You know, many times when we hear about the armor of God that's available for a Christian, we tend to turn to the famous passage about the armor of God, which is where a book is in six. That's usually where we turn. There is a lesser known passage and a few others which we really just touched on this morning. And I want us to dwell a little longer on the verse of First Thessalonians, chapter five, verse eight, which says, But let us. who are of the day be sober and then describes what the sobriety is. How can you be in control? How can you be alert as a believer? He says, putting on and better translation would be having put on. In other words, it's something that was done in the past when you were saved. God gave you this armor. And yet it is something that you can relinquish or continue to pile that armor on in a further sense, but having put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. I want to dwell on that verse a little longer tonight, because to understand this verse is essential in our lives as Christians. It's essential in our walk with the Lord, not only as what one writer puts it, not only as a watchman, which is what we considered this morning to be awake and alert and alive, but also we're called to be warriors as Christians. Not just watchmen, but warriors. And so this verse is critical in that area. We hear a lot about spiritual warfare, but do we really face spiritual warfare? Do we really face it? Not too long ago, we went through Ephesians 6 and we taught about how we are facing spiritual warfare and the devil does try to discourage us and get us down and get us disinterested in things of the Lord. And so we are facing this battle and the Bible teaches very clearly that we are facing such a battle. We looked at this verse this morning, Ephesians 6, 12, again, that famous passage on the armor of God. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. It's not a hand to hand combat with other people, but rather we are wrestling against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wicked in high places. This spiritual battle is real war. It is a real thing. It affects every Christian. Doesn't matter where you live or when you've lived. It affects every believer. We mentioned this this morning how Paul was writing to the church in Ephesus there in Turkey about this warfare. Then he comes to the Thessalonians and writes to them about this warfare. And now it's being taught and preached to us here in Greenfield about this warfare from thousands of years across time, thousands of miles across space. This battle is very real and we face it even tonight. Right now, the devil is trying to get at our hearts. He's trying to get at our minds. He's trying to take us out of any form of usefulness and influence for the Lord Jesus Christ. He's doing it right this very moment, this battle we are facing today. And because this war is real, as we look this morning, we need to be sober and alert. But how can you be? Especially when you're dealing with powers, as it says in Ephesians 6, powers that we can't see, powers that we can't feel physically, powers that are more powerful than we are in our flesh and more destructive than anything we could have ever imagined. More destructive even than the terrorists that are trying to out to destroy us, than those Shiites who are trying to infiltrate there in Iraq and kill our soldiers. What is the problem there, obviously, is they're trying to kill their physical bodies. And yet the devil's battle against us is real and even more real, perhaps, than that. The Lord knows the concern and our greatest need in the area of spiritual warfare, and he addresses them by joining together three great Christian virtues, which are faith and hope, and love. These are the three Christian virtues that you can go in several different places throughout the New Testament and find out what these are all about. Faith, hope, love are three characteristics that were given to you by God when you were saved. He was giving you faith. He's giving you hope. He's giving you that wonderful virtue of love. How do we know this? Because in Galatians, it says that the fruit of the spirit is love and faith. And there's other passages that talk about the spirit of hope. And so we understand that it's the spirit that gives us faith. It's the spirit that gives us hope. It's the spirit that induces love, all focused on the Lord Jesus Christ and what he's done for us. So he connects these three Christian virtues to the power of God to overcome spiritual warfare. We need to remember it. First John four, four. John says you are a God little children and have overcome them. Why? Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. When we recognize that God is greater than anything that the devil can throw at us. That's the very first step to understanding what love and faith and hope can do to bring us. Into victory. in our Christian lives. The Lord provides us armor through faith and love and hope. That's pretty simple. When we think about it, think, well, that's what I have as a Christian. