here is a link to an audio recording of this sermon preached at HopeWhangarei in November 2025.
Please note I miss spoke the psalm number for Psalm 31 as Psalm 41... doh!
https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/hope-whangarei/episodes/23-11-25-Howard-Carter---The-Helmet-of-Salvation-e3bb43a/a-acapi6rMy first parish was the Ahuriri Potorino Presbyterian Parish.
One Sunday evening we took our youth group down to St Andrews Presbyterian Church
in Waipukerau for a youth service. The
theme for the service was ‘Put on the Armor of God’. we walked into the church,
and they had stripped out most of the church furniture at the front and sitting
there amidst the band s instruments was this amazing dirt bike.
One of their young adults raced dirt bikes and it was their
bike in the church. That person did the talk. The bike and the protective gear
they needed to ride competitively was their illustration. They came out in
their leathers that were their first layer of protection. They put on these
amazing solid boots that protect their feet… and allowed them to put their foot
down to help turn the bike. They put on shin guards and knee pads and a chest
protector which also covered their shoulders and went down their back. To
absorb impact when, not if they came off. They had gloves that protected their
hands. Finally they put on their helmet. Designed to protect their head. It was
great illustration of the Armor of God. how much the rider had to put on to
protect themselves as they went out to ride, and race competitively. If we want to mix metaphors from Paul we
could see him say put on the whole Armor of God and run or ride the race set
before you… But Paul uses a soldier not a bike rider and says put on the Armor of
God so you can stand your ground as we find ourselves in a spiritual battle.
Not against flesh and blood other riders and competitors, not even the terrain
with its bumps and jumps, twists and turns, the chocking presence of dust and
the blinding splash of mud, but against
the dark powers of this world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly
realm. I think all the youth group would have remembered that talk… I did.
Finally, says Paul put on the helmet of salvation and take
up the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. Soldiers may wear their Armor,
but the last thing they did when they were going on duty or into battle was to
put on their helmet and pick up their weapon. Today I’m focusing on the helmet
of salvation. Protecting the head is essential.
Just likes for rider’s race car drivers and soldiers In the
spiritual battle we find ourselves in the helmet is essential for Christians as
one of the key areas the enemy attacks is in our thought life. The whispered
doubt in our ear… like the psalmist in Psalm 42 as they lament as the Jews are
being taken into captivity in Babylon. Amidst the suffering of defeat and
sorrow at all the destruction the worst thing is the taunt in verse 3 people say all day long “where is your God?”.
Have you heard that sort of insidious whisper?
The question needs be asked, How does salvation act as a
helmet? How does it protect our mind from the attacks of the enemy? Again Paul
as a Jewish man is stepped in the scriptures of the Old Testament and in Isaiah
59, a section of the book that addresses God restoring his people and bring
them back from the exile that is the background of psalm 42. God portrays
himself as a warrior. Putting on the breast plate of righteousness and the
helmet of salvation, as he goes to redeem his people. Here the idea of
salvation as a helmet is way of talking of God intention to save his people. In
scripture that is normally seen in two ways.
Firstly, God’s intervention on behalf of his people, coming
to the rescue… we see that in scripture with God coming to bring Israel out of
slavery in Egypt… We see it in the cyclic narrative of judges where the people
forget their covenant relationship with God, and go their own way, worship
other God’s and God allows bad things to happen, but when they turn again to
God, he sends a judge to rescue them. We see it in the international ebb and
flow of empires around Israel. In the brining back from exile in Babylon. I
love Elaine Holwell’s illustration from her sermon last week. Where, she and
her team were told to give over the post offices in the refugee camp to the
corrupt officials, who would use that to exploit and extort the refugees for
their own gain. The months of prayer and crying out to God, then an expose
government corruption that stopped that attempted takeover.
The enemy can try and whisper ‘where is our God? as we face
the real challenges of life. Using the bike analogy, the bumps and sudden sharp
turns, the dust and the mud and the big jumps where we can find ourselves all
up in the air… and free falling.
I think one of the amazing things about scripture is that
when we wrestle with those sorts of things we actually find ourselves standing or
free falling amidst the people of God down through the ages who have wrestled
with… what theologians call the problem of evil. We see it in the laments in
the psalms. In the voices of the book of lamentations that a friend of mine in
her doctoral thesis said as like a gift as it bought all the ways in which we
find ourselves thinking and feeling in grief together and simply holds them up
to God as an offering. The wrestling of Job, Paul in prison in Philippi, or his extended
period of pray about the thorn in his flesh.
Salvation as a helmet can protect our minds as we think of
character of God. God’s compassion, God’s power, God’s goodness his with-us-ness…
the promise of Jesus to be with us even to the end of the age. A God who keeps
his promises. Equally we look at the stories
of the people of God in history and see what God has done. The laments in the
psalms often hold the most powerful declarations of faith. Psalm 31 where the
psalmist says I feel like refuse, broken pottery thrown onto the street starts
with God is my refuge. Continues amidst
the descriptions of suffering to say ‘ my times are in your hands’… Has Jesus
words used on the cross… into your hands do I commit my Spirit. Kris is in
hospital at the moment she had another mini stroke during the week which has
affected her balance… we were praying together on Friday night and she was able
to say thank you God for the peace I feel here in hospital… God’s presence.
Paul’s answer to his thorn in the flesh… when God says ‘my grace is sufficient
for you’.
