Gospel Shoes

In Ephesians Chapter 6, the Apostle Paul reminds us that if we're going to be ready for spiritual battle, we have to be equipped for the combat we're going to face. And while our footwear might not seem like a top priority, the shoes we wear will determine our effectiveness on the battlefield. Are your feet ready for action? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explains the purpose of gospel shoes. Shoes are very, very important to us all. I think probably every one of us is wearing shoes. I reached into my ancient history to remind myself of the discussions that used to take place as I was getting readied for school once again, and how, in a particular era where winkle-pickers were in fashion—and many of you will have to Google that, but please don't do it now— but when winkle-pickers were in fashion, I thought it would be a great idea for me to have a nice pointed pair of those to go to school.

And then that dreadful adjective that my mother always used. No, Alistair, I think it is important that you have sensible shoes. Sensible shoes.

Oh, the dreadful experience of having to go back to school wearing, of all things, sensible shoes. But it's entirely sensible to wear sensible shoes, and therefore it was sensible that the Roman soldier would wear shoes that were not provided so that he might become a tap dancer or draw attention to himself, but in order that he might be able to equip himself in battle. Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells how part of the success of Caesar as a military general lay in the provision that he made for the footwear of his soldiers. He provided them sandals that had hobnails in the sole, in order that they would be able to do two things particularly.

First of all, to stand securely, and then to be able to move quickly. Now, surely that picture is in the back of Paul's mind, as he writes here. We've said on each occasion that it's probably not the primary picture he has in mind, but that would be the armor of God as anticipated in the fullness that is in Jesus as we read in the prophets. But to the extent that the Roman soldier would be in the picture, we understand that it is sensible, then, for him to say, Now, the Christian soldier has been given the right kind of shoes in order to do what the Christian soldier is called to do—in order to be ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Now, if you were paying attention, you would notice that Paul is asking for prayer that he might be able to boldly proclaim the mystery of the gospel. He began his letter in chapter 1 by reminding his readers that many of them had come to faith in Jesus as a result of an understanding of the gospel. He says, This is the gospel that was preached to you.

You heard it, you believed, and you became members of his family. Now, it is this that lies at the very heart of all that he then goes on to say. And that is why we've tried to say on each occasion that what we are dealing with in terms of the armor is the provision that is made in Jesus for those who are the soldiers of Jesus. And, of course, not everybody is a soldier of Jesus. Now, you may be here this morning, and even the idea of being a soldier of Jesus seems remote to you and perhaps even unattractive to you.

And why would we ever want to think in those terms? Well, it's the way the Bible opens it up to us. The Bible says that we are in need of this gospel of peace. And the reason that we're in need of the gospel of peace is because there is an enmity between ourselves and God.

And as you read through Ephesians, you see that Paul is making it perfectly clear. Jesus is our peace. It is not that there is peace in religion or there is peace in our endeavors, but that this peace is found in Jesus, that he was making peace by his blood shed on the cross. I wonder, do you know this? I wonder, do you believe this? You see, many men today and women today are searching desperately for peace within, but with no real consideration of the need for peace with God.

And when you read the Bible, you discover that it is first peace with God that opens the door to the peace of God, and that peace of God is a peace which we enjoy in company with others who have experienced that same peace. Have you ever really understood what we mean when we talk about the gospel? Or gospel shoes?

Perhaps someone says, you know, what was the talk about this morning? And you tell them, you say, well, it was about gospel shoes. And they say, well, goodness, what about gospel shoes?

How did you get these shoes? Well, you tell them, it's A, B, C. A, there is something to admit that we have sinned, we have fallen short of the glory of God, that the wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal life. There is something to admit. B, there is something to believe—that Jesus is the one who has died in the place of sinners. That the good news of the gospel is not what we are able to do in order to make ourselves acceptable to God, but it is the wonder of what God has done in Jesus, opening up the way for us to know him. And then C, to come to him. I wonder if there aren't some here this morning who are trapped in between B and C, never actually come to him. The invitation of Jesus was always to come, then to go. Why would we ever go with a message that we ourselves have never understood? Jesus, on the great day of the feast, John tells us, he cried out, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, and out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. The routine gatherings of the people of God, the routine teaching of the Bible, the primary purpose is not that we might have an increased understanding of the Bible with a few ideas for application, but it is that we might have a direct encounter with the living God through his Word by the Holy Spirit in the person and work of Jesus. And it is that, then, which is the foundation of the shoes which the army wears going back out into the community.

