Pastor Jeff on the Radio

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Jeff Ministries, the teaching ministry of Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub. On today's program, Pastor Jeff continues his message, "Dress for the Fight," from the series "Waging War," and shows you how God uses His truth, righteousness, and strength to help you mature in your faith and stand strong in Christ.

Our mission is to challenge people like you to respond to the word of God. So if you're looking to grow in your walk, you're in the right place. We invite you to visit pastorjeff.com where you'll find a wealth of resources to equip you in your faith. While you're there, you can sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly devotional emails delivered right to your inbox. Now let's hear today's message from God's word with Pastor Jeff.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: Some people say things like this: "I'm open. If it's true, if I can see it, if I can believe it, I'll place my faith in it." And yet there are others that would say something like this: "You can't tell me what to do. I know that's wrong. There's no way I'm listening." They're shut off. They don't have an open heart. If you're here today, just have an open heart.

If you're hostile towards Jesus, here's my question: why? Where do you think all that hostility comes from? Who are you mad at? The God of the universe loved you so much He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for you so that He could be in relationship with you. Why is it you don't mind people talking about religion or morality or country or God? That doesn't bother you. But when we talk about the Lord Jesus Christ being the only way to heaven, something goes off in your heart and you're angry.

Why do you think that is? Because there's a spiritual attack on your soul and the enemy doesn't want you to know that Jesus Christ is Lord. The good news of the gospel is Jesus does not ask you to get religious. Jesus just wants you to be in relationship with Him. Amen. Amen. There's a lot of people that say they reject Jesus, but they're not really rejecting Jesus. They're rejecting other people that claim that they knew Jesus or they saw something bad happen.

If you saw the beauty and the fullness of Christ on this platform right now, this morning, you would fall to your face and worship Him because the Bible says that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. You will do that whether you believe it or not. But you get one chance on this side of heaven to be clothed with the gospel. Are you ready to hear it?

Even if you're here today and you're brand new or you feel hostile, open your heart to the truth. Open your heart to His righteousness. Be willing to experience that God genuinely loves you. What is the shield of faith? Notice what he says. He says the shield of faith for a non-believer is the readiness to believe and surrender. When you come to Christ, the gospel is not about good works. It's not about keeping the law. It's not about trying to please God.

It's not about being spiritual or religious. It's about this: "I can't do anything to make God pleased other than believe that He's the one that's worthy and I want Him." Praise God if you believe this. Jesus not only saves, He's satisfying. Can we praise God for that? There's nothing I would want. If you took everything out of my life, as long as I had Jesus, I have everything I need. Everything's going to work. He's satisfying.

When I place my faith in Him, His fullness comes to live in me: His joy, His hope, His peace. The fact He's in control of the world and that with all the chaos going on, He thinks about me and He loves me. He thinks about our church and He loves our church. He's got good things planned, but it comes through faith in Him. Faith in Him means I'm going to turn from living my life my own way and doing my own thing, and I'm going to go all in with Jesus.

I'm going to take a step of faith with Him. As we say all the time, the hardest step of faith you'll ever take is the next one. If you're a non-believer, the hardest step of faith you will ever take is to turn from your sin and trust the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice what he says. What other garments does he have? He says, "And take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God." The helmet of salvation is something that you need to put on.

Much like a football player is no good holding his helmet in his hand, salvation is no good with you just messing around with it and hearing about it. You've got to put this salvation on. You need to put on this new identity. It's not automatic. You weren't born wearing the helmet of salvation. Now, here's why we think we were: because some of us grew up in religious traditions and we had helmets that we wore. And here's what they said on the side of those helmets: Methodist, Independent Fundamentalist, Baptist, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Non-Denominational, Evangelical Free.

We have all the different headgear that we wear. Friends, that headgear doesn't do anything for you. Salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ is everything. You've got to put it on. So the question comes: when did you put on the helmet of salvation? When was the moment in your life that you said, "I'm done wearing this headgear. I'm done living for this. I'm done protecting my mind with those things. I want the fullness of Jesus and I don't care who sees. I want the world to know I belong to Him"?

