Series: Ephesians
Title: Ready-Made Shoes
Text: Ephesians 6: 15
Date: February 1, 2015
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
The
Holy Spirit used the apostle Paul to declare the believers need of having on
the whole armor of God. One of those pieces of armor are shoes. He said, “And your feet shod with the preparation of
the gospel of peace.” (Eph 6: 15)
We have
been seeing God’s purpose in trials. Christ said through Paul, “Ye must through
much tribulation enter the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14: 22) Satan’s chief desire
is to bruise our Achilles. So the devil and his Chihuahuas are always nipping
at our heels. In order for a believer to walk through the fire of trial—through
the life of faith—God has provided us shoes.
YOUR FEET
First,
he speaks of “your feet.” What does God say in his word about our feet as unbelievers?
God says, “Their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.” (Pro 1: 16)
The natural man has “An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be
swift in running to mischief.” (Pro 6: 18) God says, “Their feet run to evil,
and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of
iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.” (Is 59: 7; Rom 3:15)
Sinner,
hear what God says about you—about us all—as we are born in this world the
first time. Can you say this is true of you? Before God does anything else for
his child, his child must be made to confess that our feet run to evil, make
haste to shed innocent blood, are swift to run to mischief, that wasting and
destruction is in our paths. Until we are humbled by God’s grace, we shall
never have the peace of Christ’s free justification. The Lord Jesus illustrated that truth in his
parable of the Pharisee and the publican.
Luke
18: 9: And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that
they were righteous, and despised others: 10: Two men went up into the temple
to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. 11: The Pharisee stood
and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are,
extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. 12: I fast twice in
the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 13: And the publican, standing
afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote
upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. 14; I tell you, this
man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every
one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall
be exalted.
Christ
Jesus came to save sinners not the righteous.
Matthew
9: 10: And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many
publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. 11: And
when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your
Master with publicans and sinners? 12: But when Jesus heard that, he
said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are
sick. 13: But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and
not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance.
HAVING YOUR FEET SHOD
Secondly,
our text speaks of having your feet shod, “Stand therefore, having your loins girt
about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And [having] your
feet shod…(Eph 6:14-15)
It
means Christ is the one who “shods” our feet. He puts these shoes on us. The
word “preparation” means the shoes are already prepared when God puts them on
his child. Our shoes are “Ready-made Shoes.”
True
believers are not cobblers. It is not our business to be making shoes for our
feet. Suppose you go to a physician with a broken foot. The physician tells you that he partly has a
remedy but you have to set your foot, you have to put pins in your foot
yourself, you have to make a cast and crutches yourself. It would not be good news. You would seek
another physician who had the ability to completely make you whole. The Christ
of the bible does not require you to do part of the work. That would not be
good news. Sinner, right now, if you think you have some ability, some
righteousness, some life in you, as long as you are a cobbler—trying to prepare
these shoes yourself—then this gospel will not be good news to you. The Christ
of the bible, the Christ of heaven, has done all the work. These shoes are
prepared for the feet of his saints. Peter called it “salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time.” (1 Pet 1:5)
When
you go to the shoe store, you find hundreds of different styles and sizes. With
God, there is one shoe, one size, one style, which fits all God’s saints
because it is made especially for his saints. But we have tried to make all
sorts of shoes for our feet by our vain works. So the first thing Christ does
to save his child from the evil path of our feet is to strip us of our shoes. When
Christ called Moses in the burning bush, before Christ sent Moses into battle,
he told Moses, “put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground.” (Ex 3: 5) When Christ met Joshua, before sending
Joshua to battle against Jericho, “The captain of the LORD’S host said unto
Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest
[is] holy. And Joshua did so.” (Jos 5:15)
Then Christ
himself shods the feet of his servants. The Psalmist wrote, “He brought me up
also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock,
and established my goings.” (Ps 40: 2) “He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet: and
setteth me upon my high places.” (2 Sam 22: 34)
Therefore,
when Christ sends his preacher with the good news, his preacher preaches with
certainty, dogmatically, because Christ has shod his feet. That is why we read,
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good
tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that
publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!” (Is 52: 7)
WITH WHAT ARE WE SHOD?
