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Pondering with Purpose Podcast

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by Zack Gross

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I am a Seminary student in my twenties attempting to think deeply, holistically and consistently about Scripture and all of its implications. <a href="https://zackgross.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">zackgross.substack.com</a>

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June 16, 2026

Making Sense of Brokenness

IntroductionBrokenness is an expected part of life. If I were to take a quick mental survey of the poeple in my life I could think of people who have had to make hard moves, experienced divorce, the loss of a family member etc. It eventually happens to all of us. If you haven’t been there yet, you will, I promise. It is in those seasons that the questions so often comes “God where are you?” How do we make sense of tragedy? Where do we turn and how do we answer that question? In this passage, Matthew is going to model it for us.If you would go ahead and read Matthew 2:13-23Making Sense of HostilityV. 13-15: After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, 15 and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.” (NLT)In the story of Matthew, Joseph gets another dream message. And the message is, “Get out of dodge”. And Joseph wakes up and doesn’t waste any time. He gets his family packed in the middle of the night and they run to Egypt. And you start to wonder what it would have been like for them. They were told that this was the savior. Thatt he was going to save their people but here they are on the run with their toddler afraid for their lives. What is going on here? Where is God? They are experiencing the threat of Herod who is threatened and because of this Jesus’ family has to flee to avoid a search and destroy order. So how do we make sense of this hostility? Well Matthew made sense of it by looking to Scripture. Specifically to the prophet Hosea. In verse 15, he quotes Hosea. But the word thing about this quotation is that this was not a forward pointing prophecy. It was a backward pointing prophetic explanation. The problem is that many people in the church think of prophecy in the bible as prediction’s about the future that need to be fulfiled. But this is a problematic understanding even in the first two chapters of Matthew. If you look up this verse in Hosea 11:1-2 it is very clear that God is talking about Israel, the nation that was called his Son who God rescued from Egypt in the Exodus. But as Matthew seeks to make sense of this tragic hostility, he reads Hosea and says yes that was true of Israel but now Jesus is replaying and fulfilling that in a deeper sense because he is the true Israel.Making Sense of LossV. 16-18 Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance. 17 Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:“A cry was heard in Ramah— weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.” (NLT)In verse 16-18, the story really escalates quickly. This is the part that does not make it into the Christmas nativity story. Herod goes on a murder rampage and kills the children. Based on archaeology and what we know of birthrates in this time this could be anywhere from 25-50 kids killed in cold blood. We do not usually take the time to think about all of those families and the excruciating pain of their baby boys being murdered. How do you make sense of that? Where is God? All of these baby boys died and it can feel like it was a direct result of Jesus being born which was supposed to be good news!? Where is God? How do we make sense of death and loss? Again, Matthew makes sense of this tragedy by looking to Scripture. This time he turns to the prophet Jeremiah. His quotation comes from Jeremiah 31:15-16 where Jeremiah reflects on the most tragic event in Israelite history, their exile as they were captured, chained, and beaten. And Ramah is where this happened. Again this is clearly not a prediction (and if it was then we would have God ordaining this evil and that should bother you because that is not the picture of God we get from Scripture). Instead Jeremiah looks at this event and sees it as another episode in a long pattern. Jeremiah 31 is this hopeful chapter where God tells them not weep because he is going to restore them and Matthew looks back and sees these passages as helping to make sense of another event hundreds of years later. Matthew sees Jesus being the truest fulfillment of that. Now the nagging thought is, “Yes Jesus was rescued but what about all of those children dead?” Which makes me think of the story that Matthew is clearly parodying here which is the murder of the baby boys in Exodus. The same question arises there, “Yes Moses was rescued but what about all of the boys that died”. How do we answer that question except to say, both Moses and Jesus were rescued while others were not because ultimately God would use them to bring rescue to others. As I have read and meditated on this passage I have come to see how very practical and pastoral what Matthew’s doing is. If you’re a young mom and you’re fleeing for your life and your child’s life into the night desert, you are tempted to think that God has utterly abandoned you.This passage helps us to see is that no matter how horrible human evil gets and what humans do to each other, God’s purposes to bring about the redemption of his people cannot be thwarted by human evil. Does that mean that human evil can’t wreak incredible havoc in our world? No, it does all of the time. Does that mean that God’s not in control? No. It means that despite human evil, He’s still at work. That brings us to the second movement of this story (Mackie)Making Sense of DisappointmentV. 19-23 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. “Get up!” the angel said. “Take the child and his mother back to the land of Israel, because those who were trying to kill the child are dead.” So Joseph got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus and his mother. But when he learned that the new ruler of Judea was Herod’s son Archelaus, he was afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he left for the region of Galilee. So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.” (NLT)Joseph hears from God again in a dream saying they can go back. So they head back to Judea. Why there? Judea was a nicer place to raise a family than where Joseph was from. But it turns out that they cannot go there. Why? Because they find out that the ruler of that region was the son of Herod who had tried to kill their son. So they head to Galilee, to a city called Nazareth. And you might ask as I did, “Why didn’t they want to go there first?” We learn from Luke’s gospel that is where Mary was from. That might sounds nice initially but the catch is that that is where rumors of Mary having a baby while unmarried were still churning. Again I can only imagine they might have asked, “Where is God?” But how does Matthew make sense of this disappointing decision? He once again, appeals to the prophets. This time not one in particular but generally to “the prophets”. However, if you try to look up his quotation on google or in your Bible app, there is nowhere in the prophets that says “messiah, (or anyone else) will be called a Nazarene”. In fact Nazareth did not exist when the prophets were writing. So how can Matthew say that? The strongest case that I have heard is based on Isaiah 11:1-2 where it says,Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot— yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. (NLT)The word used there for branch in Hebrew is NAZER. What it seems like Matthew is doing here is making a wordplay. The prophets, including Isaiah, talked about the Messiah as a branch (NAZER) Well look where he went to live, “Nazareth” (or as it literally means “Stick Town”). So the question remains, “Where is God?” Well Isaiah’s hope for a messianic branch answers that question in Isaiah 53:2-5 which says,My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. (NLT)That root, that Messiah, was subject to the very tragedy that we are.So where is God in our tragedies or terors? And where is Emmanuel in our terrors and tragedies? And where is God when our lives are disappointing, like none of our dreams are coming true, or your nightmares are coming true? Where is God? Matthew invites us to consider the fact that God is with us, and that He’s with us by actually becoming subject to all of the same terrors and tragedies and disappointments that you and I experience…Who is this God revealed in Jesus? He’s the God who redeems and saves, but not by making all of our dreams come true. In the story of the scriptures, the world is the way it is, because God has actually granted us a huge degree of dignity and freedom in the choices that we make… (Mackie)For Matthew, He is the God who became human to walk through the tragedies of the past and be near. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://zackgross.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">zackgross.substack.com</a>