When did that happen? You may not remember the exact moment or date or time or what time zone you were in. You may not know all that. But there's a chance, and for sure you would know, if you were living unrighteously and all of a sudden you got clothed in the righteousness of God by faith in Christ, what would you do? You would be totally different. Amen. When did that happen for you? I'm asking all of you that attend Brave on a regular basis, when did that happen for you?

Amen. We know. I did some research to find out when I got saved in Young Life. I actually got saved on July 8th, 1989, which happens to be my dad's birthday. Now I'll never forget it. You may not know the exact date. That's okay. But you would know a timeframe. "I went from there to there. I was dead, now I'm alive. I was lost, now I'm found. I was an enemy, now I'm a friend and I'm never going back." You would know that.

If you don't know that, you don't know the Jesus I'm preaching to you about. He's saying, "Come today. Surrender to Me today." It's by grace through faith. It's not your own doing; it's a gift. Receive the gift. Amen. Then there's this final piece called the sword of the spirit. Romans 10:17 says faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. It's the spoken word of God. When the word of God is spoken, it has the ability to convict your heart, piercing and dividing both soul and spirit, joints and marrow.

It judges the attitudes and the intentions of the heart. That's why when you hear the word of God, it can be comfortable, it can be offensive, it can be any number of things because it's God speaking directly to you. I believe every time that this book is preached that God is speaking to you in some way. It's Him that's talking to you. It's Him that's letting you know how much He loves you. That's the sword of the spirit. Are you open to that?

Some people get offended by the Bible. You're not offended by the Bible; you're offended at the power of God's word. I've been preaching for 20 some years; I've been pastoring this church for 13. There's been rare a message where somebody doesn't get up and leave while I'm preaching. I know sometimes people have to go to the bathroom and I get it. Sometimes you've got to leave early for a game. I get it. But I know there's other times when I say something and three people are out.

You're not mad at me. You're mad that the spoken word of God and the sword of the spirit cut you in a place that you weren't willing to be cut. Amen. So if you're here today, you just want to hear some word, let me tell you something. Let me just give you a couple scriptures about Christ's righteousness and the gospel. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."

1 John 4:10 says, "This is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sin." John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish but would have eternal life." This is God saying to you: I love you. I care about you. I want a relationship with you. Will you come to Me? What's keeping you? What's in your way?

Come clothed in the righteousness of God. God's willing to give you a garment so that you're prepared to meet Him. There's a parable in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew where there's a wedding banquet and different groups of people come in. Some of the people are dressed for the wedding and some of the people aren't. When the master of the house, who is representing God, sees that some people aren't dressed properly, he says, "Who let these people in? They don't belong to the wedding party. Kick them out!"

Friends, the only way you're going to experience eternity with Christ is to put on the fullness of Christ through His truth, through His righteousness, through His gospel, by faith. Amen. That's how we come to know Him, and to put on that helmet of salvation and to let the sword of the spirit, the word of God, be your direction and your directive to lead you to Christ. If you're here today, make today your day. Lord, I'm surrendering to You right now. I need all that. Come in my life. I want to turn from my sin. I want to give You everything.

Just come. He'll take you right as you are. Amen. Isn't that good news? Now, if we're looking at it from a perspective of those who are what the Bible would call lost or enemies or those that are outside the camp, God calls you in. Let's take a look at those of you who know Christ, but you're not really growing in Christ. You're spiritually stunted in your growth. Christ not only saves and satisfies, which is the great joy that we have, but Christ strengthens and sanctifies.

Where does my help come from? Psalm 121: "My help comes from the Lord, the maker of the heavens and the earth." The Lord is my strength. The joy of the Lord is my strength. He can strengthen me and He can grow me in holiness. Some of us, when you hear Pastor talk about you need to live more holy, we think that means "I'm going to go try." Good luck. You can't grow in holiness; Christ can grow you in holiness.

