Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Sermon preached on Ephesians 6:14 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 09/06/2026 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
We continue today to consider how to fight by Christ’s strength in this spiritual battle we are in. Last week, we considered how important the truth is for combatting Satan and every evil spirit. Today, we consider the importance of righteousness to be our breastplate of defense against Satan and his many temptations and accusations. We can define righteousness as that which conforms to God’s moral standards. When we transgress those standards, it is called sin. All sin is unrighteousness, 1 John 5:17. While last week we said there is a war on truth, this week we can say that there is a war on morality.
So then, we’ll approach the passage in three points. First, we’ll consider the perils of unrighteousness. Second, we’ll consider the protection of righteousness. Third, we’ll proclaim Christ our righteousness.
We begin then with considering the perils of unrighteousness. Begin by thinking of how that peril comes to us from our enemy, Satan. These different pieces of the gospel armor are meant to contrast who Satan is and what is he trying to do in this spiritual warfare. It is very clear from Scripture that Satan is evil, an enemy of all righteousness (c.f. Acts 13:10). His character is the very definition of unrighteousness, as John 8 describes him as a murderer and a liar from the beginning. Likewise, 1 John 3:7 says that the devil has been sinning from the beginning. This is why Satan stands especially opposed to God’s people. As Satan is pictured as a dragon in Revelation 12:17, it says, the dragon makes war against those “who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” Satan is not just unrighteous himself, but hates those who look to live righteously.
Satan wants us all to live in unrighteousness. In 1 Thessalonians 3:5, the devil is described as the “tempter”. Satan tempted Eve in the garden in Genesis 3. Satan tempted King David to an unrighteous census in 1 Chronicles 21. The devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness. It was Satan’s temptation of Judas Iscariot behind his betrayal of Jesus. It was Satan who filled Ananias’ heart to lie to the Holy Spirit in Acts 5. This is one way our enemy attacks us who look to follow Jesus, he tries to get us to live an unrighteous life. Back in Ephesians 4:26, we saw there how Satan would look for any opportunity he can to get you to sin. He would have our thoughts, words, and deeds, be marred with sin. We must be on guard against the temptations of Satan and every evil spirit.
Indeed, it was the devil’s temptations that plunged all humanity into our fallen nature. From the moment our first parents chose unrighteousness over righteousness, all of us became sinful. The doctrine of original sin says we are all born into sin, spiritually dead from birth. We lust after what we shouldn’t. We do what is right in our own eyes. We don’t acknowledge God as Lord as we should. We say what we shouldn’t. As Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Even after being born again, the Christian still struggles with the old man with that fallen sinful nature still warring against the new creation inside us. As we think about spiritual warfare today in the context of righteousness, let us realize that our enemy is not just the devil and his demons. Yes, we can blame the devil in part for the temptations that he brings to us. But ultimately, humans have chosen to forsake righteousness when we knew better. The Bible says we are without excuse. Even though we might want to blame the devil, let us all acknowledge our own accountability when it comes to sin.
Let us appreciate that unrighteousness has consequences. In this life, we can get punished by the civil government if we do evil things. As 1 Peter 2:13 says, that the government has the power to punish those who do evil. Likewise, sin can mess up our relationships. For example, if you lie to a friend, you will injure that relationship. Sin can get you in trouble at work. You may lose your job if you are stealing from the company, for example. Sin can also cause direct injury to yourself. A life of drunkenness will physically harm your health, for example. All these, and more, are examples of how our unrighteousness has consequences. But the even greater consequence is that what the Almighty Judge of all the earth will bring. Undealt with sin brings death and ultimately damnation. Remember how Ecclesiastes ends, with a call to righteousness because God will every deed into judgment. Revelation 20 describes how people will be judged at the end according to what they have done, and that anyone whose name was not found in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire.
So then, in this first point, I’ve brought you a brief word about the perils of unrighteousness. Unrighteousness brings consequences both in this life and the next. Our enemies would love for us to fall into these many perils. Let us now turn to consider the protection of righteousness.
Paul describes this protection of righteousness as a breastplate. Generally speaking, this is a piece of armor that covers the front and back of your torso, with the front and back typically connected with clasps. Interestingly, the Greek word for this armor is thorax which ultimately makes it into English as the word used to describe this area of our body, the thorax. (Maybe that will help you remember this Greek word.) We should recognize that this piece of armor is a defensive piece of armor, especially protecting the heart and other vital organs of our body. We can survive a flesh wound on a less sensitive area of the body. But if you get struck in this area, it can be deadly. You are reminded of this when you go to get an x-ray at the dentist and they cover up that part of the body with that protective lead apron. Paul then speaks of how a breastplate made up of righteousness can be this vital defense to our souls.
