You Can't Fight Alone

I'm reading from Ephesians chapter 6 and he's talking here about the armor and the battle that we have against Satan in verses 11 through 17, listing the parts of the armor. Now verse 18 of Ephesians 6, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all Saints and for me that utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in bonds that in this I may speak boldly as I ought to speak but that ye also may know my affairs and how I do Tychicus a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord shall make known to you all things whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose that ye might know our affairs and that he might encourage your hearts. Peace be to the brethren and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. May God's words speak to all of our hearts today.

One of my favorite preachers is a man who is rarely mentioned today. His name is Dr. John Watson. Dr. Watson was a British preacher and also a very gifted writer.

He used to write under the pen name of Ian McLaren and under the pen name of Ian McLaren, Dr. John Watson wrote some of the most delightful books about Scottish church life. If any of you listening to me are Scottish in your background you ought to get a hold of the charming books by Dr. Ian McLaren beside the Bonnie Briar Bush and others. Now I mentioned Dr. Watson or Dr. Ian McLaren for this reason.

He was a man with a great big heart and he used to constantly say to his congregations and to preachers, be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a battle. I once wrote that in the front of one of my Bibles so I wouldn't forget it. Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a battle.

Now you may not be able to see the battle. You may look at someone in the Moody Church and say she's got it made, he's got it made. You don't know.

As our Indian friends say, don't judge the man until you walk in his moccasins. You don't know. And that person who comes to the Moody Church and seems to be very effervescent and joyful and probably is joyful may also have a broken heart.

Someone who stood before a Sunday school class teaching today may this past week have had a tremendous battle with Satan. You children and young people when you come home may say to yourselves, well, mom and dad, they've got it made. You don't know the battles they're fighting.

And consequently it's also true with the children. Our children come home from school or from work and we say my those kids really have an easy time of it. You don't know the battles they're fighting.

This is what Paul's talking about in Ephesians chapter 6. He's been talking about this battle that we're fighting as Christians. Now it's sad that some Christians are fighting each other. That's a tragedy.

It's a tragedy when the soldiers who are out on the battlefield are fighting the wrong enemy. He's told us who the enemy is, Satan, the wiles of the devil. And he's told us about the armor we're supposed to wear.

He says Satan is a liar, so you'd better put on the girdle of truth. And Satan is an accuser, you'd better wear the breast plate of righteousness. And Satan is a divider and a destroyer, so put these shoes of peace on your feet.

Satan wants you to doubt the Lord, so take the shield of faith. And when he throws those fiery darts at your mind and your heart, by faith you can quench them. And Satan wants to confuse your mind, and so take the helmet of salvation.

Make sure your mind is functioning spiritually. Those are the defenses. And then he talks about the offense.

Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and pray. Now as he comes to the end of this letter, he's pointing out the fact that we Christians are together in this battle. Two little words in verse 18.

All Saints. Of course by Saints he means believers. In the book of Ephesians, as in the rest of the Bible, a Saint is not a special person put on a pedestal with a halo over his head.

A Saint is a believer, one who's trusted Jesus Christ. The word Saint means set apart. Now because we are set apart, Satan fights us.

And Paul is saying to you and to me, my friends, you cannot fight this battle alone. Now there are those who think they can. There are those Christians who feel that they are so equipped and so endued and so educated and so enabled that they don't need the rest of the soldiers.

David learned one day that he wasn't able to get along by himself. When David was just a young man, you remember how he went out and fought the giant Goliath? And all by himself, with the help of the Lord, David defeated Goliath. Some years later, when David was just a little bit older, he went out to fight some giants, and that one giant almost killed David.

A giant whose name was Ishbi-Benab, and he was about to kill David. And one of David's nephews came up and killed the giant. And David learned that day, you can't fight the battle by yourself.

Now in order to help us help each other, the Apostle Paul, here in Ephesians 6, verses 18 through 24, tells us how we can help each other win the battle. Now I think I'm speaking right now to a group of people who want to encourage others in the victory. I don't think anybody is here who deliberately says, I want to create problems for people.

