u2019s family and recognised what he stood for. Only after the government\u2019s apology did the Australian Olympic Committee bestow the Order of Merit <\/i>on Norman.\u00a0 <\/span>In 2019 a statue of Peter Norman will be erected in Melbourne. \u00a0 <\/span>The 9th<\/sup> October is also Peter Norman Day in Australia now.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

His daughter Janita said the family had always taken enormous pride in Norman’s actions. \u201cMy father was someone who held strong beliefs and who spoke his mind and yet it’s the image of him standing there silently on the podium that has made such an impact on our lives,” she said. \u201cBut we are also grateful that his athletic achievement is recognised.”\u00a0 <\/span>Australian Athletics also announced recently that distance runner Eloise Wellings was the inaugural recipient of the Peter Norman Humanitarian Award.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Peter Norman stood by his faith and stood for the truth of the Gospel \u2013 for harmony and justice. He paid a price, but he has is one of the important persons is the battle against racism.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

*******<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Peter C Whitaker, Leighmoor UC:\u00a0 <\/span>21\/10\/2018<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

pcwhitaker@icloud.com<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\/ www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Armour of God. [Eph. 6] Ephesians\u00a0 6: 10 \u2013 24 What does the story of Noah share with the Armour of God in Ephesians?\u00a0 The armour of God in Ephesians like the story of Noah has been well used in children\u2019s ministry.\u00a0 Boys love the swords and shields. Children can place the animals in the Ark. They both provide tactile interactive lessons. All very good, isn\u2019t it? I pride myself on having a competency in children\u2019s education. When I was the General Editor of a National primary school religious education programme I edited out these texts in the lower levels and reserved them for grade six.\u00a0 Why? You see both Noah and the Armour of God are adult texts with very sophisticated thoughts. What do they have in common?\u00a0 In the first place they deal with evil at an advanced level. \u00a0 Secondly they both encourage us to stand against the evil.\u00a0 Evil is addressed in both texts, albeit in different ways. The armour of God\u2019s description in Ephesians is preceded with the reason for it.\u00a0 We are standing against evil in all its power: the forces of evil, principalities, heavenly beings and demonic powers. \u00a0 Now all this language has been purged from our conversation in most Western churches. We don\u2019t talk about the Devil, or demons, or spiritual powers. We Westerners know that reason tells us all we need to know.\u00a0 Therefore we are the one\u2019s who do the evil. That is, any evil is purely a human activity. We just need to educate ourselves and set some rules and all will be fine. It has nothing to do with the demonic in life. But is it really as easy as all that? Now I am not asking you to believe in the Devil, or demons, or cosmic forces of evil, if that is what you don\u2019t believe in. Personally I keep an open mind on the question as to whether there is or not a Devil, or demons or powers of evil in the world. I am asking to consider something about the nature of evil. Let us consider what happens in our institutions, community structures and workplaces. You join a company, a club and even a church and you find that there is a spirit or atmosphere in the place. I recall my brother, who claims not to be a Christian, when entering the Biblical research centre where I was working remarking in the entrance hall, \u201cThis place feels so peaceful!\u201d He immediately on entering the building felt the atmosphere.\u00a0 There was something there that was more than the sum of the individual people in it. The research centre had its own spirit. You say, \u2018that\u2019s absurd\u2019.\u00a0 Have you never been to a place and felt something about the place, the environment.\u00a0 You enter a place and something about it makes you want to respond in a certain way. My brother felt that on that occasion. We talk of friendly churches. Of course individuals determine the friendliness, but the friendliness can reach a level that is bigger than the individuals. The notion that something can be greater than the sum of its parts is as old as Aristotle and we call it synergy.\u00a0 Take a beam that is 6×4 (150x100mm). A single beam of that size will not be as strong as a laminated beam of the same size. Synergy does not only apply to the physical world but human communities.\u00a0 When reading for my undergraduate degree in divinity I learnt that institutions and systems have a force that can be demonic.\u00a0 That is, the culture of a place affects those who enter that culture driving and controlling the behaviour. Create a culture of \u2018making the most money as you can\u2019 which is rewarded by individual bonuses, and don\u2019t be surprised to find that the outcome means those in power serve their own interests before those they serve. The evolving culture will be characterised by greed and self-interest. Correspondingly values like trust and integrity will slip. As these trends grow and become integrated into the institution they drive the group. Those entering the institution will be caught up in it. If a new person protests they will be put aside. Most who enter will take on the culture. That is what I see as a form of the demonic, where the culture drives us down a pathway of self-interest at the expense of others.\u00a0 This is what has happened, I believe, with our banking and financial institutions. This is what happens in politics.\u00a0 A culture becomes evil when it sets aside respect and justice for others. Evil is present when injustice and elitism, truth and unity are compromised. When the collective wrong-doing becomes greater than the sum of the individuals then the demonic has entered and toxicity emerges. The forces flowing from these cultures are powerful.\u00a0 This is what Paul is writing about. And we ignore this wisdom at our peril. It is not easy to combat such evil.\u00a0 [I could go on to talk about how criminalising refugees leads naturally to showing less compassion to these displaced people. Examples abound in history of how we characterise a people so that we can empower ourselves and the total force of this leads to discrimination, injustice.\u00a0 Apartheid, Nazism, Sexism, Chauvinism all exhibit the same characteristic and have become toxic and demonic forces that gather people up into them.] Now the only way we can combat such forces is by standing against them. We need to stand together\u2013 shoulder-to-shoulder as the ancient soldiers did.\u00a0 On the battlefield the soldiers would stand shoulder to shoulder making a wall of defence with their shields and weapons. This is why we are encouraged to put on the armour of God.\u00a0 The military image of this passage should not distract us from the truth here. The Armour of God reflects the spiritual nature of the warfare.\u00a0 There is the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of proclamation,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Leighmoor.Master","author_link":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/author\/leighmoor-master"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Sermons<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"The Armour of God. [Eph. 6] Ephesians\u00a0 6: 10 \u2013 24 What does the story of Noah share with the Armour of God in Ephesians?\u00a0 The armour of God in Ephesians like the story of Noah has been well used in children\u2019s ministry.\u00a0 Boys love the swords and shields. Children can place the animals in…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2752"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2754,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752\/revisions\/2754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}