June 2, 2026

The Reality of Dependence in Prayer

The following is an adapted version of my teaching at Patmos Reality Discipleship July 2026 through the letter to the Ephesians.This is the final installation in an eight part series through Ephesians. In this entry I continue to discuss this spiritual evil that we face and how to face it. In the previous entry, I talked about the armor of the Lord has given us. IntroductionHave you ever had the experience where you were trying to use a piece of equipment, something that requires power, like maybe a mixer in the kitchen, a TV, a vacuum, or any other tool, and it just wouldn’t work for you? You tried turning it off and on, you tried opening it up and looking at the pieces and it just would not work. And as you try to figure out why it is not working, you realize it’s not plugged in. here’s no power. How could it possibly work? It’s unplugged. With no power source, things that require power will not work. It can be the most powerful vacuum in the world but if it’s not plugged into a power source, it’s useless. It can’t pick anything up. It has no way to do its job. Paul ends this letter, this letter that was meant to be read out loud, kind of like a sermon with a surprising invitation. It kind of feels like some beginner stuff. He talks about prayer. And I think he would say to us that you can’t really be strong in the Lord without prayer. You can’t stand without prayer. You can’t put on the armor of God without prayer. You will not last in this fight without prayer. Without prayer, you will lose your first love. You will not remain in love with Jesus. So take a moment to read Ephesians 6:18-24 and consider what it reveals to us about the reality of dependence and prayer through these four points. Constant Prayer, Prayer for Boldness, Praying Community, and the Peace of God. Throughout this series, we’ve been talking a little bit about this city of Ephesus. We have named some elements of Paul’s relationship with them, how he stayed there for years and planted this church and now he’s writing this letter. There’s actually another letter to the Ephesians in Scripture and it is found in Revelation 2:1-5. “To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, ‘These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: 2 “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; 3 and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. 4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.Jesus talks about how they’ve lost their first love. They do a lot of good things, they’re obedient, they don’t like sin, they’re servants. But he says, “You’ve lost your first love”, and the way that he says they can return to their first love is to remember the things they did at first. Do the first works. And prayer has been and always will be the first work. Prayer is the first work of relationship with the Lord. So Paul ends this letter with a call to prayer. Maybe that’s not an accident. Maybe prayer is the first work. Jesus was always praying. Prayer is how all of these things happen. Prayer is everything in the Christian life. Prayer is a way of being with God. It’s not just the way, it is the destination. Prayer is not just a way to get to God. It’s actually the destination to be with God in prayer (Christian Dawson). Paul, as we’ve seen in this letter, keeps getting distracted by prayer. He’s talking, and then all of a sudden he interrupts himsefl to pray. Prayer is his reflex. Prayer is this effective tool. And it’s important to know that because we were all going to experience and have experienced spiritual warfare, the way we battle our enemy is through continual prayer, diverse prayer for others, and sensitivity in prayer. The way we would do this battle naturally is not the best way to go about it. We need to do things in a way that doesn’t make sense to us, this is the way that 2 Chronicles 20:15-22 talks about prayer. There it says that the people’s role in the fight is just worship. That doesn’t make any sense at all. How do you fight a spiritual battle through prayer? It doesn’t make sense, but we need to be driven to prayer and by prayer.Constant Prayer in this Reality v. 18Verse 18 says, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints There’s this connection back to the armor of God when he uses this phrase of being watchful to the end. We’re still talking about warfare. We’re still talking about battle and being watchful and on the alert. We have to be alert and vigilant. How do we do that? Paul thinks that’s through prayer. Paul says “all”, three different times in here. He says, all prayer, all perseverance, for all the saints. All, all, all. There needs to be a lot of prayer, all kinds of communication with God. We need all kinds of requests, constantly praying, whether that be planned or spontaneous. It seems like we might respond to this concluding that we will pray at scheduled times, before meals, on a whim, in response to a thought and on and on. And it seems that we would not just pray for ourselves, but for all saints, which is to say for all people. Paul ends his letter by inviting the church into a life of prayer. And maybe that’s on purpose. Have you guys ever been with someone who just instinctually does things? They don’t even think about it. It just happens. I have this friend, he is really funny, maybe one of the funniest people I know. And he’s funny because I know that he’s not trying to be funny. Like someone says something and the first before they can’t even finish saying it, he says something that’s funny. He didn’t have time to think about it. He didn’t think, “How could I be clever right now? Oh, do a word play.” He just says something ridiculous, and everybody laughs because it’s his reflex. It’s his instinct to have this sense of humor that’s just weird and wild and crazy. And I think that that is what Paul wants for us with prayer. He is hoping that it would just come out of us. It would be something that we think about and instinctually and immediately do it, all the time, that it would be our first instinct in every situation. But how do we pray? Like, how do we do this constant prayer that Paul is talking about? The people who followed Jesus were all very impressed by Jesus’s prayer life. And in Luke 11:1, they came to him. They’d seen him pray in the middle of the night. They’d see him pray early in the morning. They’d seen him pray all over the place, and in verse, 1 of chapter 11 of the Gospel of Luke, says, “Now it came to pass, as he [Jesus] was praying, in a certain place. When he ceased that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples”.Then he goes on to teach them the Lord’s prayer. But his disciples had asked him to teach them how to pray not what to pray. For us, we look at the way that Jesus prayed and the way that Paul prayed in Ephesians, and they give us an idea of how to engage in this battle. They don’t have to give us all the words. It’s not something we have to memorize and pray word for word, but they give us a form and a trajectory, a direction to pray into. Jesus taught us to pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, and he would not have taught us that if it didn’t matter. They’re not just words. He wouldn’t just teach us to do something that had no meaning or impact. The reason he taught us to pray that way is because our prayer matters because God listens to our prayer and responds. You, like me, might have heard a lot, this idea of constant prayer or prayer without ceasing. For a lot of my life, I’ve heard that and thought, “That’s impossible. I can’t do anything without ceasing”. But I have a professor at school who has talked to us about the idea that I pretty much think without ceasing. When I’m awake, I’m thinking. There’s almost never nothing happening in my brain. And he’s encouraged this with the idea that all we need to do, if we’re already thinking all the time, is to simply just pivot those thoughts to be open to God. He encourages us to just say, “God, I open to you in these thoughts. I’m going to keep thinking them, but I want to be aware of and know that you are with me, you’re hearing these thoughts. You know my thoughts, you care about my thoughts. And I kind of want to process them with you, not just alone, not that it would be me talking to myself, but I’d be talking with you.” And it doesn’t land on us alone either, that