The character of God and how that has been worked out in
history, even in past ways in our life can protect our minds and allow us to
trust in God. In the book of Daniel as king Nebuchadnezzar builds a gold statue
and commands his people to worship it or face death in a fiery Furness. Three
Jewish exile refuse, and when confronted by the king they reply
our God whom we serve
is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us
out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it
known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden
image that you have set up.”
The other way that salvation is used in scripture is the way
in which ultimately God has rescued us from sin and death and put us right with
himself., through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. IN 1 Thessalonians
5:8 Paul gives another brief description of the Armor of God and talks of the
helmet of the hope of salvation… looking forward in life to God’s ultimate
salvation and eternal life in him.
One of the schemes of the enemy can make us doubt our
salvation. Are you sure you are saved? Trying to rob us of what we call the assurance
of our salvation… One of the ways that that happens often is that you might
hear people talk of an amazing conversion experience, where they had a profound
encounter with God. In fact, it’s become a part of pop culture to talk of big
life change experiences as my come to Jesus moment… For some people it’s a
longer process a gradual be dawning that they believe in God, for others it has
been a knowing and walking with Jesus since an early age because of the
Christian family they grew up in. They we baptized as an infant and have grown
up following Christ. But they don’t have the big experience so the whisper are
you really saved? Francis Wayland was a
Baptist pastor and the president of Brown university back in the 18th
century at the hight of evangelicalism, where many churches required a personal
testimony of conversion to be members. Wayland had a problem he had come to
faith through a slow intellectual process. In that he didn’t think he had had
the kind of God encounter that others were talking of… that ‘born again experience…
In fact he wrestled a large portion of his life with the question was he indeed
a Christian. He was intellectually
convinced that Jesus was God’s son and was raised to life again. He sort in his
life to obey God. But he had that nagging and persistent doubt.
I had a profound
religious conversion experience I can pinpoint the time and place I made a
commitment to Christ. I was 15. It was at a Church family camp at Snells Beach.
Up to that time if you asked me if I was a Christian I would have told you
quick as anything… No I am Not...At the end of a very boring long message from
the speaker He gave an altar call. I heard God say Howard I want you to follow
me… it was God… the speaker invited people to come to the front to make that
commitment. My knees were shaking and I couldn’t stand. The guy at the front
said You’ll probably find your knees are shaking and you can’t get up. But you
have to God is calling you… So I did get up and go forward… I was the only
person that answered the altar call that night. It was the start of my
Christian walk. But even then you know it is easy to question that kind of
religious experience… was it simply an emotional reaction. I’ve experienced
that as well. Was I over tired was I conditioned to make that sort of response
because of my upbringing going to Sunday school and youth group. There were times after that when I’ve found myself not really living a
Christlike life.
Now I’m not playing devils advocate here and wanting people
to doubt their salvation, you may relate to Francis Wayland or my experience.
For all of us however salvation acts as a helmet because in the end our
salvation is not dependent on what we do our experience or what we feel. Rather
it is based on what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. God is our salvation,
Jesus is our savior… In the article in Christianity today where I read about Francis
Wayland the writer concluded…
“God’s promise of
salvation and regeneration does not rest on our experience but on something
much more objective… Wayland chose to believe the promises of God in
Scripture—and in the end, that was enough.”
The flip side of that is that the devil will want us to
believe that we are saved because we give our ascent to Jesus Christ or we’ve
had an experience, but it doesn’t have
to change our lives much. It doesn’t have to make a difference… hey you’ve got your
boarding pass. your insurance policy. But I think that assurance of salvation
also comes from the fact that being put right with God through Christ bring
change in our lives. Not so we earn our salvation… But because of what we know
God has done for us it starts to change our lives. We become what we are. I am
a child of God now so how do I live out that family resemblance…jesus has given
me his righteousness how to I start living it. As Paul will say in romans that
we are changed by the renewing our mind. We know what God has done for us
therefore we choose to live in this different way. To reorientate our thoughts
and therefore our actions to reflect Christ and Christ’s love.
Again this is our
series on Ephesians and Paul sets out that process in this book starting with
God has done for us… every spiritual
gift in Christ… we were chosen before the beginning of time, we are his
children, put right with God through
Jesus life death and resurrection, we were dead in our transgressions, but have
been made alive in Christ, we have been sealed as belonging to God by the
presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we have been made a new people
together from across the divides of society. God has given us gifts to build up
the church into the fullness of Christ This is what Christ has done for us… then focusing on how we live that out… therefore
we live a new life in Christ, we live up
to that calling in unity, no longer living as the gentiles do, but follow the
way of love, walking in the way of wisdom and being filled with the spirit and
allowing it to permeate every relationship we have, and put on God’s Armor so
we can stand strong, praying in all situations.
In this series it has become almost a running gag to have a
one word summary… Maybe as a way of saying on Your Bike Satan. There was William Wallace’s Hold, Hold, Hold… Colleen’s…
stand, stand, stand… there was bang, bang, bang as our sins were nailed to the
cross when we talked about the breastplate of righteousness… pray, pray, pray
as elaine spoke of the shield of faith… today I want to finish with one word as
well… the catch cry of the reformation…
its Christ alone…Christ… he is our salvation. Christ… our help in times of
trouble. Christ… the one who has put us right with God through his life death
and resurrection. Christ… that the holy spirit is conforming us to. Put your
trust in Him…set your mind on him… It is
Christ, Christ, Christ…
