The Armor of God // Breastplate of Righteousness // Pastor Josh Evans

I'm so glad that you are here. What great music. If you were blessed by the music today, can you say amen this morning? I tell you what great, phenomenal music. I appreciate our worship team and just the choir and all the time and effort that they put into that.

It takes a lot for them to do what they do and to plan. I just want them to know how much I appreciate them. I love seeing young people sing. I appreciate Abby singing there with the choir today. I'm grateful for that. I enjoyed that here this morning. I love how they lead us to the throne room, which is where we want to be today. I hope that's where you are here today.

Ephesians 6, if you have your Bible today. Let me say, if we have not met before, I know every single week I'm reminded that people slip in to our church for the very first time. I want you to know, if we have not met before, my name is Josh. I'm the pastor here. If this is your first time or the first time in a good while, I want to echo what Pastor David said.

Make sure you take just a moment and a seat back in front of you if you didn't do it on the way in. Take one of those New Here cards. We would love to connect with you. We would love to get to know you better.

Take one of those. You can put it out in the Welcome Center. There will be a volunteer out there who would love to meet you, love to greet you, love to connect with you.

I'll be down front as well. I would love to meet you here today if this is your first time. I appreciate you being here. It's also good, I don't say this enough, it's good to see the regulars as well. For some of you, you're here every single week. I appreciate that. I appreciate Mr. Joe being back with us down front here today. He's been out for a while. It's good to have him back with us here today.

But it is good to see you this morning. Last week, we began a series called The Armor of God from Ephesians Chapter 6. We are slowly going to work our way through each individual piece of The Armor of God. I encourage you, I don't say this much, but if you missed last week, there's some introductory content there in the sermon that I would love for you to take just a moment.

Maybe this week and go back. You can go on our website and you can listen to that and really find out where this whole series is going to go. But here in Ephesians Chapter 6, the Apostle Paul is writing this letter to the church at Ephesus, which was a real church. And just like you think your church, our church is real, this was a real church, the church there at Ephesus, and they were receiving this letter. And the entire book of Ephesians is all about the Gospel. In fact, you could entitle that the theme of the entire book is on the identity that we have in Jesus as a result of the Gospel. And so because of the Gospel, this is what we are supposed to look at in the first three chapters of Ephesians. You find just a deep dive into the Gospel and really a theological letter, if you would, on what the Gospel does in somebody's heart from the inside.

And then in the last three chapters, you find, because of the Gospel, how that is to be lived out in your everyday, everyday life. And here in Chapter 6, it's the last chapter of the book of Ephesians, he's kind of wrapping up his thoughts and he's ending this letter, if you would, with reminding them that we are in a battle. We are in a battle. We are in a battle. Let me tell you this, that you are in a battle. You are literally at war. We are at war.

We have a spiritual warfare and he mentions that we don't wrestle, in another writing of his, we don't wrestle with flesh and blood, right? But there's a demonic enemy that we are facing each and every day. And here's what I want you to know about the battle that you are in. And by the way, if you're a Christian, every single one of you that claim to know Jesus as your Savior, you're in this same battle. We're all in this together, okay?

So you're not alone in this. We're all in this together. We're all battling the enemy, the same enemy. He attacks us in different ways, but we're all battling the same enemy. And here's what's true of our enemy in all of our lives. The devil, who's our enemy, he is after our destruction. The devil is after our destruction. In other words, he wants to destroy you.

He wants to destroy you. And in fact, the scripture calls the devil the angel of light. The angel of light.

Here's what that means. If you've ever seen scary movies and stuff like that, we see the devil and he's kind of, you know, this pitchfork, red suit kind of thing. And I want you to know that our enemy doesn't really look like the way that culture and Hollywood makes him look. In fact, he's an angel of light.

He's a beautiful angel and what he's trying to do is he is trying to get into every area of your life, sometimes the good areas of your life, and he's trying to get a foothold into your life so that he can destroy you. That's the enemy and that's what he is trying to do. And that's what the apostle Paul is writing here in this passage. He says this, he begins in verse number 10 of because of the warfare that we are in, because of this warfare, this is how we are to fight. He says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Notice I mentioned this last week, your strength is what in the Lord and your might comes from him in the power of his might. In other words, if you're trying to fight on your own, you're going to lose every single time. If you're trying to fight in your own strength, you're going to lose every single time.