Well, it starts again with that belt of truth. It's growing in truth. There's a pervasive need in our culture everywhere for truth, but specifically in the lives of the saints. When people are not operating in truth, they're operating in error. And where there's error, there's confusion, frustration, lifelessness, sin, and a lack of hope. You may know about the word and how God designed marriage, or how God designed your singleness, or how God designed how to work for somebody or how to be a boss or employee.

You may know about it, but you may not know how to implement it. We need to grow in our understanding of truth. That's why good preaching will help you grow in your understanding of truth. Good times in the word, by yourself or with other people, will help you grow in your understanding of truth. Scripture memory, scripture meditation on the word, these things will change your life. You can't grow apart from knowing the truth. You have to grow in truth.

Sometimes in a church, people think the only truth you need to know is that Jesus Christ is Lord. If you get that, everything else is good. No, if you get that, there's entrance into the kingdom and that's the start. It's called new birth. But just like we don't leave babies at the hospital and say, "Good luck, see you in 18 years. Call me if you need anything," when people are new in Christ, they need to grow in the truth.

Get in a Bible-teaching church. Get around people that study the word. Learn how to study the word. That's how you grow in the things of God. The more truth you know, the more error you'll expose, not only in the lives of other people but in your own life. You'll start seeing error like, "I believed this my whole life and this isn't true because it doesn't say that in the Bible." But that's what I was taught by my parents or that's what I was taught by my pastor.

It's not right because this is what the word says. The word is always true. You can take it to the bank. It's not only true now, but Jesus told us not one jot or tittle will be changed for all eternity. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our Lord stands forever. So grow in truth. If you grow in truth, it'll change your life. How about that breastplate of righteousness?

Pastor Jeff, you said I got that breastplate at salvation, so what do I need to do with it? Well, when you put it on, then you need to start practicing the righteousness that Christ has given to you. You need to start letting that work out. The Bible says nowhere that you're to work for your salvation, but the Bible does say in Philippians to work out your salvation. Let Christ's righteousness live through you. When God gives you strength to act according to His word, you will get strong and you'll grow in holiness.

If you want to grow in truth and you want to start practicing righteousness, God will give you opportunities every day to do it. If you're married, you have an ongoing opportunity to practice righteousness all the time. If you're a single in our culture, you have an ongoing opportunity to practice righteousness in a way that's opposite of our culture. If you're an employee, you have an opportunity to practice righteousness. If you're an employer, you have an opportunity to practice righteousness. If you're a neighbor, you have an opportunity to practice righteousness.

Why is it that you think your life, not everything works out great? It's because God has sovereignly designed opportunities for you to grow in your strength and you can't change your circumstance, but Christ coming through you can change the result of what's going on. Amen. My wife and I call marriage heavenly sandpaper. Because in a marriage where a husband's called to love his wife like Christ loved the church, that's not just dying for her. Because guys, you know sometimes I'd rather just be dead than keep doing this, right?

Dying was the easy part; it's everything that suffered leading up to it that was hard. And wives, submit to your husbands as unto Christ. How impossible is that apart from the Holy Spirit? You can't. But wives, on the daily, on the hour, you have every opportunity to submit to your husband like as to Christ. And husbands, on the daily, on the hourly, you have every opportunity to preference your wife and lay down your life and put her preferences first.

And when you do those things, you get strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. If you come out of a background of drug use and abuse and those kind of things and you start making decisions to not hang out in certain places and not hang out with certain people and you start saying no to certain things, you'll get stronger in the Lord and in the strength of His might. So this is the place of practice righteousness where I say this: there's times where God says, "I need you to stop doing that," or "I need you to start doing this," or "I need you to do what you're doing just a little bit differently."

That's what it means to practice righteousness. That's what it means to grow in righteousness. And as a saint, you have opportunities around you all the time. Most of the time when those things happen, we want God to change our circumstances and God says, "I don't want to change your circumstances. I want Christ's righteousness to come through you. I want My truth to come through you. I want you to be who I want you to be."