It's my settled determination that wherever I go there shall be defeat. I don't think anyone wants to be like that, at least not willingly. Paul outlines for us here several ways by which you and I can help each other fight the battle.

I want to help you be a victor and not a victim. You want to help me to be a conqueror and not a casualty. Now how do we do this? What are the ways by which you and I can help each other in this battle of life? There are four of them.

Verses 18 through 20, we help each other by praying for one another. That's so obvious, praying always with all prayer and supplication for all of the Saints. Now the Apostle Paul was not ashamed to ask people to pray for him.

There are those Christians who have the mistaken notion that when you ask someone to pray for you, you are showing weakness. It's just the opposite. If you don't ask people to pray for you, you are showing weakness.

It's a sign of strength when you know you need the prayers of other people. Paul needs my prayers, says some Saint in Ephesus. When this letter was read to the congregation there in Ephesus, I can just see some young man poking the fellow next to him and saying, imagine that, Paul wants me to pray for him.

Why, he needs to pray for me. Paul has been up in the third heaven. Paul heard things that nobody else ever heard.

Paul saw the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul has an indulgent of power. Paul is an Apostle.

Paul is writing two-thirds of the New Testament. Paul needs me to pray for him. Yes, when Paul wrote to the Romans at the end of that letter, he said, would you please pray for me, that I might be delivered from wicked men who want to kill me? And they did pray for Paul, and God did deliver him.

When he wrote to the Philippians, he said, I know that I'm going to be set free because of your prayers. Now you Saints of Philippi, you pray that when I stand before Caesar's court, I'll win my case. When Paul wrote to the Thessalonian Christians, he said, I want you to pray for me, that the Word of God may have free course and travel swiftly and get the job done.

And now he writes to the Ephesians and he says, I want you to pray for me, that I'll be able to accomplish the will of God. Praying for one another. Now what are we supposed to pray for one another? You know, most of us when we pray, we say, now Lord bless this one and Lord bless that one, and really nothing wrong with that.

I think God knows what we mean, but it'd be nice if our praying was more specific. It really would do us a lot more good if we were just specific about our praying. Some years ago there was an article in his magazine dealing with this very subject of how prone we are to be general in our praying, and the writer suggested, and I appreciated the suggestion and followed it, that we take the prayers of the Bible and pray these for people.

What's stopping us from taking the two prayers in Ephesians, for example, and taking one of our missionaries and saying, now Lord I'm praying this prayer for this missionary. I pray that he might be endued with power from on high, that the eyes of his heart might be opened, that he might understand. Or take the prayer in Philippians, a prayer for maturity.

Or take the prayer in Colossians, a prayer for fullness, and just pray this for a person. Now Paul is suggesting here two specific prayer requests when you pray for people. All of us have friends who are in the battle.

It's rough, and they say to us, boy, pray for us. We say, God bless you, we're gonna pray for you. What are you gonna pray? Paul doesn't suggest here that we pray to be delivered from the battle.

Paul is not saying, now you pray for me, that Satan will quit fighting me. One of the best signs is that Satan is fighting you. Mr. Spurgeon used to say that Satan never kicks a dead horse.

It's a good sign when the devil is fighting you. Paul suggests, first of all, that when we pray for others, we pray that they might have victory in their warfare. You see, he's been describing here the armor.

I want to show you something rather interesting. Verse 13, take the whole armor. Verse 14, having taken it, now stand.

You've got the breastplate, and you've got the loins girded with the girdle of truth, the shoes on your feet, the shield before you. You have the helmet of salvation, you have the sword of the Spirit. Now how can I help my friends put on the armor? That's what he's saying here.

It's through prayer. Some of our students who are here today, who may be sitting staring at a Greek New Testament, will notice that in verse 18 in the Greek New Testament is the little Greek preposition dia, which means by means of. Paul is suggesting here that the way we put on the armor is by means of praying always with all prayer and supplication.