You're going to fall every single time. It's impossible for you to win the battle that is this spiritual warfare, the war that you're in, you cannot win on your own. So he says, verse 11, put on the whole armor of God. In other words, put on his armor. The armor that he is mentioning here in this text is actually all of the armor. It is of God. It is an armor that he gives you in the gospel.

In other words, it's not something that you have to muster up enough strength or anything. It's the strength of him that is in you that actually gives you the power to put on the armor in your life. That ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in our places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. Therefore stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth or put on the belt of truth.

We looked at that last week. And then today, we're going to see he says to stand therefore having on the breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate of righteousness. Now, in scripture, the breastplate here is also in the Old Testament referred to as a coat of male. In fact, Goliath, if you remember back in 1 Samuel chapter 17, when he comes down and he's trying to fight with the children of Israel, he had this coat of male on him. And many people think it was over 100 pounds that he wore on there.

So it was a pretty big deal. It would cover the neck all the way down to the thigh. And the interesting thing about this piece of armor is that it protected all of the major parts of the body. All of your vital organs were protected by the breastplate.

By the breastplate that a soldier would wear. And here, Paul says we need to put on the breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate of righteousness. And I want to get straight today into the text and how we can put on the breastplate of righteousness. And in order to do that, we have to understand what righteousness is. When we read and we sung about righteousness, I want you, by the end of our time here today, I want you to have a good understanding of your need for righteousness and the solution to righteousness in your life.

And the solution to it. And the best place to go if we're going to talk about righteousness is always the book of Romans. In fact, the book of Romans deals heavily with this idea of righteousness. And so for us to put on this breastplate of righteousness like the Apostle Paul, we have to understand what righteousness is. If you can, flip over to Romans chapter number 3 for me.

And that's where we're going to be for the remainder of our time here today. In Romans chapter 3, the Apostle Paul once again is writing to the church at Rome. And he's talking all about this idea of righteousness. He's talking about this idea of righteousness. And so point number 1 that I want you to see today is your need for righteousness. Your need for righteousness. Let me say up front, every single one of us is born into this world in need of righteousness.

Every single person in here. So what we're going to talk about for a few moments from Romans chapter 3 is not just for some people. In fact, it's a need that every single person in this room has had at some point in your life.

We all need it. And here in Romans chapter 3, verse number 10, the Apostle Paul is writing to the church at Rome. And much of what he was writing on is brand new to the church. Or brand new to those Christians in Rome. He's writing about things such as like the gospel is for Gentiles, not just the Jews.

And these kind of things are just brand new doctrines and theologies, if you would, to them. And here in chapter 3, he talks about the idea of righteousness. And he says this in verse number 10. He says of Romans chapter 3, As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not, not one. No, not one.

None of us. And you can imagine for these religious leaders as they received that, that was probably a difficult thing for them to receive. Because the religious leaders of this day there in Rome, many of them felt that if they had kept the law and they woke up, they tried to keep every bit of the law and every piece of the law. And for them, keeping the law dictated whether you could be righteous or not. And many of them, that's how they felt like they could achieve righteousness, was doing a lot of good things and trying to live the best life and trying to do everything right and dot your I's and cross your T's. And if I do all of these things correctly, then I'm going to be righteous. And the Apostle Paul, he turns everything that they've ever thought on its head and he says, no, actually there is none righteous, no, not one. The first thing that you need to know about your need for righteousness is this. No one is righteous on their own.

No one is righteous on their own. Now, this is the truest test when we talk about righteousness. It's the truest test of our legal standing before God.

It's the truest test of our legal standing before God. And so when we use the term righteousness and we look into this, I want you to always think of your legal standing before God, your legal standing, how you are to stand before Him. Now, in order to do that, you've got to understand this, that way back from the beginning, if you remember in the Garden of Eden, when God created everything, everything was good, right?

Everything was good, everything functioned according to God's design. In Genesis chapter number 3, sin entered into the world. Here's why that is important for you to understand and to be reminded about that here tonight or this morning is this, is because of sin, you are now separated from God.