even as we try to turn those thoughts to prayer, we’re not going to be able to do it perfectly. The cool thing is that the New Testament talks to us about some prayer partners that we have. Romans 8:34. “Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died. And furthermore is risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. According to Romans 8:34, Jesus prays for us. Jesus is praying for you. He’s praying for you by name, specifically knowing exactly what you need. There’s a similar sentiment in Hebrews 7:25, Therefore he is also able to save the utmost, those who come to God, since he always to make intercession for them. And actually, the team gets bigger. It’s not just us and Jesus. Romans 8:26-27, says “Likewise the spirit, also helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. The Holy Spirit is also praying for us and praying for us with groanings too deep for word. There are things that the Holy Spirit wants to pray for us, that there aren’t even words for. That’s how deeply he knows and cares for us, that he’s praying for things that go beyond words. Not that he can’t find the words, he’s God, but that there are no words for it because of how deep and how wide His love is for us, as he prays for us. When you’re in a battle, you don’t go relax or stop thinking about the battle, it is all around you. You see the battle, you smell the battle, you can feel it, your nerves are on edge. Even though this battle that we’re talking about is not one we can see always, it is still very real, and we need to be alert and aware and the best way to do that is through constant prayer. We do this by thinking and being open to God at all times, because he is our warrior king. He’s the one who fights for us. Prayer for Boldness in this Reality v. 19And for me, that utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. Paul has encouraged them to pray constantly, and now he asks them to pray for him. He asks for prayer, He asks that they would pray, that God would help him to keep preaching the gospel in prison. He doesn’t ask to get out of jail. He could have said, “Pray that I would be delivered. Pray that I would be set free”. Instead, he prays for his first priority, which is the advance of the Gospel. The advance of the good news that Jesus is king and he reigns. He prays to have the right words to say, so that he would know how to say it. He says, I want to be able to declare the gospel because he’s still an ambassador. He’s still a representative of Jesus. He’s just in chains. He says, the chains don’t change my job. The chains don’t change what I’m called to. He wants to continue to preach the gospel verse which I am an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. Paul prays that he would keep doing his job. He would have experienced fear and uncertainty as he finds himself in prison, but his love for Jesus exceeded his fear, his fear of his circumstances, his fear of his enemy. Our love for Jesus must exceed our fear of the devil. Our rabbi, Jesus, prayed more than anything else, because, Prayer, more than anything else, fuels our love for God, his people, and his mission in the world. It’s how everything Paul has talked about is made possible. Prayer is how we stand. It’s how we get strengthened in the Lord. It’s how we stay grounded in truth and remember our salvation. It’s how we’re kept in peace. It’s how we stay in the stars and in the dirt. It’s how justice is fueled and how reconciliation happens. Prayer is how we begin to put off the old humanity. It’s how we release control, reorder the idols of our heart, and starve out self-absorption. Prayer is how we grow in gratitude. It’s how we learn to receive God’s voice and trust him. It’s how we experience his love, and it’s how we stay in it when we’re not feeling close to God. It’s how we don’t get overwhelmed by problems with the church. It’s how we begin to submit to one another, how we learn to encourage one another, and how we stay bonded in unity. Prayer is how we live out our vocation. It’s how we parent our children and show up for those around us. It’s how we do our work best, and how we carry the burden lightly. Prayer is how the kingdom of God advances. It’s how lives are changed, and how chains break, and how we keep on loving our city over the longevity of our lives. Prayer is how we stay seated with Christ. It’s how we remember who the real enemy is. It’s how we stand against his attacks. Prayer is how we keep perspective. It’s how we don’t lose heart and how we sustain in suffering. It’s how God meets us in disappointment and how we learn to navigate grief, loss, and change. Prayer is the weapon we can use anywhere and about anything. It’s what God rescues us for and what every occasion is for. It’s what Jesus was all about and it’s the house we’re being built into, which is why prayer is what Paul goes back to over and over and over (Christian Dawson).Courage is not the absence of fear. It’s love that moves through fear. In the same way that faith is not the opposite of doubts. Courage is not the opposite of fear. It is love that moves through fear, in spite of fear. I’m afraid, but when I’m courageous, it overcomes those fears. I don’t pretend like I don’t have fears. But love moves through fear. This is the heart of the kingdom. Boldness and the face of difficulty, and the way to be bold is to pray. Pray for boldness for ourselves and pray for boldness for each other. The people in your life need you to pray for them to be bold, to live into the calling that God is placed on their life, to not let fear have the final word, to not let the enemy win, because we’re in a battle, and this is a very real fight. War is really scary. I have been reading this book called The Way of Kings, where a young boy finds himself in a battle and he’s terrified. There’s these strong warriors all around him. There are arrows flying, people dying, death and violence everywhere. And he is just a boy. But what’s happens in the chapter that I’m talking about, is that an older warrior comes alongside him and protects him, and he gets to see that warrior’s boldness in battle. He gets to see boldness and become bold because of it.It takes time, but that’s what happening here. We’re not bold on our own, but we’re made bold through prayer, and through God answering that prayer, giving us boldness in the Holy Spirit. As we pray, we pray to be bold, brave, and courageous in this fight that is scary where we will be called to do things that look like death. Will you continue to be bold in the face of your fears and discomforts? Will you, like Paul, say, “I am still a representative for Jesus even though I feel like I’m in chains. I feel like I lack boldness” Jesus himself models this. He boldly proclaimed the kingdom, he faced rejection, betrayal, and death, and he didn’t shrink back. He’s the model, and he empowers us by his spirit. Matthew 12:28-29, talks about this boldness. Jesus has just started casting out demons. He’s raging war against the devil and his demons. And the Pharisees don’t like it, so they started accusing him of being in league with Satan. And Jesus says, “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29 Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.”Jesus says that he’s come to plunder the enemy. He’s come, and he’s bound him. The enemy is limited in what he’s able to do, but he’s still desperate to defeat us. He’s a defeated enemy, and a defeated enemy is actually even more dangerous than one who’s not, because they have nothing left to lose. The enemy has nothing left to lose because he knows he’s already lost. So hiss biggest goal, his best plan, is to take down as many people as he can with him. He has nothing left to lose. He’s already been defeated. Jesus has defeated him and his victory is something that he now shares with us, which is why we can be bold, and why we need to pray for boldness.Paul has started this letter praying that his readers would become aware of something that is already true. He wants them to know the boldness they have in Jesus. That boldness is something that he shares with us, because in Acts, 4:13, The disciples find themselves where Jesus has already ascended, He’s given them the Holy Spirit. And they get arrested, and they start talking to the council, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13 says that they recognize from their boldness that they had been with Jesus. These guys aren’t trained. They’re nobodies, but they’re bold. They must have been with Jesus. They were recognized as having been with Jesus through their boldness. So let us pray with Jesus that his boldness might become our own.The Power of a Praying Community in this Reality. 