So when my friend is in the battle and I can't stand there and fight with him, but I can pray for him, I can pray something like this. Now dear Lord, help him to put on that girdle of truth. Oh may the Word of God control his motions.

And Father, help him as he takes the shield of faith. May his faith grow. You see, you can help other people put on the armor by praying for them.

There are times when we parents would love to dive in and take the place of our children. I was at an ordination recently. A young man who's very dear to me was being examined, and I was sitting about six feet away from him, and oh, I felt for him.

He was doing a good job. His training is adequate. His calling is clear.

He was doing a good job. But there were some times when some of the men wanted to trip him up a little bit. You know, many preachers don't go to ordination examinations to see how much the candidate knows.

They go to tell other people how much they think they know. And I was just feeling for him and saying to myself, oh I wish I could take his place, but I couldn't. Instead I prayed for him and said, now Lord give him a clear mind.

Holy Spirit, you're the great reminder. Help him to remember what he studied. This is how you help people in the battle, by praying.

Pray that they will have victory in their warfare. Pray that they will put on the armor and fight. Now let me illustrate this.

Back in the Old Testament, when God delivered the nation of Israel from Egypt, they went out in great power and great victory. No sooner had they crossed the sea and gotten into the wilderness, then along came the enemy. The enemy began to fight.

Well, what happened? Moses said, Joshua, you take the army and the sword and you go down in the valley and fight. I'm going up on the mountain. And Moses went up on the mountain and lifted up his hands.

Now if you and I had been watching this on television and didn't even know Moses was up there, we would have been perplexed. As we watch these two armies in the valley, we would have seen the Jewish army succeed and then turn around and get pushed back again. We would have seen this back and forth in the valley.

We would have said, what's going on? Why is this army, one minute it wins, the next minute it goes back? Then somebody would say, hey, look over on that mountain. There's an old man over there. And whenever he puts up his hands, the Jewish army wins.

Whenever his hands go down, they start to lose. Hey, look what they're doing. There are two men standing there holding up that man's hands, and that's how Joshua won.

That's the picture of Ephesians 6. Many are out there in the battlefield and they're wielding the sword, and they're going to win the battle if you and I are on the mountaintop interceding. So pray that they'll have victory. But Paul suggests a second request for our praying.

We help each other not only by praying for victory, but by praying for witness. He says, look, pray for me that while I am in this battle, I will give glory to the Lord by my witness. I'm afraid that too many times you and I, when we're going through the battle, we're thinking so much about ourselves, and our wounds, and our pain, and our problems, that we don't open our mouths boldly to witness for the Lord.

I think Paul is suggesting here that as you pray for me, and as I pray for you, I pray not only that you will have victory in the battle, but I pray also, and you pray for me, that while we're in the battle, we'll use every opportunity for witness. You know what most of us do when things go wrong? We complain about it. We say, why did this happen to me? And God is saying, look, it happened to you because here is a glorious opportunity for you to witness and tell somebody else about the Lord.

This is what Paul asked them to do. He said, pray that I'll have the courage to open my mouth boldly and share the gospel. This is what happened in Philippi.

He was arrested, he was humiliated, he was beaten, he was put into the stocks, and yet somebody someplace was praying, and Paul and Silas gave glory to God and shared the gospel, and the jailer got saved, and a church was established in Philippi. I think the first way that we help each other in this battle of life is by praying for one another. Not praying against one another, but praying for one another, that we might win the battle and that we might be good witnesses as we are in the battle.

Now verses 21 and 22, we have a second way that we help each other in the battle, and this is going to come as a shock to some of you. We help each other not only by praying for one another, but by communicating with one another. Paul says, I'm sending Tychicus to tell you how things are going.

Now there are those who think that it's so spiritual not to tell anybody what's going on. I don't criticize them, they have to do what God wants them to do. There are those missionaries and those great heroes of the faith who would never tell anybody what their needs were.