In our first point, we described a little what unrighteousness was. Let us think then, in contrast, what righteousness entails. We already said it is that which conforms to God’s standards. We call those standards the moral law. God’s moral law has been revealed throughout the Bible in different ways. One summary is the Ten Commandments. Another summary is found in what Jesus described as the two greatest commandments. First, Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Second, Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. So that summary explains God’s moral law in terms of love. We are to love God and we are to love neighbor. When thinking about this breastplate of righteousness, we have a good reason to speak about this righteousness in such terms of love. Paul has a much shorter description of this spiritual armor in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 and there he alternatively describes the breastplate as made up of love. But if we understand that righteousness can be defined in terms of love, we realize that the breastplate has a similar description in both passages.
Think with me further then of this righteousness as defined in terms of love. Start with loving God. We love God when we acknowledge that he, and he alone, is the one true God. We love God when we do not have any other gods in our life. That means we love God when we don’t participate in false religion, but also when we don’t make some other thing we crave to be an idol in our heart. It also means that we love God when we treat him as God by actually looking to listen and obey him because he is sovereign. Likewise, we love God when we worship him. We love him when that worship is done in the way he commands and not done in the folly of our own imagination. Likewise, we love God when we don’t worship images – humans can be so tempted to do that. We love God when we honor and highly regard his name. When we treat his name and all his attributes as holy, set apart, transcendent, and distinct. We thus love God when we don’t invoke his name in vain in some flippant fashion. We love God when we prioritize the Lord’s Day, setting aside one day in seven for worship and holy rest. In a similar way, we love God when we cheerfully give to him through gifts to the ministry of his church. Setting aside a day for worship and rest as well as giving show our love for him over our own selves, when we prioritize what God calls us to prioritize. Love for God is indeed righteousness and if one would indeed love God fully and completely, always and forever, it would protect our soul from the enemy who would have us to hate God and die.
And so such righteous love then is to also love our neighbor. God made us each in his own image and so how fitting that if we are to love God that it would extend to how we love those made in his image. We first begin to love our neighbor as we learn to properly love our parents. That love means we honor them and look to obey them as we grow up under their parenting. That honor continues as we love them in their old age in caring for them in their needs. Love for neighbor continues in how we do not harm our neighbor. We harm them when we physically strike them. We harm them when we verbally assault them. We harm them if we steal their money or other possessions. We harm them if we steal their spouse. We harm them if we lie to them or about them to others. We harm them if we betray their trust. Love for neighbor includes not just in what we say or do regarding our neighbor, but also what we think or want regarding our neighbor. If we covet what is theirs, if we have evil desires for them, or think evil of them, then we are not loving them. Love for neighbor seeks to preserve their life and wellbeing. Love for neighbor speaks words that build up and are kind that promote peace. Love for neighbor seeks to protect them and their interests. Love for neighbor honors the marriage bed, including not engaging in physical intimacy with neighbors that you are not married to. Love for neighbor speaks truth, even if those are sometimes hard truths you have to tell them. Love for neighbor finds contentment instead of sinful rivalry that wants to put others down so you can be lifted up. Love for neighbor is indeed righteousness. If one would indeed love neighbor it would protect our soul from the enemy who would rather have us hate our fellow man.
We mentioned in our first point that Scripture calls Satan a tempter. Scripture also calls Satan an accuser. This is his 1-2 punch. He tempts you into sin and then he accuses you for doing it. If instead we have a heart covered in righteousness, he would not get us to sin and thus would have nothing to accuse us of. That is how righteousness can act as a breastplate. But here’s the big problem. Remember what we mentioned in the first point. We are all sinners. No one is righteous, no not one, Romans 3:10. Did Paul tell us about a piece of armor that we cannot put on? No. Remember how this passage started out. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Paul is not telling you about this breastplate of righteousness so you can somehow find the strength in yourself to finally stop sinning and finally starting living righteously. No, he is saying you need to find righteousness in Christ! There, we will find the breastplate to protect our soul.