How about this one? Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Let your word count for something. You made a commitment, you told them you're coming, and then this came up and this is a way better opportunity. But the Bible says let your yes be yes, and so you tell them no because you already told them yes. Every time you do that, you start growing in the strength of Christ and He starts sanctifying you and chiseling you and making you stronger in Him.

That's how you grow in holiness. What about the next one? It's readiness for the gospel. When you get saved, you get put on Team Jesus. God wants you to be ready. He wants you to be ready for the gospel. It's a mindset of others. It's viewing the world as either in need of Christ or hungry for Christ. You start seeing yourself as every relationship that I'm in, I'm either helping direct someone towards Christ or helping them and encouraging them to grow in Christ.

That's why God has me on this planet. I got my feet planted firmly in the ground like with cleats. The Roman soldiers would drive nails through the bottom of their sandals so they could grab the turf and be strong, so they wouldn't give up any ground because they're moving forward. They're getting ready to go out. And so they start viewing the world like Paul says: we don't view anyone from the world from a worldly perspective anymore or according to the flesh.

We view everyone from God's perspective. And from God's perspective as He looks at the world, He doesn't look at our groups that we're in, or our political parties we affiliate, or the teams that we serve, or the offices we work. Here's how He looks at the world: "I died for them and they haven't come to Me yet and I love them and I gave My whole life to demonstrate it. Will anybody tell them?"

And He looks at them like this: they're saved and they're My child and I want them to grow in the fullness of what I've designed them to be. And I put you guys on mission as a church to go help them do that. Would you help Me? That's what it means to be ready for the gospel. That means all the other distractions that get in our way are coming from the evil one because that's where we stand. We stand firm on the gospel, the good news of Christ, both for the saved and the unsaved.

How about this shield of faith? The shield of faith means after you've taken a step of faith to believe Christ, you continue to take steps for Christ, believing Him more. Stop doubting. Your best days are ahead of you. When you come to Christ, you took that great step of faith, some of us think, "That's it. I'm done." No, you just got started. Sister, you just began what we call a walk. So you take a step of faith here, and a step of faith here, and a step of faith here.

And you know what the hardest step is? The very next one you're going to take. They don't get any easier. Sometimes they get bigger or they seem bigger, but every time you take a step, you are stepping where you can't see. You're stepping where God needs to come in. If you refuse to take steps of faith, your spiritual muscles begin to atrophy. All the time if you said, "Lord, is there something You want me to do?" He can show you.

"Start doing this. Stop doing this. What you're doing here, just do that a little bit differently." That's a step of faith. Often times we're waiting for the one that everybody else is watching. "If You call me to go to New Guinea, raise a million dollars, I'm in, God. Just don't ask me to forget my mom." We don't want to do the things He wants us to do. And if you're faithful in the little, He'll let you be faithful with much.

Take the little step of faith, take the one that nobody sees. That's how your muscles get strong. Don't say what you want to say. Sometimes say what you don't want to say. God is the one that's growing you and doing those things. That's how you get your spiritual muscles strong is by continuing to take steps of faith, believing that God is where I'm at, but He's moving and I want to move with Him. Amen.

Then that helmet of salvation. That's growing in your identity. It's putting it on all the time. Because there's this tendency after we come to Christ to say, "Well, I put it on. I got this really nice helmet. Let me put it on my shelf. Isn't that a cool helmet? Doesn't it look nice? Says Jesus Christ on it, glows. Isn't that neat?" God wants us to put it on and to wear it so that everyone knows this is who we are.

So that when people see us, they see truth and they see righteousness and they see the gospel and they see faith and they see our identity being lived out. Why is that so important? Because the devil wants to rob you of your identity. He wants you to hear a pastor say you're coming to Christ not because of what you do, but because of the gift that God gave you and you're coming by faith and that's it.

After you come to Christ, he lies to you and says, "It's all about works now. You better work really, really hard or God's going to be mad at you." No, He's not. Christ already died for you and rose for you. He can't love you any more than He already does. He can't love you any less. He's Jesus. That's who He is. Amen. But this stuff gets robbed from us in an instant because we live in a world where even when we're trying to practice righteousness, we mess up and sometimes we don't even know that we messed up until later.