18-22But that you also may know my affairs and how I am doing, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make all things known to you; 22 whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our affairs, and that he may comfort your hearts.This is one of the resons we know that Tychicus was the deliverer of this letter. Paul often sent his letters, like the <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/GZuceW7eh5M?si=ESU2odmxVeOFUGGK">Bible Project guys sa</a>y, Someone would go and take the letter, deliver it and explain it. So he’s sending Tychicus with this letter. He calls him a beloved servant and a faithful servant in the Lord. You can hear Paul’s pastoral heart. He doesn’t just want to send a letter to these people to give them information, but he actually wants to send them an update on his life. He wants Tychicus to go and in person, tell them, how he is doing and what’s going on. This is more than just a mission, it’s a family that we’ve been invited into. He says, First to pray for God’s people.Basically, every time Paul writes to a community, he tells them that he’s praying for them whenever they come to mind. He is always praying for people by name. And while that sounds beautiful and noble, remember that Paul had a number of issues with these people and with these communities, and yet he still prayed for them. Maybe that’s because prayer is the place where we grow in compassion. Prayer is the place where we realize that people aren’t actually the enemy. Prayer is where we not only foster our love for God, but also our love for people. And in prayer, God enlarges our heart. He enlarges our heart for people’s brokenness, for their pain, and even for their immaturity. A community who prays for one another grows in compassion for each other, which also creates a community where we have the safety to apologize and confess sin. So, pray for people (Christian Dawson).The turtle shield that we talked about in the previous entry requires a level of closeness and trust that the person next to me has my back in this battle. It doesn’t work unless I can trust them, that they’re not gonna turn on me, and they’re not going to abandon me. And that is not natural We don’t trust each other naturally. We feel wrong by each other and Paul has already said that when we’re angry with each other that gives the enemy a foothold to sow disunity and sow corruption in our hearts. So Paul is saying to pray for each other, because in prayer, our issues become smaller. My disagreements with you become smaller as I pray for you, and God gives me his heart for you, that I can trust you in this battle that we find ourselves in to know you’ve got my back, we’re a team, we can stand together against the schemes of the enemy.He asked them to pray for all God’s people, and then he asked them to pray for him, which is a very humble request. As the one who was part of starting their church ,as an apostle of Jesus, he says, “I’m not above needing your prayer. I need your prayer too”. He knows that the enemy wants to take him out just as much as he wants to take the Ephesians out. The invitation for us is to pray for our leaders, to pray for our pastors, that they would know the Lord that as you pray for them, your heart towards them would grow, you would begin to trust them more, you would see what God might be doing in and through them in your life, and know that they’re also on your team. Prayer binds us together. When we pray for people, we see the heart of God for those people. To ask for prayers is a humble act, and to pray for someone is an act of love. So Paul sends Tychicus so that they would know exactly what’s going on in his life, that they could pray for him specifically about the things that are actually happening in his life as he finds himself in chains very much feeling the reality of the battle he faces and the enemy who wants to take him out of this fight. So, who is your Tychicus? Who is the person who knows you to your core, who is praying for you by name, and you are praying for by name? Entrust yourself to them, ask them for prayer. This is not a solo fight. You cannot do this alone. If you try, you will fail. You need each other to entrust your heart to someone, to entrust what you’re struggling with. You need the support of the people around you, as they pray for you and bring you before the Lord to support you in prayer. These are not just words; prayer is powerful. It is a powerful thing to know that someone’s praying for you, not to mention the fact that God is listening to their prayers and he’s responding to their prayers. God has done things in my life exactly as people have prayed for them for me. I have had seasons in my life where I’ve been really good at praying for people, by name, and other times where I have not been so good. When I am being intentional to pray for the people in my life, there’s a way in which I’m more aware of their battles. I can think of my friends and remember, “This friend is struggling with this”. As I pray for him, I’m aware of his battle, I know what’s going on in his life, and I’m more invested. I care. I’m supporting him, and he’s not alone in that battle. I check in with him to say, “Hey, how’s this going?” And he knows that I’m praying for him, and that my prayers are going to a God who hears and listens and responds. I can’t solve my friends’ problems. You can’t take away the things that people are struggling with. Sometimes, you can’t often help them tangibly. They’re the things that they are stuck with, but you can help them by praying for them, by bringing them to the Lord and asking Him to hold them, protect them, and give them victory in the battle that they find themselves in. Jesus actually modeled this kind of prayer for others. We have an instance in the New Testament, in Luke, where Jesus talks about having prayed for Peter. In Luke, 22:31-32, Jesus is talking to Peter. And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.32 But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me,strengthen your brethren.” Jesus knew that the best way to help Peter in the temptation that he was going to face with the enemy was to pray for him. Jesus just prayed for him, that Peter wouldn’t be completely taken out of the fight. Yes, Peter still failed his temptation.He denied Christ three times, but Jesus had prayed for him and he was ultimately restored because Jesus had prayed for him. We neexd to know that prayer is how we best support the people on our team. By name, he prayed for this friend, and later on, he prays for the rest of his followers. Did you know that Jesus prayed for you? In John 17, we get the high priestly prayer of Jesus, where he prays for his disciples. After John 17:6-19, as he’s praying, he continues, “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;” He prays for anyone who believes in him, because of the testimony of the apostles. So if any of u have come to faith in Jesus, we have believed in Jesus through scripture, whic means he’s praying for us. He’s prayed, that we be unified, he’s prayed, that we would know him and love him. Jesus has prayed for us, knowing that we are in a very real battle, that prayer is the most effective weapon in this fight to prepare us, to protect us, to bring us through this battle. The Peace of God in this Reality v. 23-24Peace to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.Even though Paul had spent a lot of time in Ephesus, he does not have any personal greetings. In a lot of his other letters like Romans or Corinthians, he’ll say, “Say hi to Phoebe, say hi to this person, say hi to that person, say hi to that person. Also, say hi to that guy’s mom, also say hi to his grandma”. He knows people and he has deep relation with them. In Ephesians, he doesn’t do that. There are no personal greetings. Many scholars believe that that is because this letter was intended for a wider audience. It was left more to generic so that it could benefit more people. Paul didn’t want to limit this vision of reality that he’s been sharing with us this whole letter to just one church. And so he left it open for the blessings of Christ and his victory over evil that everyone would know it. He wanted everyone to know that they’re in a battle, that there are spiritual forces that want to kill and steal and destroy us, the Satan, the devil, wants to steal our joy, he wants to steal our peace, he wants us to believe his lies. He does not want anyone to receive the blessings available them in Jesus. Paul knows this, and so this is how he ends his letter. He signs off with a proclamation of peace. He proclaims a blessing over these people He prays for peace (or Shalom). He wants them to experience right-relatedness, so they would have a feeling of knowing that everything is right in the world. He prays