Emmanuel Lutheran Church - Wrapped in the Armor of God

Wrapped in the Armor of God - Pstor Nieting

?¨ Wrapped in the Armor of God?Æ March 5, 2006
Mark 1: 12-15 Pastor Mark Nieting

Early in his career, the famous circus showman P.T.Barnum created an exhibit entitled ?¨The Happy Family.?Æ It consisted of a cage housing a lion, a tiger, a panther and a baby lamb. The rather amazing display earned Barnum a huge amount of money and lots of publicity. Some time later, Barnum was asked whether he had plans to make it a permanent display. ?¨It will,?Æ he declared,?Æ if the supply of lambs holds out.?Æ

Today is the beginning of Lutheran Schools Week, a celebration going on in the 2500 schools run by the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod. And here on our campus, it is a day in which we give thanks to God for the very special ministry of Emmanuel Lutheran School, something that has been going on now for 48 years. Over those years, several thousand of God??s little lambs....all of them precious.... have received a high-quality, Christian education, better enabling them to be the people God planned them to be. Children are the very reason that we have our school.

And it isn??t easy raising children, is it? Pam and I are about to become grandparents for the second time. The first time it was my son Ben and his wife Rachel, who live in San Diego, so we are a bit ?¨detached?Æ from the immediacy of their raising of Kaylee. This time it is Pam??s daughter Nina and her husband Matthew, who live in Sylva. Knowing that we will be much more involved, we went to Target and looked at ?¨baby stuff.?Æ We were AMAZED! When my kids were little, there were only a few kinds of strollers and car seats. The variety now is almost incomprehensible! When Ben and Reba were little, we threw them in the back of the station wagon with sleeping bags and drove all night to grandma??s house. Now you have to have them strapped in until they are about 6 feet tall! And I have heard that the government is actually studying HELMETS that children may be required to wear while they attend public schools! When I was a young teacher, there were 2 basic types of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs). Now there are almost 50 different varieties, reaching almost epidemic proportion even here in Asheville. What??s a parent to do? It??s scary!

God was a parent once. He sent His Son into the world, a story we know well and hear every Christmas. Then, as Scripture says, ?¨Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.?Æ (Luke 2: 52). When it came time for Jesus to begin his ministry, Jesus was baptized by his cousin John the Baptist and in a wonderful attestation of the loving presence of the Holy Trinity, God??s voice was heard saying, ?¨You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.?Æ And the Holy Spirit came to rest on Him. Spiritually, this is what happened (will happen) to Jude Teske this morning, as He comes into the family of God through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. God was pleased to wash Jude of the stain of original sin and to bestow on him the presence of the Holy Spirit as Jude becomes a child of the heavenly Father! That is exciting. That is wonderful. And what happens after?ñ..can be just plain scary.

No matter how much we want our children to stay small and sweet and innocent and well protected, those little rascals start to GROW UP. Hard as it is to believe, our children don??t want to stay tiny babies in cribs and car seats?ñ.they actually want to move from the car seat into the driver??s seat the PILOT those cars out into the big bad world. What??s a parent to do?

The physical answer to that question is the easiest one. We buy the best car seats we can. We equip ourselves with Urban Assault Vehicles with side curtain airbags. We give our kids camera phones and tell them to broadcast us their surroundings. We run criminal background checks on their babysitters. And still, each of them?ñ.and each of us?ñ..lives surrounded and influenced by the devil, the sinful world and our own sinful flesh. And that??s never easy, especially on a spiritual level. It??s a recipe for disaster, because of the nature of temptation.

Let??s go back to the text. After Jesus?? baptism, what happened? At ONCE, before the pictures even came back, the Spirit sent Jesus out into the desert where for forty days, he was tempted by Satan. Matthew and Luke don??t tell the story as clearly as Mark does. We can get an impression from them that there was a single series of 3 temptations and Jesus was done. Not so from the Marcan account. Forty days of temptation, by none other than the devil himself, a level of temptation that only our Lord himself could have resisted.

To paraphrase the popular expression, ?¨What DID Jesus do??Æ We want that answer not in the academic sense?ñ.to know how HE withstood temptation, but we too want to be able to withstand temptation, and we want that same blessing for our children. So what DID Jesus do?

Answer: He was wrapped in the Armor of God. I??ll say it again. He was wrapped in the Armor of God. Recall what happened at Jesus?? baptism? He heard the voice of God clearly proclaim that He was dearly loved and that God was proud of Him! Jesus began His ministry equipped and protected with nothing less than the full love of His divine parent.

A child who knows that they are deeply and dearly loved is much more likely to let God help him take care of himself because his or her parents have expressed their love freely. Because of the love that exists in the relationship, they are much more likely to, say, put on their bike helmet before they head out to start jumping curbs! They know, to the core of their being, that their folks have their best interests and safety at heart. And when parents instill in them the reality that Jesus loves them too?ñ.it??s all the better. Jesus knew that too. He knew God loved Him, was proud of what He was about, and was with Him, covering Him with protection and love.

As we, and as our children go out into a world full of temptations and pitfalls, our first line of defense is to know that God loves us. It is to know that we are ?¨beloved?Æ of God because of His grace. It is to know that because of what Jesus did on the cross?ñ.that He died for our sins?ñ.even WHEN (it??s when, and not IF) we fall victim to temptation, we are freely forgiven and totally restored. And it is to know that even if the absolute worst happens and life itself is threatened and even taken, that God has created a place for His people?ñ.a place so comfortable and so wonderful that, like the Garden of Eden, we too can be, as Mark writes, ?¨with the wild animals and have angels attend to us!?Æ

That??s why we have our children enrolled at Emmanuel Lutheran School. That??s why we attend weekly Bible classes and Sunday School. That??s why some of us are in Home Bible study groups. It??s to help us be wrapped in the armor of God.

I watch a lot of shows on the History Channel?ñ..and just this week there was a show about the development of body armor, all the way from the tin cans that knights wore to the Kevlar worn today to the newest stuff on the development path, armor that reacts to different threats and responds in different ways.

That??s no different than what Jesus did in His temptation and what He can do for us in ours. The Gospel of Mark doesn??t go into detail about the temptations that Jesus faced out in the wilderness, but Matthew and Luke do. Outfitted with God??s love, Jesus is armored to be able to react to a variety of different temptations thrown at him by the tempter. Like a bullying kid standing at the base of a skateboard ramp, the devil double-dog dares Jesus to do something risky. Using Scripture as His armor, Jesus doesn??t take the leap, not even once. Nor do we have to, with Scripture at our side!

Satan says, ?¨Satisfy your hunger and turn these stones to bread.?Æ Jesus armor reacts with a shell of self-denial, recognizing that everything comes from God and God provides all that we will ever need. Again, this is something the world won??t teach, but God??s word does!

Next they go to the pinnacle of the temple. ?¨Jump off,?Æ says the bully, ?¨and let God lower you down. If you??re so great, He??ll do it!?Æ Jesus straps on the armor of God-given common sense and knows that people who have REAL power don??t need to use it to satisfy themselves!

Finally comes the really big one: ?¨All kingdoms of the world can by yours,?Æ Satan says, ?¨if you will just worship ME!?Æ Jesus buckles on the armor of humility and says that God is the only one worth serving. And that was the end of it?ñfor then.

Knowing who He was, what He was about, and who was on His side, Jesus was fully armored by God. Knowing God??s love, knowing Jesus?? forgiveness, and following Jesus?? example, they are the best way to be protected every day! Amen.