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's faith. I love him because of what he's done for me. I have hope, confidence that he's going to return someday. And so when you think about it, these are fairly simple virtues. And yet the Lord says these are essential not just to have a relationship with God, though it is that, but faith and hope and love are essential to the spiritual battles that we face every single day. And that's why the title of my message is it's the armor that fits. If you remember the story of David, as he was just a little boy and he was going to face Goliath and You know, he was telling his brothers and telling the army, who is this guy, Goliath? Who does he think he is? He's condemning us. He's condemning our God. He's a terrible man. Why don't we just go out there and kill him? And they said, well, who's going to do it? He said, I'll do it. I'll do it. So what did they do? They brought young little David, only a boy named David, and brought him there before great King Saul. And if you remember, King Saul was taller than all the rest. He was a very strong man, a very tall man, a very wise man. So he said, here, David, here's my arm. You want to do it? Go for it. Put this armor on. What happened? He put the armor on. He says it doesn't fit me. It hasn't been proved. So he takes it off. He says, King Saul, I'm going to go forward and the Lord is going to deliver this enemy in my hands. What did he go with? He went with faith. He went with love and he went with hope. And the Lord brought him to victory, didn't he? Faith, love and hope is the armor that fits for every Christian in the spiritual battles that we face every single day. It'll fit you. It'll fit me. You don't have to be a supergiant Christian. You don't have to have gone and gotten all sorts of degrees. You don't have to be a proletariat in a church. You don't have to do all these different things. All you have to be armed with is what God has already armed you with. And that is faith and hope and love. It's the armor that will fit. What is this armor? We find it in First Thessalonians 5 verse 8. We first come to the breastplate. He says, put on or having put on the breastplate of faith and love. This is the first part of the spiritual armor that we find in this passage. The breastplate would protect the heart and other vital organs within the chest and within the torso. It was a very important piece of armor because if your heart stops beating, you'll die. And so the heart was very important and it needed to be protected and it needed to be protected from both the front and the back. And that is one reason why in this verse we have faith and love joined together as an important defensive piece of armor that would cover your entire chest, both front and back from any of the enemy's attacks. You know, the enemy is a coward and he will try to attack you from the back. He will do that. Even if you're not turning and running, he'll try to attack you from the back. And so we see these two elements joined together to form this one piece of armor. But spiritually, when we come to this verse, we know it's talking about a spiritual warfare. What do you need in your spiritual life to be protected? Of course, we understand it is your heart. The spiritual center of your life. the very core of your being, the very spirit that God has given you and has made alive, the spirit that is able to love God, the spirit that is able to believe God, the spirit that is able to hope in God. Your heart is a treasure to God. Your heart is valuable to Him and it needs to be protected. It needs to be protected. Proverbs 4.23 puts it this way, Keep thy heart with all diligence. Why? For out of it, out of your heart are the issues of life. Your very life comes from your spiritual center, your heart. How can you protect your heart? Well, we see from this verse that you need to join your faith in Christ and your love for Christ into that strong piece of armor that will protect your heart, your faith in Christ and your love for Christ. And we first see the element of faith. What is this faith? Is it just the fact of knowing about God? No, this faith, this hope and this love is all directed to the one who has died and obtained salvation. If you look at verse 9 in context, it says, For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. Our faith must be and rest in Him. Our love must be directed to Him. Our hope must be completely in Him. And when that is the case, we truly have this armor. But what are we to have faith in? Again, in the context, it's especially not just about his death, which it says in verse 10, he died for us. We do need to believe that that's where this faith starts. But we also need to have faith in what he has promised specifically about his return. We need to realize that he is going to deliver us from this life and from these dangers. And so if we believe him and what he has said, if we believe that he is able to perform the things that he has promised, we have one of the greatest spiritual pieces of armor that will guard our heart. Now, what will faith in the Lord guard you from? And this is the problem that we need to confront. It is the area of doubt, the area of doubt. Doubt can greatly affect your heart and doubt is the opposite of faith and belief. If the devil can get you to doubt God, if the devil can get me to doubt Jesus Christ, you know what? He's already won the battle. Because if I doubt in what Christ did and I doubt what God is, even if he exists, you know what's going to happen is I will not serve him. It will have a great effect on what I do. There are a vast amount of people that don't believe, but rather have had seeds of doubt placed in their mind and no longer are useful for God at all, because with doubt comes discouragement and even to the point of questioning his own truth and his own love. So you and I need to be armed with faith because faith will cast out this doubt And this faith will be expressed in a certain way. How do you know if you're protected? How do you know? You know, if you were in Iraq and you were sitting in a tank, you know that you have some armor around you. It's visible. You can see it. The same holds true when it comes to this faith. Other passages of Scripture teach us that faith will not be something that is just internal. It will be expressed and external. So how do you know if you have this kind of faith? How do you know if you have a faith that will protect you, a faith that will cast away the doubt? I believe it will come forth through a Christ focused effort for Christ. If you believe in something, you're going to do something about