for love (the agape, love of God). He wants them to experience this sacrificial, unconditional love, and grace, this free gift of God, his favor upon them. He wants them to see that their situation is not ultimate. The battle you’re in does not matter, the enemy’s schemes and plans do not matter because you have access to the peace and love of God. Those things are still real, but ultimately, they pale in comparison to the peace and love and grace of God. Peace, love, and grace, are not the absence of conflict, but the presence of Christ’s victory in the midst of it. This blessing of Paul does not mean everything’s going to be super easy or nice, rather that his peace and love and grace would be present in the midst of conflict. You have access to the peace and love and grace of God. Whether you feel like you’re winning, or maybe it’s a day that you feel like you’re losing. Maybe you wake up in the morning and you just feel like you’re losing. You still have just as much access to God’s peace and grace and love as you did when you have a good day. You have this access because Christ has won and so you have these things. I’ve heard this story of the end of World War II. It’s in this story called Unbroken. It’s a really great book. At the end of World War II, the war was over and the Allied forces had won. They had defeated the Axis powers. The victory was secure, but there were still prisoners of war in Japan, who were being tortured. And the news reached these prisoners in a secret way so that the guards didn’t know yet. It said the war was over, and the Allied forces were coming for them. They were going to be rescued. All they had to do was just make it until their army reached their position. Day after day, they were being tortured. The threat of death is very real. But when they got this message of hope saying, “They’re coming for us. They’re going to rescue us and destroy this torture camp” All they had to do was make it to them and that gave them the hope and the peace to know this could be over tomorrow. Even as they were beaten and hung out they knew that they could be rescued the very next day. It was coming. It was inevitable. They knew it was on the way. And that gave them peace and hope in the midst of their situation.For the believer, the victory has already been won, but the news of Jesus’ victory has not reached everyone. There are people who don’t know it. The spiritual powers of evil are in denial about it. They don’t want to believe it until they have to. So we want everyone to know that Jesus has won and declare that peace and love and grace over everyone. We know that the war is over, even though we find ourselves in battle. Colossians 2:15 is a verse we’ve already talked about that says that Jesus made a public spectacle of the powers. He put them to open shame, defeating them. In 1, John, 3:8, it says, He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.That is why Jesus came, to destroy his works. And he has finished that work on the cross by dying and defeating them but they are on a short leash for a time as a defeated enemy with an empty gun to keep trying to deceive us and take down as many people as possible. A defeated enemy is a dangerous enemy. And so as we end the letter of Ephesians, I want to pray this blessing over you that Paul ends his letter with, that as you find yourself in warfare, in a battle, a spiritual battle that is very real, that will attempt you to deceive you, to take you out of the fight, to take you out of the fight for the rest of your life, that you would receive this blessing. So I am going to end with this blessing from Ephesians chapter 6.Peace to you, dear reader, and love with faith. From God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all of you who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://zackgross.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">zackgross.substack.com</a>

May 5, 2026

The Reality of Our Preparation

The following is an adapted version of my teaching at Patmos Reality Discipleship July 2026 through the letter to the Ephesians. IntroductionAs we look at this section of Ephesians, it is helpful again to have the whole picture in mind. This overview post of Ephesians by the Bible Project puts each part in perspective. The whole first half of Ephesians is about the Gospel story. The second half is about our story. We are in this last section now.In the last teaching through Ephesians, I mentioned how equipment really matters. What you wear, what you choose to put on really matters. If you are going to work at a construction site, you would wear something very different than if you were to be working as a lawyer, right?If the construction workers shows up on the job in this suit, it would not go well. If the lawyer showed up in the courtroom in work boots and coveralls, that would not go well either. What we wear matters. And some people take a lot of time in the morning or at night to think about what they’re wearing. Who we are and what we think we’re doing is going to affect what we wear. It often reveals, what we think of ourselves.This section is about things that Paul tells us to wear, not necessarily physically or literally wear them, but like he’s been talking about this analogy of putting on and putting off. To wear it so that it becomes true of us, so that it’s in and through us. So as we’re reading this passenge of scripture, looking at “The Reality of our Preparations”, I want you to think about it through these four things: truth and righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation and Word.Go ahead and take a moment to read Ephesians 6:14-17.The Reality of our PreparationWe just saw in the previous section that we have a real enemy, and this is a real battle. God has won the battle, and he’s given us His weapons to fight with. We don’t fight alone, though, we fight together. You know, you’re really in battle, when you are driven to prayer to seek the Lord in these things. The context of our warfare for Paul, as we’ve just talked about in chapter 4 and in chapter 5, is very ordinary life. Paul envisions that there’s warfare happening in the family. The way that you raise your kids, the way you respond to your parents, the way that you treat your spouse, the way that you interact at work, those are places where warfare is happening. He talked about how fathers can make their children angry, and if someone’s angry, that can let the devil and that can let the enemy in. So he’s talking about this warfare as very ordinary life. It happens in household, work, etc.“This battle isn’t fought by swinging swords—it’s fought through humility and submission, through truth and love, through faith and endurance. That’s how we resist.”That is the way that we stand and withstand. And in this battle, “We’re not putting on new strategies—we’re putting on the character of Christ.”One point that I thought was really interesting as I was preparing for this teaching is that it’s very easy to read about the armor of God and think about me individually. I put on a helmet, I put on this stuff, and think this is a set of instructions to individual believers, but that is not the way the text reads. Rather, the command to take up the armor of God is an invitation to the whole community. We are meant to do this together. It’s a communal practice, because like we said, every time the word “you” is used in Ephesians, it’s plural. So we could read Paul as saying, “You guys do this together. You guys all put this on. Let this be true of all of you together.” This section is not primarily about what I do by myself, but what we do together.According to the New Testament the Church is one body. So we need to have armor on as a body. Jesus has created one unified humanity, where we come together with Jesus as our head, and we become one humanity. We’re one body, so we need to have armor on as a body, because we are engaged in a battle to the death of this group that Paul calls the supernatural forces.Reality of Truth & Righteousness v. 14Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness,In verse 14 Paul begins listing out each part of the armor of God. He starts by saying, “girding your loins with truth”. That’s when you put on a belt. The phrase “girding your loins” was to tuck in your robe, to gather it up and put it in your belt. In the Roman army, the belt held together the entire uniform, the entirety of it all. And Jesus consistently called the devil a liar. That was one of his favorite things to call him. He said that he’s a liar and he’s been a liar from the beginning. And so half-truths have been one of the devil’s primary strategies since the beginning. Think bac to the garden with Eve? When the serpent wanted to tempt Eve, he didn’t say a full