You're separated. We were all born into this world separated from Him and the Scripture says that there's nothing good, there's not enough good in and of ourselves that we could ever do to get to Him. In other words, that for you and me, we were guilty before God.

Think of a courtroom standing, right? A courtroom scene and God who is the righteous judge. Those who don't know Jesus, they are guilty before God because there is still separation from Him. And if you're in here today and you walked in and you don't have a relationship with Jesus, you've never trusted Jesus as your Savior, let me tell you this, that that is where you stand today with the righteous judge is you stand guilty from Him.

You're separated from Him. That's what the Apostle Paul is reminding him. He's like, listen, there's nobody that can be righteous enough to stand before God. The second thing you have to understand about righteousness and your need for righteousness is this, no one understands on their own. Look at verse 11 of Romans chapter 3. He says, there's none that understandeth. The Apostle Paul is reminding them that sin, because of their sin, it has corrupted their minds and their ability to even perceive God is completely warped and completely changed. They can't perceive Him.

They can't understand Him on their own. And then the third thing that you've got to understand about you when you were born into this world is this, no one seeks God on their own. No one seeks Him. It says this in verse number 11 as well. There is none that seeketh after God. You see, people do seek spiritual things in the spiritual realm and most of the time they're seeking to get something in return.

I want to be a better whatever and so therefore we're going to seek spiritual things. What the Apostle Paul is talking about is the desire to know the one true God and no one is born into this world desiring to know the one true God. In fact, the gospel is not a story of us seeking after Him.

The gospel is a story of Him coming to us and seeking after us. So your need for righteousness is this. No one's righteous on their own.

No one understands on their own. No one seeks God on their own. Verse number 12 of Romans 3, no one has purpose on their own. Look at what it says in verse number 12 about all of us. They're all gone out of the way.

They are together become unprofitable or worthless. In other words, we are born into this world without a purpose. We are born into this world without a purpose. We don't have that purpose in front, in and of our own merit, in and of our own good standing.

We don't have these things. We're not righteous. We can't understand God. We can't seek God. We don't have purpose. And then in verse number 12 also, no one does good on their own.

There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Isn't that amazing? And listen, aren't you thankful you came to church to be reminded about how bad we truly are, right? Listen, here's the thing. If you're in here today and you're like, man, he's beating up on us. Hey, it gets better, all right?

It gets better, I promise you. There's a good news coming to this. But in order for us to understand the good news, we have to understand how bad we truly are. We have to understand why Jesus had to come to change our standing before God. So what I want you to understand about this idea of righteousness, it's our legal standing before God.

Legal standing. When you were born into this world, we were alienated from God, we were separated from God, and there was nothing that we could do to get to him and there was nothing good that you could do to reconcile your life to him. You are guilty. We're all guilty.

So I want to talk about the solution. Also from Romans chapter three, Paul gives us a solution. It doesn't end there, aren't you thankful?

It doesn't end with how bad we truly are. It actually ends with how good God really is. And that's the solution for your righteousness. If you walked in here today and you don't know Jesus, I want you to know, and I hope you realize right there in Romans chapter three, 10 through 12, I hope you understood your great need for the righteousness of God in your life. We all at one time in our life were exactly where you are today, that there's nothing good that you can do in and of our self. But here in Romans chapter three, if you drop down to verse number 21, you see something that's so good, the solution for righteousness.

The solution for our righteousness. First, in verse number, I'll read 21, it says, but now the righteousness, by the way, the word but there, it completely reverses everything the apostle Paul had said. So he had spent all of this time talking about how bad we are when we are born into this world, how rebellious we are when we are born into this world, all of these things that the law, for many of them in Judaism, they felt the law could save them.

He reminds them that the law cannot save. And by the way, trying to do a lot of good things can't save you. Trying to attend church every time the doors are open, I think it's valuable, but let me tell you, that will not save you. Growing up in a Christian family will not save you. Attending a Christian school will not save you. Having Christian parents, thank God for it, but that's not gonna save you.

None of those things can save you. And Paul says that the law, it can't save you. It only shows you how messed up we are and how rebellious we are, and the law is there for us to realize our need for him. So he says in verse 21, but now because of all of this, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference, for all have sinned and we've all fallen short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God had set forth to be a propitiation through faith.