it. If you believed that this particular building was on fire, what would you do about it? You would run and you would do something about it. You would express yourself in effort trying to get out of here. The same holds true with faith in Christ. If you and I truly have this kind of faith in Christ, it will show itself in a Christ focused effort because you believe you serve. Because you believe, you witness. As Brother Tom mentioned, his brother-in-law is a tremendous witness. Why does he witness? Why does he share about Christ with others? Because he believes it. He believes the gospel with all his heart. He believes that the gospel is the power to save. And so he's going to share it with others. If we don't believe it, we won't witness. But because you believe, you pray. If you believe that God answers prayer and you believe that God honors prayer, you will pray. But something amazing happens. When you serve and when you witness and you pray because you believe, the more that you serve, the more your faith will grow. The more you witness and see God change lives, the more your faith will grow in Him. The more you pray and see answers to your prayer, the more your faith will grow in Christ. And you know what's going to happen? Your heart will be protected from doubt. Your heart will be protected from doubt. Faith grows as faith is exercised and your faith will never grow unless it's exercised with a Christ focused effort. Now, your heart is protected not just because of your faith, but rather is protected because of the one that your faith rests in. Jesus Christ, he is the protector of your heart. That is the first piece of piece of armor, the breastplate of faith, but also it's a brace, a breastplate that is combined with that of love. Again, this love is focused on the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, it's a response, a response of our love for his love and the demonstration of his love toward us. Remember, 1 John 4, 19, it says we love him. Why? Because he first loved us. Not only that, but Romans five, eight, we see the demonstration of his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So, yes, we can love the Lord because he first loved us. He loved us so much that he sent. Jesus Christ into this world to die for our sins, but also in context here, we see the love of Christ in that Jesus will return someday and he could return at any time, at any day. And that demonstrates his love also, as we looked at this morning. Why? Why would he do this? If you look at verse 10, he says, who died for us, that whether we we we wake or sleep, We should live together with him. That amazing statement. He wants you to live together with him because he loves you because he loves you. That is a love that ought to have our love in response. Now, what will love for the Lord guard you from? If love is going to be an armor, if love is going to be something that will defend us from something, what is it going to defend us from? Faith will defend us from doubt. Love for the Lord will defend us from apathy and disinterest in the things of the Lord. Think about it. If you are apathetic toward the things of the Lord, many times it's because you don't care. You don't love Him like He loves you. And that disinterest, that apathy, will affect your heart and will affect your service and my service for the Lord. If we don't love the Lord, we won't serve Him. If we don't love the Lord, we will lose interest in him. There are many people that come on Easter Sunday and on Christmas for the cantata and they don't come to church any other time. Why? Because they're not interested in the things of the Lord, because they don't love him. Now, if you ask them if they love God, they'd say, well, sure, I love God. The best answer is prove it. Where's your interest? If you love someone, you're going to take interest in them. If you were dating. You're back in those days courting again. And your husband or your wife, future husband or wife, asked you out on a date and you went somewhere to eat and they never talked to you. They kept looking around, looking at other things. They watched the movie or whatever. They talked about themselves, but they never were interested in you. If they showed disinterest, would you think that they really loved you? No. They're in love with themselves. They really don't care. Why did they ask me out in the first place? The fact is, if we truly had a love that protects our heart, a love that God gives us to defend ourselves, it will be a love that shows itself in interest and passion for the Lord. That is how this love will be expressed. How do you know if your heart is protected by love? How do you know if you have the kind of love that protects? It will be through Christlike exertion. Love is invisible until it is visible. Love is invisible until it is visible. Love needs to act. You've heard it said, I've said it many times, don't say that you love me, show that you love me. Love acts. And when you're exerting and showing your love and passion for the Lord, you know what's going to happen? You're going to love him more. You're going to love him more because you have a relationship of love with him. And if you have that kind of love, your heart is protected, not because of your love, but because of the one that you love and his love for you. You can't love him before he first loved you. This is the importance of having on the breastplate of faith and love. But then in this verse, we also come to the helmet. The helmet in those times would protect the head and the brain. Of course, the head and the brain are rather important parts. Without the head and without the brain, you can't function, you can't live. But the brain also does some other things. It helps you think. And it helps keep the rest of your body alive and functioning together and in sync. If your brain is out