One of the interesting stories in D.L. Moody's life is the difference that he had with J. Hudson Taylor. J. Hudson Taylor always said, we will not tell people what the needs are, we'll just tell it to the Lord. Mr. Moody says, just telling people that you're telling the Lord about your needs is telling the people you do have needs.

I think Mr. Moody was right. Both were great men of God. D.L. Moody had no problem going up to Mr. McCormick and saying, I need a hundred thousand dollars.

Hudson Taylor wouldn't do that. That's all right, we have two different men. But I think Paul is saying here, look, in the battle of life the communications department is important.

When there's a war going on, the first thing the enemy tries to do is wipe out communications. This is teaching us that in the fellowship of the Church we should share with one another and communicate with one another what our needs are. Some people do this the wrong way.

I have been in meetings where one person monopolized the whole meeting, giving her life story or his life story. This is wrong. I have been in meetings where Christians have gotten up and shared things they should have kept quiet about.

I remember a lady standing up in a prayer meeting, not here at the Moody Church, and saying to the congregation, my husband's back slid and pray for him, and he was sitting right next to her. That wasn't going to encourage him to be any more spiritual. No, we don't share with one another, we don't communicate with each other to brag or for self-pity.

We share with one another and communicate with one another that people might be able to pray for us. Now granted, there are some things you don't talk about. When a person comes to me and says, Pastor, I've got a real burden on my heart, I can't tell you what it is, but do pray for me, I respect that.

But you know, I think that the better we get to know each other, the fewer unspoken requests there will be. I had a lady friend in one of my churches who said, would you please remember 47 unspoken requests? I said to her, I don't know how to pray for 47 unspoken requests. I really don't.

I really don't. I should think that the better we get to know each other, the more we're going to trust each other, and we'd be able to come to each other and say, you know, I want you to pray about this, and they won't use it for scandal or gossip. Paul said, I'm sending Tychicus.

I want you to know from him what's going on here. Communications. It's one evidence that there's something wrong when Christians stop communicating with each other.

At some point when that line of communications breaks down, Satan is going to win the victory, because we need each other. We need to share with each other. This is why it's important to be in the fellowship of the Church.

This is why it's important when the service is over to turn to somebody and say, well, God bless you, how are you today, and talk to one another. I have preached in some churches where the minute the benediction was pronounced, the congregation vanished like rats leaving a sinking ship. This to me is a bad sign.

It's a bad sign. I appreciate the fact that occasionally here at Moody Church we have to ask people to leave. They just hang around and talk and talk and share, and that's a good sign.

And so we help each other in the battle of life by praying for one another and secondly by communicating with one another. My friend, if you've got a burden and you keep it down inside, it'll eat you up. You'll be using all of your energy on the inside taking care of that burden.

If you share that burden with somebody, you'll get stronger. He'll be the stronger for it, doesn't the Bible say? Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. I think the men on the pastoral staff would appreciate my saying this.

Some Christians think that when you're ordained into the ministry you become a mind reader and you automatically know when people go to the hospital. You automatically know when people have problems. We don't.

We have a hard enough time reading each other's minds, let alone yours. It's a marvelous thing when Christians keep in touch and somebody calls up and says, you know, we're going into the hospital, we need your prayers, we'd like to have you remember us. That way there's the communication and when you communicate then you can pray.

Which leads us to the third way that we help each other in our warfare. We pray for one another and we communicate with one another. There's a little word up in verse 21 that I want to talk about.

We serve one another. Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord. That word minister is the word from which we get our English word deacon.

This doesn't mean that Tychicus was a deacon because the word deacon just means a servant. A servant. And Tychicus was a beloved brother and a faithful servant.

Tychicus served Paul. He served the Lord by serving Paul. He helped Paul in the battle.

Now, dear friends, everybody cannot be an Apostle Paul. There was just one. Everybody cannot be a J. Hudson Taylor or a D.L. Moody.