lie. He asked her a question, and he said a partial truth. Did God really say, “If you touch the fruit, you will die?” God had not said that. God had said, “If you eat of it, you will die.” So the snake twisted a little bit, and he presented a half-truth. And he got her to doubt. He used lies and manipulation to do that. The enemy’s main weapon is lies, and he will pick lies that are as close to the truth as possible. Why? A lie that’s obviously a lie, is not going to go anywhere. No one is going to believe an obvious lie. But maybe if I tell someone who already feels like they’re kind of a short person, “Oh, you are tiny”. They might say, “Oh, I think I am tiny. I’m really insecure about that”.The closer to the truth, the more powerful the lie is. So it makes sense that the first piece of equipment given is a belt of truth. Think about Jesus and his temptation, when the enemy tempted him in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry, it was partial truths. It was, “If you throw yourself down, God will catch you”. Yes, that was technically a true statement in Scripture, but it wasn’t an invitation to put God to the test. It wasn’t a promise to be flaunted over God. He used things that were kind of true, but out of context and not fully true. And Jesus would always go, “Here’s the full truth there. I know the truth”. So this is the belt, the belt that holds everything together, the truth of God keeps everything else together in our lives. The belt keeps your pants on. It holds things in place, and so truth is what keeps us, secure so that things don’t start falling apart. If we know the truth, then things are in order and we have clarity. We know the truth. But if things are unclear and it’s very hazy and smoky and we don’t know what’s true, then things start to fall apart. You don’t know where you’re supposed to be, or what you’re supposed to be doing, or who you even are, if you don’t know the truth.After introducing this belt of truth, then he talks about the breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate of righteousness. A breastplate is an element of armor in the Roman military, which is Paul’s context. A lot of this imagery, he’s taken what God said about His armor, that we looked at it in Isaiah, and Paul has thought about it through his immediate context. He’s in a Roman jail cell, he gets to see Roman guards all the time, and the armor that they’re wearing, and he’s thought about this stuff and how these truths about Jesus can be visually explained. So he talked about this breastplate. The breastplate guarded everything. Roman armor went from shoulders to mid-waist, covering all the vital organs, including your heart. It was very important. You get stabbed in the stomach and you’re done. As a remon legionnaire, you don’t have three lives, like in a video game. So the idea is to be protected. There’s a passage in Proverbs 4:23, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of its spring the issues of life”. The breastplate protected the heart, and Proverbs says that the heart is really important to protect because it’s where everything comes out of. Your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions. It’s part of the core of who you are, everything that you decide to do, your affections.Righteousness language is actually rare in Ephesians. In the other two uses, it is used to describe living righteously, meaning to live with integrity and rightness. We have to stop allowing our feelings to determine the things we do. Our feelings can control us and we cannot afford to let that happen. If our feelings dictate how we go about our day then we are in for a roller coaster..Righteousness in the New Testament is not just justification but it is also activity.Biblically, There is no such thing as human righteousness. Scripture says, “There is no one good not even one”. So what kind of righteousness are we supposed to wear and have? There are two kinds that theologians talk about. First is imputed righteousness which is what Jesus did applied to us. Second is imparted righteousness, which is what Jesus is doing in and through us. These are incredibly important truths.As I thought about a way of illustrating this, I was reminded of a job that I find very fascinating.There is a whole job around recognizing counterfeit money. People train to recognize fake money. And for a long time I have found it very interesting that they say that the best way to train for this to be able to recognize is not what you would think. It is not by studying all of the fakes out there and knowing what they look like. The best way to prepare is by looking at, studying, and knowing the real deal. What does the real money look like? You are better able to recognize an imposter if you know the real deal first.This is true for us as Christians too. We are better able to recognize lies when we know the truthWe can recognize lies about God like, “God is a harsh God. God just wants you to mess up already”.We can recognize lies about ourselves like, “You are not good enough. You are not worthy. No one loves you.”We can recognize lies about our calling, “Maybe you shouldn’t be here. Maybe you didn’t hear God right.”The best way to recognize those lies is by knowing the truth. We need to both knowing the truth and remember it. Humans are very forgetful. We need ways of remembering the truth. We need to renew our minds in truth daily. But we should also have ways of remembering, whether that is journaling, writing out our prayers, having memory tokens or stones, or pictures that help us look back and remember these things.We have to know the truth. The truth can sometimes be difficult to face. It can sometimes feel intimidating but God is a God of truth (Isaiah 65:16) and His word is truth (John 17:17). We need to be in God’s word.As we lift our eyes from ourselves to Jesus, we see that Jesus called himself the truth (John 14:6) and that he was called the righteous (1 John 2:1, 1 Peter 3:18 )Once again, we are putting this on from Jesus. We are taking on his attributes and characteristics through imitation and being with him. We see it in him, and then we take it on ourselves.Reality of Gospel Peace v. 15and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;Paul says to shod your feet. He calls us to go preach the gospel of peace because the gospel brings peace. The gospel brings peace between us and God, between us and other kinds of people. We are putting on the shoes of this peace that God has brought to us and between different people. Paul literally had to put on shoes to go to places to do this very thing.This imagery is heavily rooted in Isaiah 52:7 which says,How beautiful upon the mountainsAre the feet of him who brings good news,Who proclaims peace,Who brings glad tidings of good things,Who proclaims salvation,Who says to Zion,“Your God reigns!”It is important to clarify that we do not go out and fight the devil by looking for him under every rock. Instead we fight by declaring the news. As we do, we have to know that what we are declaring is worth dying for. In the Roman military these shoes would be kind of like cleats. They would have little spikes in the bottom to help them stand their ground.It makes me think of an American football player with cleats on, prepared and ready to hold the defensive line. He is prepared to withstand the way Paul talks about in this chapter. The gospel grounds you so that you will not move. It is your foundation that holds you.Which begs the question, do you know the gospel story? Not just a simple version that we tell kids but the version that Jesus, Paul, and the apostles are talking about. If you are looking for a summary it is the whole first three chapters of Ephesians.The gospel exalts Jesus. Most simply the gospel flows from creation, to the Fall, to Redemption, and New Creation. Jesus is the new human. He is the one who defeated death, evil, and sin, which means we can stand firm in that reality, ready for whatever comes our way.Reality of Faith v. 16above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.Paul has already told us some really important things. like the belt of truth, the shoes of the gospel, the breastplate of righteousness. This one, he sets above them all as he says, “above all, taking the shield of faith”. He tells us why, because it “with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts”. So there is a very specific emphasis and purpose attached to this idea. It makes sense as its role was very important in the Roman army. The Roman shield was often dipped in water to help it extinguish literal flaming darts from the enemy. Some armies would have arrows with some cloth at the front, dipped in oil and then lit on fire. Then they would fire those on their enemy. So a Roman shield would often be dipped in water so that when those hit, they would get put out.What would happen with these shields is that one group would hold shields in front of them, as they advanced. They would advance in a very large group, and the first group interlocking their shields in front. The next group would bring their shields up and over, and lock them in, and they called this formation, “the turtle”. It was this protective shield all around them and everyone locked their shields in place, and they held their shields. What’s interesting is that it required a lot of closeness. The shields weren’t super big, but when you put enough of them together, they covered them. It required closeness between people as they depended upon each other. And Paul uses that imagery about this shield of faith.At this point it might be helpful to talk about what faith is. Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he’s a reward of those who diligently seek”. Faith is necessary to draw near to God. Faith is a requirement to draw near to God. You have to believe that he exists and he will reward those who call on him. This word, “faith”, in the Bible it means “confidence”. It can be translated as loyalty, allegiance, and trust. One of my favorite ways to translate it is “trust”. I think that removes some of the ambiguous religious connotations and helps us get at what it is trying to say. We trust in things to hold us up. We trust in a chair to keep us off the ground and in a similar way we are supposed to trust in God. Hebrews 11:1 describes what faith is a couple of verses earlier saying, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. That’s what faith is. So we think about this analogy of the Roman shield, and we think about a lot of the New Testament. Faith, for most of u,s is an individual thing. ”I have faith in God. I have a relationship with God.” But again, Ephesians is very communal. It’s talking about a group of people. Paul is addressing all of “you” together.Faith in scripture is often a group thing. We do this together. We actually need corporate faith, because sometimes I need your faith, and sometimes you need mine.Tim Keller, one of my favorite pastors, he used to say this, “It is not the strength of your faith, but the object of your faith that actually saves you. [It’s not how strong your faith is, but what your faith is in that saves you] Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch”. If I have a really strong faith that this little twig is gonna hold me up, it’s not. But if I have just enough strength to barely hold on to a really strong bench, that branch is going to hold me up. The strength of faith is not as important as the object of our faith. The object of our faith is meant to be Jesus. Jesus is the strong one. We don’t need to have the strongest faith.In fact, sometimes we don’t have to have much faith at all. Mark 2, is a really important story, that I think about a lot. Mark chapter 2:1-5 tells the story of the paralytic.And again, he entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that he was in the house. Immediately, many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive him, not even near the door. And he preached the words to them, then they came to him, bringing a paralytic, who was carried by four men. And when they could not come near him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was, so when they had broken through the down the bed on which the paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith…Notice, it is not the man’s faith, he saw his friend’s faith, that his man, his paralytics to friends, had brought him to Jesus. Their faith had literally carried him to Jesus. This man had just been laying still, and he his friends had said, “We believe, we trust that Jesus is able to save you. We’re going to act on that. We’re going to take you to him”. And Jesus saw their faith in action, and he healed this man. Their faith affected this man, their friend. And I think about that a lot, because our faith and our confidence can carry someone else, maybe literally, but more often metaphorically. It can help them extinguish the doubts. If someone comes to me with doubts, asking, “Does God really care?”, my faith in him and my experience of who he is as I share it, can encourage and comfort and strengthen them. Faith is what allows us to look into the future and know what is coming. We say, I don’t know everything that’s going to happen, but I do know that Jesus is in charge of all of it and that he has got me safe and secure. So our faith can help each other. Sometimes we can see doubts as a really bad thing. Sometimes when someone says, “I have doubts” or “I have questions” people feel intimidated and they do not have an answer so they end up making the person feel like it is wrong to have questions and that they should have it all figured out by now. I find that incredibly unfortunate. I think by in large that is less true today, but I still know people who think this way. Some people say that doubt is the opposite of faith. Maybe you have heard that or thought it. I absolutely disagree with that. I do not think that faith can exist without doubt. The opposite of faith is actually unbelief. Doubt is really important for faith, because faith says, “I don’t understand everything, so I’m going to have doubts. But what I do understand is that I can trust you. What I do understand is that I think you’re faithful enough to overcome my doubts”.So what do we do with doubts? When others have doubts, when we have doubts, Jude 1:22, says, “And have mercy on those who doubt;” People with doubts often have real questions. So our posture towards them should not be, “Don’t have questions, you need to have faith. Where’s your faith?” And in so doing condemn them, to say that they need to have faith. Instead we are to have mercy on them and say, “I understand those doubts. Yes, those are real” and at the same time “What do you know? What do you understand about God that you can trust Him even in this?” In the gospel, we see people come to Jesus with small faith and with big doubts. In Mark 9:23-25, which is one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible it says this, And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” In other words, “Lord, I have faith help my lack of faith. I do believe in you.” That faith can be the small, mustard-sized faith that Jesus talks about. There are going to be doubts and uncertainties in our faith. The goal is not to have a perfect faith, to have a faith that never wavers or doubts, but with those doubts to come to Jesus saying, “Lord, I believe in you. Would you help me with my unbelief? I can’t help myself with my unbelief. No one else can help me with this. They can understand me, they can have compassion on me, but I need you to take my little faith and let it be enough”.When people came to Jesus is with these doubts, he did not condemn them or tell them their faith was not enough, he received their faith being, himself, the proper object of their faith. He modeled a life of faith with others. He came to meet us where we were to meet us in our little faith. When the disciples freak out on him in the boat two different times, he does say, “Oh, you of little faith”. The more I have studied those scenes and thought about them I have concluded that is much more gentle than harsh. Jesus is bringing their attention to it but not in a harsh rebuke but in a gentle question. The really cool thing about the disciple is that after Jesus died and rose again, and he sent the Holy Spirit, their faith went through the roof. Their faith grew. Those of little faith were recognized as having great faith because the Holy Spirit grew it in them and made them bold.Reality of Salvation & the Spirit’s Word v. 17And take the helmet of Salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.In 1 Thessalonians 5:8, Paul says, but let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. Here, in Ephesians, he just calls it the helmet of Salvation, but there he calls it the helmet of the hope of Salvation. I think that’s really clarifying for what he means here in Ephesians.We are saved in hope of ultimate salvation. We don’t worry about the battle that we find ourselves in, about the power of the devil, or about the power of the enemy. We know that we have been saved and that we will be saved. The helmet in the Roman army protected the head and the brain inside that head. If I don’t have a brain, I’m not thinking and I’m not moving and I’m not fighting. I have read that, ‘Every battle is one or lost in the mind”. What you believe affects how you go about the battle. I’ve heard theologians say that the most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God. Our mind