of whack, your body is going to be out of whack. The brain thinks, and it's important. So physically, of course, we want to protect our heads. That's why they have laws where people need to wear helmets. It's important to wear helmets because your mind and your brain is important. But what about spiritually? Again, this passage is talking about spiritual armor, spiritual defense. What spiritually needs to be protected? The Bible clearly teaches it's our mind. It's our mind, not just our heart, but our mind. Again, Isaiah, Chapter 26, verses three and four. I read this this morning, but Isaiah says this that will keep him in perfect peace. whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee. And then it says, admonishing them, trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. Our mind must be stayed on the Lord. And if our mind starts to wander away from the Lord, we will not be able to be protected with the helmet of the hope of salvation. Many of the things that are our hope and that we have trust in and that we love God for, we have to filter through our mind and filter through our brain, through the word of God and through the teaching of the word of God and the preaching of the word of God. We need to make sure that our mind is protected. Why? Because there's so many things that are trying to infiltrate our mind, aren't there? Think about it when you turn on television and you see these advertisements. When I was in college, I took a marketing course and a salesmanship course. And one of the duties that we had was to look at commercials and to get an idea of what these people were trying to push as far as a product, but also how they would get into the very mind of the people that were watching it to get their attention. You all know what I'm talking about when you see a commercial and immediately you start looking at the commercial. You might have been watching a TV show or a news program and all of a sudden this commercial comes on and it's riveting. And it's something that you just can't take your mind and your eyes off of and usually it's a beer commercial, right? They're supposedly the funniest ones out there, and sometimes they're entertaining, but they get you. They draw you in with your mind. The devil's trying to do that, not just with commercials, but with other books. He's trying to affect your mind through what people are saying. He's trying to affect your mind through other sources. And that is why our mind truly needs to be protected. And it is protected by our hope of salvation. Our thoughts about the Lord need to be protected. Again, from the doubt that often creeps in our thoughts about our relationship with him need to be protected. Sometimes our relationship is strained and we think God doesn't want to talk to me. God doesn't want me to talk to him. He's through with me. He's done with me. Sometimes we become despairing. Because of that, our mind needs to be protected. Our thoughts about our opportunities to serve him. Sometimes we think I'm too old or too young or unable to do this or unable to do that. I'm not gifted in this area or talented in this area. Our mind thinks those things and our mind needs to be protected. And so God has given to us the hope of salvation. This is how you can protect your mind and your thoughts is through the hope of salvation. What is hope? Hope is a confident expectation in what God is going to do. And of course, it is always through Jesus Christ and the salvation that he's going to provide. The salvation that he is going to provide gives us hope that it is a complete salvation. You know, if Jesus Christ was only going to save us in this life, the Bible says we are of all men most miserable. We also need to understand that the hope of our salvation is that it will be complete when he returns. Again, this entire passage is talking about being watchful for the coming of the Lord. Hope is not just a mere wish. It is an expectation that what God has promised he will perform. So what will hope in the Lord and in his salvation guard you from? What do we need to be guarded from? Not only when we think about faith, we need to be protected from doubt. When we talk about love, we need to be protected about or protected from disinterest and apathy. When it deals with hope, we need to be confronting and guarding ourselves against despair and discouragement. How easy it is for us to be discouraged. How easy it is for us to be despairing, especially because of the difficulties and the dangers that we experience in this life and in this world. When you get sick, you get discouraged because you can't do the things that you're wanting to do. When you see family members that are falling away from the Lord or doing things that they ought not to do, you grow despairing. Oh, God, why aren't you reaching out to them? When people leave the church, we wonder why, Lord, why? And you get down and you get discouraged. We face this every single day in our lives as Christians, and it becomes one of those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. I didn't write it down here for tonight's sermon, but that's what it was about. And we realize that when we are discouraged and despairing, what is being afflicted? And that is our hope, our hope. God says, put your hope in me. You have no reason to despair. He says, don't lose hope because Jesus Christ is your hope. Turn over to First Thessalonians just a page or two away. I'm sorry, First Timothy, I'm sorry, First Timothy, chapter one, verse one. Paul, in this particular letter to Pastor Timothy, young Pastor Timothy, he says this in the very first words, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our Jesus Christ is our Jesus Christ is your. and know anybody else might fail you, fall away from you, and run away from you. They might reject you and forsake you. The Lord Jesus Christ over