There was just one. God calls ambassadors. He calls himself here an ambassador in bonds.

God calls some of these great ambassadors. But you know, even the ambassador has to have some help. He can't drive his own car or write his own letters or handle all of his details.

And so when you go to the embassy, you'll see office upon office filled with people doing what? Helping the ambassador. Tychicus was that kind of a man. Now, if you want to have an interesting study, just take your concordance or your Bible dictionary and trace down those references to Tychicus in the New Testament.

It's really interesting. You find him over in Acts chapter 20, verse 4. When Paul leaves Ephesus, Tychicus says, I'm going with you, Paul. I don't know what's heading, but I'm going with you.

I'll go through storm with you. I'm gonna stand right with you, Paul. And he did.

When Paul was in prison, as in this case, Tychicus was right there helping to bear the burdens with him. In fact, when Paul wrote Colossians, he calls Tychicus my fellow prisoner. Tychicus was willing to give up his own liberty to serve Paul and thereby serve the Lord.

You see, most of us today are looking for the easy way to serve the Lord. We don't want to give up any liberty. We don't want to give up any of our privileges.

Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians, and he wrote the letter to the Colossians, and then he wrote, at the same time, a little letter to his friend Philemon about Onesimus, the slave. And Paul called Tychicus over and said, Tychicus, I'm giving to you Ephesians. I'm giving to you Colossians, and here's a letter for Philemon.

I want you to go with Onesimus and carry these letters. He was Paul's messenger boy. Think of the precious documents he was carrying.

Why, far more than anything any mailman could carry. He was carrying Ephesians and Colossians and Philemon. We wouldn't be studying this today if he hadn't been a faithful servant.

Tychicus didn't look at Paul and say, Paul, don't give me menial tasks like that. I want to do something important. Can't I preach next Sunday? No, you're going to carry the mail.

Everybody wants to be the chief, and very few people want to be the Indians. If you'll read Christian biography, you will discover that behind the great men who are known, there are many people who are unknown. And had it not been for these unknown people like Tychicus, they wouldn't have gotten their work done.

The great J. Hudson Taylor had around him people who worked with him and helped him get his work done. So with D. L. Moody. He about wore Mr. Sankey out.

This was true of Charles Spurgeon. It was true of the great G. Campbell Morgan. I doubt that very many people here have ever heard of Albert Swift.

And yet Albert Swift was G. Campbell Morgan's right arm. Had it not been for Albert Swift, Morgan couldn't have gotten done all he got done. And so you and I are called to minister to one another.

Maybe it just means standing there and being available. Maybe it means carrying the mail. Maybe it means doing some other thing, but it's ministry.

There's a fourth way that we help each other in the battle of life. We pray for one another and we communicate with one another and we minister to one another, whatever God calls us to do. There's a little word in verse 22 that is the fourth way.

We encourage one another. That word comfort in verse 22, that he might comfort your hearts, is the good old Greek word parakaleo, the paraclete, the comforter, the encourager. Our English word comfort comes from two Latin words.

Fortis means strength. Come means with. Comfort with strength.

It's the word encouragement. He said, I'm sending Tychicus to you because I want him to be an encouragement to you. Now let's face the honest fact that some Saints are not an encouragement.

One look at their attitude and you're discouraged. One of the men I want to meet up in glory. You see the Lord Jesus, of course, and Moses and Isaiah and Paul.

But I want to get off into a corner with a man who's been a great encouragement to me because that was his name, Barnabas. Barnabas means the son of encouragement. And whenever there was a problem, he said, hey, send Barnabas.

He'll encourage them to do the right thing. Some people are negative. Their whole attitude toward life is negative.

They don't see what is good. They only see what is bad. They cannot come with a compliment.

They can only come with a criticism. Tychicus wasn't like that. Paul wasn't like that.

Paul said to Tychicus, you go to these churches there at Ephesus and Colossae, and I want you to encourage them. Find out what is good and encourage them, and that will take care of what is bad. Encouraging one another.