Do you have your gospel shoes? Three words. Stability, mobility, and adaptability.

Stability. The issue of this call to be ready with the gospel is in the context, you will notice, of standing. If your Bible is open, you will see that that's where he has begun, in verse 11, that put on this armor that you may be able to stand. Again, in verse 13, stand your ground. And in verse 14 again, stand therefore. Now, what is it, then, that gives us the ability to stand? When people around say, Well, we have no interest in this at all.

When people around say, I can't believe that you would say these kind of things. What is it that gives us the ability to stand? What is it provides our footing? The answer is, it is the gospel—the gospel itself.

When Paul writes his great chapter on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, you remember he begins it, I would remind you—I want to remind you, brethren—of the gospel I preached to you, and which you received, and in which you stand. Stand. You see, one of the great evidences of somebody who's wearing the gospel shoes is that they can stand.

It doesn't seem very good, does it? Yes, but it can stand when all around our soul gives way. We can stand. Gospel shoes. We can stand when our family members are opposed to us or are concerned because of our commitment to the very gospel.

We stand. You see, the reason that the shoes were so important to the soldier was to prevent them from slipping and falling or being encountered by the spikes that were often put in the roadway in the way that landmines are done in modern warfare, so that the person, the soldier, would be so equipped in his footwear that he would actually be able to stand on some of those things. He couldn't do it if he was running around in his slippers. Gospel shoes. Now, one of the great highlights of my last few days has been to finally get to Wittenberg and to see the doors—albeit not the original doors, no wooden doors could last that long, I don't think—but to see the doors there where Luther nailed his thesis to the door, and where he said, Here I stand, I can do no other.

What was it that gave him the ability to stand against all of the nonsense that was going on? It was the gospel. Gospel shoes. What is it that will enable you, going back into your lab, into your workshop, into your school, what will enable you to stand? Gospel shoes.

And they are provided for you in Christ. To prepare the road for ourselves, Jesus walks in front and gives to us the opportunity to be prepared to say, I know this may be unpopular, I know you may think I'm crazy, but I actually love to tell the story. In Corinthians, again, after the chapter on the resurrection, Paul says to them, almost as a sign-off, he says, Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Act like men? You can't say act like men. That is politically incorrect.

I don't mean that as a joke. There is no question that but one of the places in which the gospel is vociferously taken on in our day is in the matter of human sexuality and gender. What, then, would make you stand? Gospel shoes. Secondly, it provides for us not only stability but mobility. In fact, it demands mobility—hence this notion of readiness, put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. One of the great technical questions in these few words here is whether we're putting on readiness or whether we're putting on the gospel shoes or whether the gospel shoes are the equipment or whatever. You could stay up all night with stuff like this.

Trust me and then think. It involves both—both the stability that allows us to stand and the mobility that allows us to get about the business. Surely, there is a hint here in this of what we had earlier in verse 17 of chapter 2 of Jesus, and he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. So he came. This is actually from Isaiah. Peace to those who are near and peace to those who are far off. And the prophet writes this, and generations come and say, I wonder who will be the great messenger of this peace? And here comes the Lord Jesus.

How lovely! On the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news. Who brings good news in a bad-news world? Jesus! Jesus! And he then blazes the trail, and we follow along. In fact, when you read the movement of Jesus in the early days of his ministry—and you can read this for yourselves in the Gospel of Mark—and at the very beginning of the gospel, Jesus makes very clear what it is he's come to do. This is what he says, fifteenth verse of Mark 1. The time is fulfilled. That means all the things that have been pointing forward to this have now reached their fulfillment. And the kingdom of God is at hand.

Why is that? Because I'm the King. Therefore, repent and believe the good news. Jesus is saying that he came, he was promised, and he came as promised, and he came as King, and he announced the news that entry into his kingdom, becoming a soldier in his army, involved repentance and believing. Turning from my rebellion, turning from my sin, turning to him in all the offer of his salvation.

Now, that was his message. He also healed people. He also cast out demons. And before you're out of the first chapter, the wonder of all that has taken place in these early hours has so filled the minds of the disciples that they are amazed that Jesus is not present when they get up in the morning. And Mark tells us that the reason for that is that he has gone away to a private place in order that he might pray. In order that he might pray. They come, and they find him, and they say to him, Everyone is looking for you. In other words, this kingdom thing has got off to a terrific start. Last night was fantastic. The inference being, we should just keep it going right now. And then you have this amazing statement by Jesus.