In other words, he satisfied it. He was our go-between, if you would, through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. So here in these verses, I know there's a lot to unpack there, and we're going to get there, but I want you to see here, we saw our need for righteousness, that none of us are righteous on our own, none of us are good on our own, none of us can see God on our own, none of us can be reconciled to the Father. We all stand in a courtroom setting. We all stand guilty before him. So Paul gives us the solution. The first thing you have to do if you want to change that standing with God is this, is you got to recognize your need for Jesus. If you look at verse number 23, he says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The point that I want you to understand is there is nothing good in your own action or effort to get to him.

Everything you try to do in your own merit to reconcile your relationship with him, all of it falls short. We've all met some pretty good people in our day, haven't we? We've met some good people, and here's what we have to understand. I heard one preacher say this about hell, is that we think hell's going to be filled with a bunch of just messed up convicts and things like that, and there's going to be some of that there, but you know what hell's going to be filled with?

A bunch of really good people. And you know what heaven's going to be filled with? A whole lot of forgiven people. You know, there's still a lot of messed up people in heaven, but here's the difference.

They're forgiven by Jesus. Here's what I want you to understand today, and this is a gospel message for you. If you're in here today and you don't know him, you need to recognize your need for him in your life. That's the first step to accepting Jesus and to reconciling your relationship with him. You've got to recognize that there's nothing good in you to get to him.

So what do you need to do? You need to place your faith. Verse number 22 of our text here, Romans chapter 3. You've got to place your faith in Jesus. Verse number 22 says, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith, by faith. You see, here's what saving faith is. Saving faith understands what Jesus has done for us and it trusts in his work alone as the only way for you to be reconciled to the father. You see, that's what faith is. Anytime you talk to somebody that says, I've placed my faith in Jesus, here's what that means.

It means that they stopped trusting in everything else to try to reconcile their life to God and they started trusting in the only one who can reconcile their life to God in his name is Jesus. You see, for you, stop trusting in your good works. Stop trusting in church attendance. Stop trusting in your family.

Stop trusting in all of these things around you. Start trusting in the only thing that can actually reconcile you before the father in his name is Jesus. It's recognizing that you can't do anything in and of yourself and by placing your full faith and trust in him. And then, because of that, verse number 24, it says, once you do that, once you place your faith and trust in Jesus, and many of you have done that, and if you're a Christian in here today and you're a Christ follower, this is you. I want you to see verse number 24 and I want it to come alive for you. Verse number 24 says, because of all that, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Listen, here's what that word justification means. That word literally means to be declared righteous. So what's happening when you understand what righteousness means? And when Paul tells us to put on the breastplate of righteousness, which is so important, put on this breastplate of righteousness, what he's saying is you have to put on this righteousness. But here's the problem, none of us have it on our own, right?

None of us. So what he's telling you to put on in the armor is actually something that is somebody else's. Somebody else had to become righteousness for you in order for you to put on righteousness. And he says that when we trust in Jesus and we place our faith and trust in Jesus, what happens in that moment is we are justified.

By the way, it's a free gift. We're justified freely by his grace. In other words, when you trust in Jesus, remember the courtroom, God, the righteous judge, you, the sinful, wicked sinner, you're separated from him, you're guilty for him. When you trust in Jesus, here's what happens. He justifies you and by that, he means he declares you righteous. He declares you righteous. In other words, what's happening is this legal standing that you once had guilty, all of us had it at one point, is now innocent. Think about it.

Think about it. You now stand there guilty, condemned, deserving of spending eternity in a place called hell and now because of Jesus and you accepting the free gift that Jesus has freely offered all of mankind, now because of that, you can be justified. Your standing can be completely changed forever, forever and now it's just as if you never sinned. That's justification and that's what he's freely offered all of us and when Paul says to put on the breastplate of righteousness, he's saying and challenging us to live out his righteousness in our life. You see, at the moment for you in your life, you're guilty. When you trust in Jesus, you're now made righteous through him.

I want you to see something. I did not know. I know I'm a pastor and many of you think that pastors know everything about the Bible, right? Many of you come up to me with the hardest questions sometimes and you sound so surprised when I say, listen, I don't know the answer to that and there's a lot of things I don't know about scripture, but as I was studying this, I did not know that this even existed, but this is so good and I want you to see this. The scripture all links together.