The Old Testament Jews had an interesting regulation when they went out to war. Remember when Gideon got his crowd together to go fight that battle? He said, now, anybody here who is afraid, go home. And he lost most of his crowd.

You know why? You get out on the battlefield and you're next to some fellow who's scared. You'll get scared. You remember when those spies came back from the Promised Land? I have met those spies.

Those twelve spies came back from the Promised Land, and they said, oh, it's just like God said it was. Big surprise. Just the way God said it was.

But we'll never make it. Ten of them said, we can't do it. The walls are so tall and the giants are so big.

We'll never do it. And Caleb and Joshua said, shh, don't discourage the people. With God's help, we can do it.

But at last, many Christians are like those ten spies. They discourage. It cannot be done.

Paul wasn't like that. Paul said, look, you're in a battle. You've got enough problems.

Don't add to somebody else's problems. Encourage them. Encourage them in what way? Well, just underline the words that he uses here.

Encourage them in peace, verse 23. Peace be to the brethren. Don't bring more war into their lives.

Bring some peace. Dear friends, there are some Christians who when they walk into a room, chaos is the result. There are other people who when they walk in, everything just seems to fall into place, and there's peace.

You see, if you're wearing the shoes of peace, then there can be peace to the brethren. Love, verse 23. Encourage them in love.

Let them know you love them. You may not always agree with them, but let them know that you love them. Faith.

Peace be to the brethren in love with faith. You see, we've got the shield of faith back here in verse 16. You walk up to a soldier who's out there fighting, and you stand there and say, you'll never make it.

That's real encouraging. The night that that drunken driver hit me and almost killed me, and he took me to the hospital, and my wife showed up as quickly as she got the news, and the chaplain of the hospital went over to my wife and said, he'll never make it. That's encouraging.

I made it because there were a couple of hundred people who showed up and held a prayer meeting. Now that's what's going to build your faith. And Paul says, I want you to encourage one another in peace, and in love, and in faith, and in grace.

Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ. A channel of God's grace. I'll tell you, there have been times in the battle when folks have showed up, and I've just been so glad to see them.

There have been times in the battle when just a couple of words from somebody has given new faith and a new portion of God's grace. Dear friend, be kind for everyone we meet is fighting a battle. Now, are we helping each other to win that battle? That's what the Church is all about.

Oh, I know people say, I can get along without the local church. I don't believe it. Jesus established the fellowship of the believers, didn't he? You know why? Because we need each other.

We need to pray for one another. We need to communicate with one another. We need to serve one another.

We need to encourage one another. And as we do this, two things happen. Number one, the other fellow has the strength to fight the battle.

And number two, we get the strength to fight the battle. And so we're fighting together to the glory of the Lord. I mentioned to you in our last message from Ephesians 6 about the shield.

The shield of faith was a big thing, about two feet wide and about four feet long. It was covered with a hard leather to put out the fiery arrows that would be shot. But the interesting thing about that shield was this.

The edges of the shield were beveled in such a way that they could lock together. Remember I told you that? You know why? Soldiers have to stand together. And a whole line of those soldiers could lock their shields together and move forward as one.

That's what makes a church succeed. That's what makes the missionaries move forward. That's what makes people get saved.

That's what leads the work to victory. All of us standing together, fighting the same enemy, not each other, and encouraging one another and ministering to one another and communicating with one another and praying for one another. And then we really can sing, like a mighty army, moves the church of God.

Gracious Father, help us to help each other in this battle. Lord, we're sorry for the selfishness that has made us think we're the only ones fighting. Help us, Lord, to realize we're a part of something so big, so vast, so great.

And I pray in Jesus' name that this day each of us will so determine to help others in the battle of life. We pray for those, Father, who need our Savior, that your Spirit might speak to them, that they might get on the Lord's side, trust Jesus Christ, and begin to win the victory. This is our prayer in Jesus' name.

Amen.