Facing Prometheus — Week 25 (Sacred Lives in a Secular World) | “Still Standing” | Guest: Pastor Holly Wagner, Oasis Church & She Rises
About the series: We’re currently in Facing Prometheus: A Letter to the Ephesians and the Future Church Dilemma, a 48-week look at how Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus can transform our lives. For more on what the series is about, watch the prequel message here.
The series has spent weeks in Ephesians, and this week it arrives at the letter’s closing image: the armor of God. Paul spends five chapters telling the church who they are, then uses the final chapter to tell them how to stay standing, because a life lived for God will not be lived without a spiritual battle.
This week’s message comes from Pastor Holly Wagner, who with her husband Phil planted Oasis Church in Los Angeles in 1984 and pastored there for 35 years. She founded the women’s ministry now known as She Rises. From Ephesians 6:10–17, she teaches not how to become a superhero, but how ordinary believers remain standing when the battle comes.
The Text — Ephesians 6:10–12
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
— Ephesians 6:10–12 (NIV)
The Battles That Choose Us
We’re often told to choose our battles. But some of the hardest battles are the ones we never signed up for. Nobody chooses cancer, heartbreak, lawsuits, or the seasons that shake everything we thought was stable. Those battles choose us. We get to choose what we eat and what we wear, but life hands us things we never would have picked, and when those moments come, the question is not will I face a battle. The question is whether I’ll still be standing at the end of it.
★★ The path God has for you is not a red carpet. It often runs through a battlefield. But God has equipped us to fight the fights he has assigned to us.
Ephesians is a letter written from prison, likely with a Roman soldier in view. Paul spends five chapters reminding the church who they are, then turns in the last chapter to how they stay standing. He isn’t teaching us to become superheroes; he’s teaching ordinary believers to remain on their feet.
★★★ The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is perseverance. What a shame it would be if the enemy believed more about our potential than we do.
When verse 10 says “Finally,” the word is better translated “from now on.” What we did before doesn’t work; from now on, put on the full armor of God. Putting it on is our job, the same way we put on clothes, and Paul never tells us to take it off.
Know Your Enemy
Paul is clear that the struggle is not against flesh and blood. The enemy has a scheme, a strategy. He is not random. He looks for where to push, where to knock us off balance and off course. Pastor Holly framed it as a sober thought experiment: if I were your enemy, here is what I would do.
- I would dampen your passion and your belief in what God can do.
- I would manipulate your perspective so you focus on the wrong culprit, so you keep thinking the enemy is the person you live with or sit next to, when it isn’t.
- I would devalue how you see yourself so you doubt the power of God within you.
- I would get you comparing yourself to someone else, because comparison leads only to arrogance or insecurity, and both are bad.
- I would destroy the unity of your family and your church, turning everyone’s love inward so no one unites against the real enemy.
- I would remind you of past hurts and mistakes so you’re weighed down with anger, guilt, regret, and shame.
- I would make your fears look insurmountable and cripple you with anxiety.
- I would make you question the goodness of God.
- And most of all, I would make you think you’re all alone, because isolation is how you weaken someone.
★★ There is always something you can’t see influencing what you can see. But God never points out an enemy without providing equipment. That is why Paul tells us to put the armor on, and the enemy is hoping we’re too lazy to do it, trying to fight big spiritual battles in our emotional pajamas.
The Armor, Piece by Piece
The order Paul lists the armor is intentional. It’s the order a Roman soldier actually put it on.
The belt of truth
Ephesians 6:14 (Amplified) — Stand therefore [hold your ground], having tightened the belt of truth around your loins and having put on the breastplate of integrity and of moral rectitude and right standing with God.
The soldier’s belt was wide and tied in several places so it never moved, holding all his equipment at the ready. Everything starts there, because if we don’t know what is true, we’ll eventually believe whatever feels true. The word for truth here means what is actually true in any matter.
★★ It is not a truth. It is not your truth. It is the truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and his word keeps us steady in a culture full of half-truths, where everyone has a platform and an opinion.