You understand that? So like I don't want you to ever read like Old Testament and think it does not matter. I don't want you to think it doesn't play a part. I don't want you to ever think it doesn't play a part.

I don't want you to ever think it doesn't link together. In fact, you can see from the very beginning of the pages of scripture, everything from cover to cover points to our need for a messiah, our need for a savior to come in and save us from our rebellion and that's what the story of scripture is all about and you can see it all the way through. There's a passage of scripture in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet and he prophesied through many different kings, Ahaz and Uzziah and different people and he prophesied throughout that about the coming judgment that was going to come for the nation of Israel. And in Isaiah chapter 59, this is really intriguing to me, is it actually he prophesies about what we were reading about with righteousness.

What we just read about here in Romans chapter 3, he actually prophesied many years before about how we can be made righteous. He talks about a bunch of different things in Isaiah chapter 58 and 59 and one of those is he talks about how God is going to judge the enemies of Israel, specifically speaking of Babylon. And he's talking about all of these things, but in chapter number 59, which is what I want you to see this morning by way of conclusion, he actually talks about how God is going to judge our Israel and you's biggest enemy that you face in life and here's what it is, sin. He talks about how God is going to judge our sins and make a way of escape for you and this is the prophet, he's writing this, I want you to see this, it'll be up on the screen, Isaiah chapter 59, verse number 2, it says this, this is the prophet Isaiah speaking and he says that your iniquities, that word means just our sins, have separated. Remember, this is exactly what we're talking about in chapter 3, don't tell me that the whole scripture doesn't link together, it does. He says that your sins have separated between you and God.

They've created a divide. The song says how great the chasm, right? There's a chasm, there's a divide between you and God because of your sins and he goes on to say and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear. That's all in verse 2. If you look down in verse number 16 of Isaiah 59, he said this, it's almost as if God, this is the prophet, he sees the problem and remember God knows all things so he knew this before this but here's what Isaiah said, and he, God, saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore, his, God's arm, brought salvation unto him and his righteousness, it sustained him.

Here's why this is important for you. There was a separation. That's what Isaiah is prophesying about. There's a separation from you and God. You were born, all of us, with a separation. We couldn't get to him. We were guilty before him and there was nothing good that you could ever do to proclaim your innocence in front of him and so God saw that and he saw that there was no intercessor.

There was no go-between. There was no one to stand in the gap between you and your separation from God the Father. And he says this in verse 17 of Isaiah 59. He says, therefore will I, or for he, God, put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation upon his head. You see, here's the point. Here's what Isaiah was saying way back, way before the apostle Paul is writing Romans chapter three.

Isaiah is prophesying about the divide that we have and how God looked and there was separation and God wondered. There's no intercessor. There's not anybody to stand between and pay and to make everything right so that you and I could ever, ever get to him. So what's he gonna do? We know the story. He's gonna send his son, Jesus.

And here's what's gonna happen. Jesus himself put on righteousness as a breastplate, the thing that you could never do in and of your own spirit and strength and no matter how hard you tried, that thing that you could never do, Jesus did for you. And by the way, he became the intercessor for you. Guilty before God and now you have an intercessor in between you and God that makes your standing moving from guilty to innocent.

It's not because of you. It's because of the intercessor that is in between you and that is what Jesus did. That's why righteousness is important. The only way that you can live out righteousness in your life and put on the breastplate is you gotta trust the one who was righteous for you.

You gotta trust the one who went and became your warrior and who fought for you. And by the way, the word intercessor is the same word that is used back in Isaiah chapter 53. Chapter 53 verse 12. And he says this, Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death. And he goes on to say this in verse number 12. But he, we know this, was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed. Here in Isaiah chapter 53, he's talking about this word intercessor. And it's the same Hebrew word and here's what I want you to understand is Jesus is your intercessor. The only way that you can put on the breastplate of righteousness is by trusting in him as your intercessor. You know, if you think about that idea of the courtroom, that's kind of the idea of this whole theme of righteousness. If you think about that, we're guilty.