is very important, and battles are won and lost in the mind. You could have the better army, but if you don’t think you can win, if you don’t have strategy to win, you won’t win. The battle is lost or won in the mind. And the devil loves to mess with our mind. He loves to play on our fears, to tell us lies, to play even on our confidence. He is a deceiver, and he will come from any direction that he can.So Paul says, to guard our minds with a helmet of the hope of salvation. He wants us to know securely what Jesus has done and that that would protect our mind that whatever doubts, whatever things he says. He wants us to know that our mind is protected by secure hope. He has in mind a hope that is secure. That we would know the story and know what Jesus is coming to do.Then he talks about the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God. The Spirit is not the sword. Growing up, this was always one of the more confusing ones. “The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God”. The sword is the Word of God which is the message of God’s victory in Jesus. The phrase, “Word of God” has come often to be associated just with the Bible, We’ve come to think of that as just the Bible, and that is a good impulse. That is right, but I think it’s sometimes helpful to take a step back because we want to know what Paul’s point was in talking about the word of God. When Paul wrote this, the Bible wasn’t even finished. The word of God is God’s communication to us, and especially the message of God’s victory in Jesus.That’s the same word he uses in Ephesians 5:26 to talk about the announcement of the gospel; “The kingdom of God is at hand”. It’s a declaration of the victory in Jesus. The message of Jesus and his kingship is where our victory comes from. That’s where our hope is and our security. Even though Paul here describs the sword of the spirit as the Word of God, Paul never tells us to use it to attack. The main point throughout this passage is “standing firm”, not going out into battles. The battle is going to come to you, and you need to stand firm. This is a portrayal of a worldview where there are real spiritual powers that have it out for us and want to take us down, and we have to take it very seriously. They want to do us harm, and the way we resist them is by putting on the armor of God.And so as we think about all the things that we’ve talked about so far, we want to think about the qualities more than the pieces themselves. Our focus should not be on the belt, the helmet, the shield, but rather on the truth, on the righteousness, on the hope of salvation. Those are the focus. The point is not to physically dress up in armor but we do want to be armed with these qualities. We want to have the reality of the things that Paul was talking about in this analogy. We stand firm against the forces of evil by truth, righteous living, the gospel that brings peace, faith in God, and his promises, the hope of salvation, and the message of Jesus’ victory.This is Paul’s great rallying cry. He’s written a long letter. This here is chapter 6. What he is saying is that this is our new authority. Jesus himself used the word, the word of God, to fight the enemy. He quoted God’s word when he is tempted in the wilderness, because God’s word is the power. It’s the word that transforms us. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. God’s Word has power to transform you. It is the truth that can transform your mind and imagination. What both the sword and the helmet have in common is that they are both about what God has accomplished. God has already done the salvation and his word is the announcement of that message. We don’t have to wonder if we’re saved and we don’t have to worry about messing up or falling out of grace. We are secured in him. And we don’t have to wonder if God’s Word will work. Isaiah 55:11 says this about God’s word, So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. God’s word will accomplish what he sets out for to do. God’s word does not fail. We simply get to participate in what God’s word is accomplishing. When something’s finished that necessarily means that it is done. You don’t keep working on it. I was thinking about a puzzle. When you finish a puzzle, you do not keep looking for pieces or try to keep putting it together. Once it’s done, it’s done. It’s finished. Some people have this problem where they can’t let a thing be. They can’t let something be finished. I recognize in myself this impulse where it’s not good enough that it’s finished, that what Jesus has done is good enough, and I feel like I need to add to it. I need to add more to what he did. Sometimes this happens in silly examples. I have heard of handy people who fix things and maybe the the car is perfectly working, and they need to open up the hood and mess with stuff, and they end up breaking it because they’re not just satisfied with the working car. When you have a working car, you don’t mess with the engine; you drive it. You are supposed to let the thing that’s good and finished work.I think that that is our invitation with the Word of God and with salvation to let them be. They are finished. They are good, and we just let them do their thing, like driving the car. We are not supposed to be uninvolved but we should recognize that they’re both very effectively going to do what they’re going to do, and we just get to participate.Jesus has accomplished it. He has accomplished salvation, and he has spoken his Word. He did what we could not do. We aren’t capable of fixing these things. We’re not capable of accomplishing what God’s word needs to do, and we’re not capable of saving ourselves. He saw that we were dead and he rescued us. He has seated us with him, and our job is not to climb or try to get higher, but to rest in that reality, to do battle from the position that he’s already put us in. He’s brought us to the highest peak. So why would we keep trying to climb higher?If you’re the top of a mountain, you don’t keep going higher because there’s nowhere to go. You would look really silly if kept trying to higher because you’re already in the top. That’s what happens in salvation. God has brought us to the top. He seated us with Christ above everything. And so there’s not much more for us to do. He’s given us his very own Words of life. Why would we not eat them up like the source of life that they are? These are our weapons. We looked at these weapons. This is what Christ has given to his body, as a whole, for the very real battle we face. He did not give us strategies. Paul, in this section, could have said, “OK, you have a very real enemy, you’re fighting against the devil and his minions. Make sure that every morning you do this, and make sure you say this, and make sure you talk about that” He could have given us plans and step-by-step instructions and conferences and incantations, all these different things. That’s not what he gives us. What he gives us is Jesus. Jesus’ own truth, Jesus’ own righteousness, Jesus’ peace, Jesus’ faithfulness, his salvation, and his word. That’s our armor. That’s what we wear. We don’t wear it alone; we wear it together as a body. What he’s given us are his own attributes, his own armor, for his people, his unified body to take and receive and live into. ReflectionAnd so I want to end with a couple of questions for a reflection.* As we think about the belt, what are the lies that you’ve believed recently? If the belt is the belt of truth, what lies have you believed? * As we think about the breastplate, where is God calling you to live with more integrity?* As we think about the shoes, who is God calling you to share peace with?* As we think about the shield, where do you need to borrow someone else’s faith right now? Where’s your faith weak?* As we think about the helmet, where have you forgotten your identity and a future in Christ?* As you think about the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, what gospel truth do you need to speak out loud this week? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://zackgross.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">zackgross.substack.com</a>

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What is Pondering with Purpose Podcast?: I am a Seminary student in my twenties attempting to think deeply, holistically and consistently about Scripture and all of its implications. <a href="https://zackgross.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">zackgross.substack.com</a>
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates daily.
Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
Does this podcast accept guests?: No, this podcast does not typically feature guests.

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