I remember when I was attending seminary at Dallas Seminary. When I was in college, I didn't even know cheating was a sin. I didn't. I knew getting good grades was important. By the time I was getting trained and I went to seminary, one of the things I had prayed about was, "Lord, I can't cheat my way through seminary and become a pastor. So Lord, You're going to have to help me because school's not my forte."

When I went to school, I started studying and reading and studying and reading. I was a slow reader. I had to learn how to read fast and do all this stuff. And I did really well because it was something I enjoyed studying. But I remember after I moved from one seminary to another, ended up at Dallas Seminary. I had an opportunity to get out of a class because I'd already taken it at the previous seminary and I got an A in it.

I was like, "No, I want to take it again because this class, this guy wrote the book on this." And it was a Greek grammar class. Lord knows why I said that. I took that class. It was the hardest class I ever took in my whole life. One of the things we had to do, remember in middle school when you diagrammed sentences in English and you had all those lines coming off? We had to do that for the book of Philippians in Greek.

Which started off as a fun exercise. I like rolling through it slowly. But as the semester rolled on and as other things got busy and other books had to be read, I started making my way to the library to see if I could find a book that could help. Wouldn't you know at Dallas Seminary, there's a book at Dallas Seminary on the book of Philippians diagrammed. I said, "This'll help." So I started to just, I'd do this and I'd check my answers and that's how it started.

But by the end of semester when things got busy, there were times I just copied it down. I didn't think about anything at the time. I wasn't even having a thought you're doing something wrong. That's just what I did. And one day I'm having my quiet time and I'm spending time with the Lord because I want to grow in truth and I want to grow in the word and I'm like, "Search me and try me, O Lord. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me to the way everlasting."

This is what I heard the Lord say to me. Not out loud, not out loud voice, just down in my spirit and all I heard was this: "You cheated." And He took me right back to the library. And here's what I said: "I didn't cheat. I just got some help from a book." "You cheated." How many of you know when the Lord lays His hand on you, no matter where you read in the Bible, that's all you're going to hear?

For two weeks, that's all I heard. And here's what I started to do to the Lord: "Lord, I already passed the class at the last seminary I was at. I got an A. I don't need this class. And Lord, I'm not going in because if I tell my teacher, there's an honor code at our school and I'm going to get kicked out of school. And I can't go into ministry if I get kicked out of school for being a cheater. So I'm not doing it. Forget it."

How many you know that God has a way of putting weight on your shoulders until you can't handle it anymore? Finally I took the place. I'm like, "I don't care if they kick me off school, I just want to feel this way again." I'm going to be free. So I went into my professor one day, I told him exactly what I did. I said, "I'm not making any excuses, I'm just telling you what I did." And I told him.

He said, "Okay, thanks for telling me." I'm like, "What happens now?" He goes, "You're going to get a zero." And I said, "Anything else?" He's like, "No." I said, "Can I still pass your class?" He said, "Yep." Because I was like, "I'm not taking this thing a third time." And that was it. I walked out of his office so light. Like, I'm never cheating again. I didn't cheat again. I'm not doing that because I didn't want to do it again. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening today. That was Pastor Jeff with his message, "Dress for the Fight," from the series "Waging War," showing you how God uses His truth, righteousness, and strength to help you mature in your faith and stand strong in Christ. Thanks for joining us for today's program. Before you go, just a quick reminder.

When you give a gift of support today, we'll thank you by sending you Pastor Jeff's powerful booklet, "Made New: Discovering Your New Identity, New Focus, and New Mission." This scripture-filled resource will help you understand what it really means to be made new in Christ, how your identity, your focus, and your mission are transformed when you surrender your life to Jesus. Request your copy today when you give to help others hear the truth of God's word. Just visit pastorjeff.com. That's pastorjeff.com. We'll see you next time.