There's nothing that we can do. One day, the scripture says every single person in here one day, we're gonna all stand before God. I don't know when that day is. And if you ever hear somebody say that they know when that day is, listen, don't listen to them. All right, you need to run the other way. None of us know when that day is, but every single one of us is gonna stand before God one day.

And here's the thing. When we think that Jesus is our intercessor, Jesus is our advocate, and he's standing there in the gap. I used to think that that meant that when Josh sins, it's almost like they're in heaven.

There's a book that says Josh, and Josh has sinned for the 50,000th time, and Jesus brings this book and says, hey, listen, the righteous judge, God, hey, have mercy on him. He didn't mean it. He's trying really hard. And I used to think that Jesus is standing there like really vouching for me. And I used to think that he's in the middle like really trying to defend me.

You see, an advocate is there to actually argue someone's innocence, right? And I used to think that he is arguing on my behalf, like, hey, Josh didn't mean it. Josh is good. Josh is trying his best.

Josh this or whatever. And here's what I want you to understand. That is not the correct interpretation. I've been wrong many times about how I interpret how he's my advocate and how he's my intercessor.

Here's what is happening. Every time you sin, every time you sin, there is a person, Jesus, who is standing in between you as your advocate, as your advocate. And when your sin is brought up, this person, they did something bad. They thought a bad thought. They were mean. They gossiped. They slandered. They had an impure thought. They looked at something that they shouldn't. They were a jerk.

They were bad. They were mean to your pastor, just saying. Some of you could be. And all these things, everything, right, that you can be ever guilty of, ever, right? Jesus is standing in the middle of you and God and as all of your charges are brought, and we have a bunch of them, right, as everything's brought before the righteous judge, here's what's happening, is Jesus, he's not arguing on your behalf because there's nothing good or worthy in us to begin with.

There'd be no argument if it was based on you. Here's what Jesus is saying. Yes, I know he did that, but listen, you can't hold that against Josh. I paid for that.

I paid for that. And when I went to the cross, the sin that Josh committed was forever paid for. And Jesus, he's not advocating on your behalf. He's advocating on the truth that he was our propitiation and he died for us, and when he died for us, our father is just to forgive us.

And if he's just, here's what I want you to understand. If God's just, he can't condemn you for sins that you've committed. He can't judge a sin when it's already been sacrificed for.

That's the point. So when we say put on the breastplate of righteousness, you gotta trust in Jesus. Because you aren't righteous.

You can't do it enough yourself. The only way you can do that is to trust in him. So I ask you, are you putting on the righteousness of Jesus? When you were saved, the scripture says that Jesus, the son of God's righteousness, was imputed, poured, placed, credited to your account. That means that everything you've done wrong has been replaced with his righteousness.

So when God judges you, he's judging based on the righteousness of his perfect, spotless lamb of God that went for you. When it says live that out, put that on, here's what that means. We need to live like Jesus. It's not your strength, but it's him working in you. You gotta be like him.

You gotta act like him. So what area of your life are you not living out and putting on the righteousness of God? And let me say this about you.

We're terrible about this. Your situation, it does not justify what the scripture condemns in your life. We're good at saying, man, our situation because of this, hey, you don't realize what happened, so I can't forgive. You don't realize what happened in my life, so I'm not talking to this person.

You don't realize all of these things. And we are really good at justifying our stuff and our sin based on our situation. I just want you to understand this, that what the scripture says matters, and your situation can't justify what the scripture has condemned. So what in your life are you holding back? Are you trying to justify?

What area of your life are you not putting the righteousness of God into that? Is it slander? Listen, churches are full of it. Is it gossip? Here's what gossip is. If you're talking about somebody in a negative light and they're not present, you're gossiping. That's sin, don't justify, okay?

Wow, it got real quiet, I like that. Listen, that's what I'm saying is all these things that we do and we justify because of our situation, all those things, here's what he's saying, put on, put on the breastplate of righteousness, put it on, live like Jesus, love like Jesus, act like Jesus, have your arms welcome, be quick to forgive, be quick to love, be quick to understand. All of these things, everything Jesus was, you can be, not because of you, but because of who lives inside of you. Because there's an advocate and there's an intercessor that went in between you, your legal standing with God has been forever changed and now you have the ability to live like Jesus in your life. Are you putting on the breastplate of righteousness? Can we bow our heads for.