Armor of God

Text: Ephesians 6:10-18

Prop: a Buzz Lightyear toy or a poster of the movie Toy Story. If you have the toy, prepare small return address labels (blank) that you can write on the name of each part of the armor.

Summary: The Devil is real. God wants us to wear protective armor. God defends us from attacks by the Devil.

How many of you have ever seen the movie Toy Story? [show of hands] Do you remember Buzz Lightyear? [one of the characters in the story] Buzz Lightyear had to wear a space suit to protect him from danger. Today I want to tell you about the armor of God. It is explained in the Bible in the Letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 6.

(Read Ephesians 6:10-18)

The Devil is real. He is a bad angel that God threw out of heaven. He is invisible to us because he is an angel. Angels are only seen by us when God wants us to see them. The Devil also goes by the name Satan or Lucifer. He is the worst angel of them all. He wants to hurt us and cause us to do bad things. He is constantly after us. He wants us to stop following Jesus and sin. He will lie and try to trick us.

God is able to defend us from the attacks of Satan. God wants us to put on the armor of God for protection from the Devil. Armor is special clothing we wear for extra protection from danger. Now the Apostle Paul was speaking of armor that a Roman soldier wore. Since we don’t see Roman soldiers anymore, let’s look at this toy Buzz Lightyear to see what kind of armor to wear.

The first part of armor that is named is the belt. That is the belt of TRUTH [place label that says TRUTH across the belt]. We need to always tell the truth. The second piece of armor is the breastplate of RIGHTEOUSNESS [place label that says BE GOOD on front panel]. That is a big word that means “being good.” We can’t be good on our own, but when we ask Jesus to be our Savior, he gives us his goodness. That protects our heart. The next piece of armor is shoes [place label that says PEACE]. Our feet should be ready to take us to tell others the good news about Jesus.

Buzz Lightyear has a star cruiser for a SHIELD [place label that says FAITH]. Our faith in God is our shield from Satan’s laser beams of evil. Now let’s look at the helmet [place label that says SALVATION]. Our salvation from Jesus marks us as belonging to Him and protects our mind and thoughts. Buzz has an invisible light beam for a SWORD [place label that says BIBLE near his hand or wings]. Our light sword is the Word of God, the Bible. God’s Word is the truth and it always defeats Satan. Our secret weapon is PRAYER. We can always pray about everything and God will protect us.

With Jesus as our Savior, we will live forever. So now that we have on our armor, let’s say what Buzz says whenever he is ready to take off on his next adventure: [have the children say it aloud] On the count of three, ready. 1, 2, 3, “To infinity and beyond!”

©1999 by Jim Kerlin. All rights reserved.

Buzz Lightyear and Toy Story are trademarks of Disney and Pixar.

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