and above anyone and anything else in this life is your hope. Look to Him. Don't look to others. He is your hope. But also, Paul in other places say, don't be like those who have no hope. You turn back to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Just a few verses before our current text here, he's talking about the concern that these Christians have about their brothers and sisters in Christ who have died. And he says in verse 13, I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. Where does sorrow come? Sorrow can be a legitimate emotion when you're grieving, but sometimes sorrow comes from a lack of hope. And he says, don't sorrow like those that have no hope. Ephesians 2.12, he says that at that time, when you were unbelievers, you were without Christ. You were aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope. The fact is we do have hope and Jesus Christ is our hope. But without hope will come sorrow, discouragement and despair. We need to be protected from discouragement and despair. And so God gives us hope, hope in Christ. How will this hope be expressed? How do you know that you are going to have faith? How do you know if you have the kind of love that will protect you? How do you know if you have the kind of hope that will protect you from discouragement and despair? It's through a Christ led endurance. A Christ led endurance. Turn with me back to First Thessalonians, chapter one, verse three. And listen very carefully to the words that Paul gives to this church at the very beginning of this book. We've already been there in our series on First Thessalonians, but let's revisit this when he says. I remember, Paul says, I remember without ceasing. Your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God, our father. That first puts them all together, doesn't it? It puts our faith and puts our hope and puts our love all together, but it also shows us what these things will look like. Look at it again. This describes your work of faith. In the text that we have this evening, it talks about faith being our breastplate that protects our very heart. And how do you know you have this faith? It is a Christ focused effort. It is a work of faith that will keep you from doubt as you serve him and as you produce effort for him, as you believe in him, your belief and faith will increase. But then it talks about the labor of love. How do you know if you have a love that will protect your heart? It will be a labor of love. It will be producing a Christlike exertion as you show your love for him. You will know that he loves you as well. But also we see the patience of hope, the patience of hope is expressed in a Christlike endurance, a hope that produces patience and endurance. When you are patient. You won't despair. When you are patient, you won't sorrow. When you are patient, you will be able to endure the things that are placed before you. And when you have hope in Christ, your mind will be protected. Not just because of the hope, but because of who your hope is in. He protects it. This spiritual armor is something that fits every single Christian. It is a breastplate of faith and love and a helmet of salvation or a helmet of hope of salvation in the Lord. And it fits every single one of you and me. It is placed on you the moment you're saved. Sometimes that armor can become weak as the devil will throw those darts, those fiery darts of the wicked, and they will be proving that armor. Sometimes we get doubtful. Sometimes we become apathetic and disinterested. Sometimes we do become discouraged and despair. But the truth is, when we begin to doubt, when we begin to be disinterested and we become discouraged, what do you do? You look again unto Jesus Christ. Think about it. Hebrews 12, 2, in order to increase your faith, it says looking unto Jesus, who is the author and finisher of your faith in Hebrews 12, 2. If you're starting to doubt, who can turn that doubt into faith? Christ. Christ. Where do you learn about Christ? His word? Who do you go to? God, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. To increase your love, what do you do? 1 John 4, 19. We love him because he first loved us. You increase that armor of love as you focus on his love for you. To increase your hope. And the armor of hope, what do you do? You again turn to the Lord, Titus 2, 13 says, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. You put your eyes upward and you look for his coming. We are not to live and go in this world without this protection. We see the armor of God in Ephesians 6, but this gives us a little bit different perspective, a little bit different light. It is an armor that everyone has faith and hope and love. It is an armor that everyone can increase as they look at the faith, love and hope that Jesus Christ can provide. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter six is our final verse I'd like to look at. Ephesians, chapter six, again, that famous passage on the armor of God, I want to focus on verse 13. Because it says, Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God. Yes, in context is talking about the armor in Ephesians. But if we if we neglect the armor that Paul writes about in Thessalonians, we will not have that whole armor that he's describing. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, including the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet, the hope of salvation. Why? So that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stay. When we leave this place, we're going to face an evil day. And we're going to face doubt. The potential of apathy and disinterest, and we're going to face discouragement and even despair. But let us put on the breastplate of faith and love in the Lord. And let us put on that helmet of our hope of salvation from the Lord. And then both our hearts and our minds will be protected.