The breastplate of righteousness
The breastplate protects the vital organs, including the heart, and no soldier goes into battle without one. Righteousness here means two things. First, being made right with God, which is what actually guards the heart, because of what Jesus did on the cross.
Romans 8:1 (NIV) — There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Second, it means integrity, doing what’s right. Integrity isn’t perfection; it’s alignment. It means your public life and your private life are moving in the same direction. When integrity is intact, the shields are up and the enemy’s ammunition can’t get through.
The gospel of peace (the feet)
Ephesians 6:15 (NIV) — and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
Some historians credit Roman footwear as a major reason for the army’s success. The soldier’s shoes had spikes, so when he planted his feet, he didn’t move. His stance was solid. The peace of Christ gives us that same strong stance and the balance we need in a hard season, a friendship on the rocks, or a betrayal in the family.
★★ The peace of God is what holds us steady when the battle comes.
The shield of faith
Ephesians 6:16 (NIV) — In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
The Roman shield was long, from knee to chin, covered in canvas and leather and soaked in water so that flaming arrows were extinguished on contact. Faith is our reliance on God for everything. The shield is not confidence in yourself; it’s confidence in who he is.
★★ The value of faith isn’t in how much you have. It’s in whom you place it. Over the years, the people who make it through abuse, depression, loss, and derailed careers are the ones who put their faith in God, not a method, not a system, not a person.
1 John 5:4 (CEV) — Every child of God can defeat the world, and our faith is what gives us this victory.
The helmet of salvation
Ephesians 6:17 (NIV) — Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
The helmet is designed to guard our minds in the middle of the battle, and our minds have to be protected. You can’t always control the first thought that goes through your head, but you can control the second one, and you can certainly control what you dwell on. In hard seasons, the mind wanders to dark places, and the darkest is often the question “what if?” What if this isn’t restored? What if the scan says it’s back? Pastor Holly named the fight plainly: her greatest battle wasn’t physical, it was mental. When the “what ifs” take over, that’s the sign the helmet isn’t on.
The sword of the Spirit
The sword of the Spirit, the word of God, is the one offensive weapon in the arsenal. In the original language it’s a “two-mouthed” sword, which carries the picture of this: God says it, then I say it. It’s what Jesus used when tempted in the wilderness, speaking God’s word with authority. God has given us the authority to use his words in battle. Pastor Holly described writing healing scriptures on index cards and reading them daily as her “sword” while fighting cancer, verses like “you are the God who heals me,” until they became familiar enough to wield.
★★ God has given us his word to fight the enemy. But too often we’ve turned it around and started using it to fight each other. Roman soldiers fought back to back, each facing an enemy, covering one another. That is what “I’ve got your back” means. We’re not meant to fight each other; we’re meant to face a common enemy together.
It’s His Armor, Not Ours
The armor isn’t primarily something we put on by trying harder. Every piece ultimately points to Christ himself. He is our truth. He is our righteousness. He is our peace. He is the object of our faith. He is our salvation. He is the living word.
★★★ We’re not wearing our armor. We’re wearing his. It’s not because you can do it harder. It’s because of who he is.
Paul had another thought about standing, and he put it in terms of being watched:
2 Corinthians 6:3–10 (The Message) — People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly… in hard times, tough times, bad times; when we’re beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating… when we’re praised, and when we’re blamed; slandered, and honored… beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die; immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all.
That was Paul describing his own battle to stand. And people are still watching. Your children, grandchildren, friends, and coworkers are watching, not to see whether you’ll avoid suffering, but whether Jesus is enough. Whether your faith survives disappointment, your worship survives silence, and your hope survives loss.
Notice Paul doesn’t say, “when you’ve done everything, win.” Ephesians 6:13 says that after you’ve done everything, stand.
★★★ Stand when you’re celebrated and stand when you’re criticized. Stand when your prayers are answered and stand when heaven seems silent. Stand when your heart is full and stand when your heart is breaking. Stand, because Christ has already won the victory.
Closing
So before you pick up your phone tomorrow morning, put him on. Before the meeting, before the hard conversation, before the chemotherapy appointment, before school, put him on. And stay at your post, because one day the battle will end, and by God’s grace we’ll still be standing.