That leads us to our third point, to consider Christ our righteousness. This need for Christ for our righteousness is wonderfully understood when we recognize that this breastplate of righteousness is a reference to Isaiah 59:17. That passage describes how sinful God’s people are. Isaiah 59:12 says that the people’s transgressions are multiplied and their sins testify against them. Isaiah 59:14 says that righteousness stands far away. It describes God as looking down upon this terrible estate of his people and seeing no human able to save the people from all this horrible unrighteousness. Finally, the passage transitions that God then comes down to save the people. That’s where it speaks about God coming down wearing a breastplate of righteousness, coming as a divine warrior to battle unrighteousness and to turn his elect away from sin. Saints, may we see that Jesus is the fulfillment of this Isaiah 59 prophecy. God comes down as the divine warrior in his Son, and he wears a breastplate of perfect righteousness. Christ came down to turn the hearts of his people back to himself, to save them from their sins and to make them a righteous people who are zealous for good works. This is what we have begun to experience if we have turned to Jesus in faith.
1 John 2:1 says that Jesus Christ is the righteous one. Let us appreciate that fact in light of today’s theme. God came down to this world in his Son as the righteous one. Let us remember why it is so important that Jesus as savior is the righteous one. In doctrinal terms, we summarize the righteousness of Christ in what is called the active obedience of Christ and the passive obedience of Christ. The active obedience of Christ is that he perfectly upheld the moral law of God every moment since he came down to earth in the incarnation. He obeyed every command. He never transgressed its prohibitions and he fulfilled its positive duties. Jesus actively obeyed to fulfill the laws demands for being declare righteous. But Jesus is also passively obeyed. This is a technical term, it doesn’t mean what it sounds like in modern English. It means he suffered the punishment that God’s moral law says sinners deserve. This especially culminated as hung dying on the cross, the Father pouring his wrath upon Jesus, experiencing hell as he hung there dying.
It is obvious why the righteous one would live out this active obedience. But why did he suffer like this in his passive obedience, when we himself was not a sinner? Christians have come to know the answer. It was for us. We are sinners who deserve this punishment. He bore the punishment in our place. But it wasn’t just his passive obedience that was for our salvation. His active obedience also was too. Jesus’s perfect righteousness is accounted us who have turned to believe on him. It’s the glorious exchange. Our unrighteousness was imputed to him, and his righteousness imputed to us. As the divine warrior, he did battle against unrighteousness through this great exchange. So then, 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Saints, our salvation is fundamentally rooted in the righteousness of Christ. With that understanding, we can think of two benefits of salvation that relate to how Christ give us his righteousness. One, in our justification, we are clothed in his righteousness. You could say it’s like a robe, though today’s verse says it’s like a breastplate. It protects us from any attack of any enemy. Satan, sin, and death can land no accusation against us who are protected by the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. That is an immediate and everlasting benefit the moment we become a Christian. Two, in our sanctification, the grace of God is training us in the righteousness of Christ to begin to put off sin and put on obedience. This is what Christ is doing in our hearts as Christians, growing us in righteousness. So then, the grace-wrought righteous deeds that we perform in this life, while still falling short, are also received in Christ and Satan hates it!
Trinity Presbyterian Church, today we have received the call to put on the breastplate of Christ’s righteousness. Commentators often wrestle with if this is about our justification or our sanctification. Is it about defending our soul with the righteousness of Christ that he imputes to us in our justification? Or is it about defending our soul with the righteousness that Christ is working inside us in our sanctification? I heartily believe that it is both. Satan is going to tempt us because he doesn’t want us to live righteously. But Christ in us is promoting righteousness in our hearts. Satan’s temptations versus Christ’s sanctifying work is at the heart of our spiritual conflict. Will you seek to live a righteous life by the power Christ richly supplies? As we seek to cultivate godliness in our lives by God’s grace, we stand in opposition to the devil who is identified with lawlessness. Yet, when the enemy attacks, accusing us of our lack of personal righteousness, we must ultimately defend ourselves with a confident appeal to the righteousness of Christ, our breastplate of defense! Our ultimate foundation is not that we hope to be found righteous in God’s sight, but that the Christian is already righteous in God’s sight, because of what Christ has done for us! This meets Satan’s accusations with the assurance of faith that God would have us to know in Jesus.
In conclusion, let me point you to one more benefit of Christ’s righteousness besides our justification and our sanctification. I have in mind what we call glorification. In the end, we will enjoy glorification in the age to come. Then, Christ’s Spirit will finish the work in our souls. The sanctification he is currently doing will be completed and we will be people who finally live perfectly righteously. Then, we will sin no more. Then, we will keep God’s moral standards forever unto eternity. As 2 Pet. 3:13 says, “According to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” For at last, all these enemies of righteousness will be put to their final end, forever. Let us march onward Christian solder in faith, knowing that the battle belongs to the Lord.
Amen
Copyright © 2026 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