How unlikely is this? Everyone is looking for you. And he said to them, Let us go on to the next towns. Why? That I may preach there also.

Why? For that is why I came out. To do what? To put on the gospel shoes, to move through the communities, to proclaim the salvation of peace with God.

Now, that secure grounding is then the perfect foundation for mobility. And when we read our Bibles, we find places—for example, in 1 Peter we quote it often, don't we? That we're to be ready always to give an answer kindly, reverently, for those who ask a reason for the hope we have.

Why? Well, because they see that we are filled with hope in a gloomy world, or that we have faced real sadness in our lives, or that we have lost a loved one. They don't want to know about how religious we are. They want to know, How do you have this hope within you?

Surely your circumstances are hopeless. Now, you see, that is what we're to be ready to proclaim. We don't have to solve people's riddles. We don't have to try and explain what is inexplicable. Few of us are able to take on the geniuses. And even if we did, it would not be by means of our ability to articulate and argue and apologetic that they would eventually come to trust in Jesus.

No, all we need to do, as I say, is give them the ABCs. To say, like the man who was born blind and Jesus healed—and remember, the big fiasco that ensued with the religious leaders, and eventually they pressed the man. They say, Can you explain this and can you explain that? Eventually he says, No. One thing I do know.

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

I do know a little bit, because I read the paper. And it seems to me that one of the great challenges in business in every age is the ability to respond to changes in the market, especially if we have a product to move, whether we're able to be agile or whether we've become a great behemoth that can no longer respond quickly. And so others who can respond quickly have a greater opportunity to get a piece of the market share. Now, it's the cynic who changed the words of A Mighty Fortress or Like a Mighty something, Like a Mighty Army Moves the Church of God, and changed it to Like a Mighty Tortoise Moves the Church of God. Brothers, we are treading where we've always trod.

It's a real danger, isn't it? Gospel shoes not only provide stability, not only do they suggest mobility, but in a realistic way they call for adaptability. And I'll just say a word about this, and then we're through. Clearly, we do not mean by that adapting our message or modifying our message to suit the tastes of our culture. No, we remain convinced as a church that the regular teaching of the Bible, with the primary objective that men and women may have a direct encounter with the living God, whether that is in our children's ministry—wherever it is that our core conviction is that the entry of God's Word does its work, that God's Word does God's work by God's Spirit in the lives of those who encounter it. And so it is for us the drumbeat that keeps us in time.

It is the rudder, if you like, that guides the ship through the water. But there needs to be, with those convictions, adaptability. Now, we can apply it in multiple ways.

I'm not suggesting any kind of shake-up at all. But the danger for a church, even our church, is that although everybody thinks they're very adaptable, the fact is that most of us are slavishly attached to old forms. Most of us are better at suggesting new ideas than we are in closing down old ideas. See, just as in a business, so in a church, a business has to decide what it's doing, and why it's doing it. And when someone comes and says, there's fifteen other things you could be doing, that's a very important day, isn't it? Because it is the central thing that demands the attention and the commitment of the core. In a church of our size, people are constantly coming to us, suggesting this, suggesting that, suggesting the next thing. We listen to those things. But we can't become like the man who jumped on his horse and galloped off in all directions.

Adaptability still has to be within the framework of our core. I have a picture that I want to show you, and then I'll stop, because I said to the boys and girls that I would stop. So here's the picture. That is a picture there of the fireman's boots already set in the fireman's trousers, so that when he comes down, he can jump straight into his boots, pull up his trousers, and be gone.

The Brentwood Fire and Rescue Department—that's the picture there—has as its standard sixty seconds from the moment that the alarm is raised to the vehicle moves with the people in it. You can't do that, if you're fiddling around trying to decide what color of socks you want to wear. And if a church, to mix metaphors, decides that what it wants to be is a kind of marina, where we sail our little boats around playing Christian music through the stereo, then that will determine a lot of things. But when we determine that we have been left here as a lifeboat station, then that changes everything dramatically as well. And that's why we're given these gospel shoes. Walk in wisdom, says Paul, toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you are to answer each person. We have been called by God to take the message of the gospel to all who need it. You've been listening to Alistair Begg.

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