Our
text declares that we are shod with the gospel of peace, “And [having] your
feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” (Eph 6: 15)
Every
child that Christ saves, he finds, not at peace with God, but engaged in a most
strange warfare. In the sinners defiled mind, he considers the true and living
God to be his enemy. The truth, his enemy is Satan, sin, death and hell.
In the
sinners defiled heart, he thinks he is well-fortified for battle, but fact is,
Satan, with his wiles, has clothed the poor sinner: his loins are girt about
with a lie, rather than the truth; his breastplate is his own unrighteous works,
rather than the righteousness of Christ; his feet are unshod and filthy while
he walks in his own vain way; his flimsy shield is “faith in his faith”,
against which Satan would not dare fire a dart; his helmet is of condemnation
rather than salvation because his conscience having not been purged with the
blood of Christ never knows if he has done enough; his weapon is the dull
butter knife of “this is what I think” or the word of some false preacher, rather
than “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” So Satan has him
decked in hells most flammable armor! Therefore, with every vain work, the
sinner thinks he is launching an attack on Satan, but in reality he is
launching an attack against Christ, against salvation by free grace through
faith.
Yet,
Christ, in sovereign mercy, sends this wretched enemy an ambassador, preaching “the
gospel of peace, and bringing glad tidings of good things!” (Rom 10: 15) Here is the message of “the gospel of peace.”
The message Christ sends to his poor, lost, redeemed child is:
2 Corinthians
5: 18: And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by
Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19: To wit,
that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 20:
Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by
us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. 21: For he
hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him.
As the message goes forth, Christ speaks to the heart,
declaring effectually, “he 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.” (Is 53: 5)
Colossians
1: 20: And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to
reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be
things in earth, or things in heaven. 21: And you, that were sometime alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled 22:
In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and
unreproveable in his sight: 23: If ye continue in the faith grounded and
settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye
have heard, and which was preached…”
Through this gospel of peace, Christ strips the sinner of
his filthy, flimsy, costume-armor, revealing in his heart, “There is no
peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” (Isa 57:21) Christ speaks personally to
the sinner by the Holy Spirit, declaring, “The way of peace [you] know not; and
there is no judgment in [your] goings: [you] have made [you] crooked
paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.” (Isa 59:8) With this
word, for the first time, the poor sinner sees himself as a real sinner. He
sees all his works vanity; he sees himself worthy of nothing but death.
Then Christ puts real armor upon him, declaring,
Ezekiel
37:26 Moreover I will make a covenant of
peace with [you]; it shall be an everlasting covenant with [you]: and I will
place [you], and multiply [you], and will set my sanctuary in the midst of
[you] for evermore.
Isaiah
54: 10: For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my
kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be
removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.
Isaiah
55: 11: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return
unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper
in the thing whereto I sent it. 12: For ye shall go out with joy, and be led
forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into
singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Isaiah
57: 19: I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far
off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.
John
16: 33: These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In
the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the
world.
Finally, Christ says to him, “O man greatly beloved, fear
not: peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong. And when he had
spoken unto me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my lord speak; for thou hast
strengthened me.” (Da 10:19)
At last, the poor sinner hears Christ’s command given
through his preacher, “We then, as workers together with him, beseech
you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. (For he saith, I
have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I
succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is
the day of salvation.)” (2Cor 5: 18-21; 6:1-2)
The poor sinner finds himself believing on Christ,
trusting that Christ has justified him, “Therefore being justified, by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom 5: 1) Not only do he
find that Christ has made peace for him with God but also Christ had peace for
him with his brethren, “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath
broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in
his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in
ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;”
(Eph 2:14-15) That is how we come to have our feet shod with the preparation of
the gospel of peace. Christ does it through the gospel of peace.
From that day forward, we have this confidence. Through
the gospel of peace, Christ “will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked
shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail.” (1 Sa 2: 9)
“And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts
and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Php 4: 7) Believer, thank God for these
ready-made shoes. And unless we forget, there is one last thing Christ shall do
for us in a very short time, “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under
your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.” (Rom 16: 20)
Amen!