Zadok Discipleship Course - Armed for War
43
The Breastplate of Righteousness - Pt. 1
What Righteousness Means
Ephesians 6:14 • The Plumb Line • The Power Line Illustration
We move now to the second piece of the armor of God. Remember the foundational principle: each piece is a revelation, only put on by entering into the experience and manifestation of that revelation. The breastplate in physical armor covers the entire midsection - protecting the vital organs, the heart, the lungs, the most critical and vulnerable parts. Paul's choice is deliberate: righteousness protects the most sensitive and vulnerable parts of your inner man from the enemy's assaults.
Equity of character - possessing qualities in perfect harmony with God's own holy and just nature. Not merely doing right things, but being brought into alignment with God's character in our inner man, so that we reflect who God is.
The Plumb Line
A plumb line is what builders use to establish a perfectly straight, level reference point. Everything else is measured, cut, and fitted according to that line. If one piece is off, everything downstream is off. The plumb line must be correct first.
Righteousness is the plumb line of the character and nature of God. We are to be measured, formed, and cut according to that line. In building the temple, craftsmen created a master board from which all other boards were shaped and fitted. Our master board is Jesus Christ. God forms us into His image along the plumb line of His righteousness.
The Power Line Illustration
Run a power line with a tremendous charge through it. Now bring a second copper line - entirely separate, no power source connected - and line it up parallel and close to the first. The second line will begin to carry a current. The more precisely it is aligned, the more current it carries. You do not wire it into the source. Alignment itself transfers the power.
This is exactly what Paul is describing. As your life lines up with the character and nature of God, the power inherent in God begins to flow through you. You do not generate it. You align with it, and it flows.
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Two Dimensions of Righteousness
2 Corinthians 5:21 • Philippians 2:13 • Romans 8:29
There are two dimensions of the righteousness available to us in Christ, and both are essential.
Righteousness credited to us - not because of anything we have done, but because of everything Jesus has done. The moment you are born again, the righteousness of Christ is placed to your account. You stand before God in His merit, not your own. It is a gift, not an achievement.
Righteousness worked into you by the Holy Spirit, empowering you to actually walk in what has already been credited to you. God does not just declare you righteous and leave you unchanged - He works in you from the inside to produce character that matches the declaration.
God predestined you to be conformed to the image of His Son. That conforming is not incidental - it is the plan. The nature of the Son is holiness. The nature of God is holiness. From before time, God set in motion the intention that you would line up with His character, His nature, His righteousness.
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Holiness Is Not Legalism
Romans 6:19,22 • 1 Thessalonians 4:7 • Hebrews 12:14
The moment the word "holiness" is used, many react: "Here comes the legalism. Here comes the old religion. Here comes the heavy, joy-killing stuff." That reaction is itself the evidence of a lie the devil has sold. He has been propagating this lie for decades - preachers of holiness are always the villain: stiff, bitter, irrelevant, standing in the way of progress and personal freedom. Many believers have accepted the premise that holiness is old religion and not the present move of God.
A young man raised up in the ministry called, his heart broken. He was youth pastoring in Kansas. His senior pastor had sent him to the garage fridge - and it was packed with beers. He said: "Pastor Steve, I see it everywhere. People have lowered their standards."
God spoke: "Son, what most people today call legalism, I call holiness."
True legalism is the use of a holy lifestyle to try to earn God's favor. That is not what is being taught here. We do not live holy to get God's favor - we already have it. Because we have that favor, we now choose to live holy. We pursue holiness not to gain what we do not have, but because we already have it and want to walk in alignment with the One who gave it.
Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. If we are lovers of truth, why are we not preaching holiness from every pulpit? The day is coming when preachers of holiness will be mocked and targeted more aggressively than ever. But that does not change the Word of God.
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Holiness Protects
Exodus 15:26 • Isaiah 54:14,17 • Proverbs 16:7
Holiness - God's righteousness - protects you. It is not a restriction. It is a shield. That is why God says: "If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight … I will put none of these diseases on you" (Ex. 15:26). Walk in righteousness, and God protects you from the diseases - not only physical disease, but mental disease, spiritual disease, the destructive fruit of sin, the poison of the enemy.
Many people are quick to declare Isaiah 54:17 - "No weapon formed against me shall prosper." But look at the context:
"In righteousness you shall be established … No weapon formed against you shall prosper … this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me." (Isa. 54:14, 17)
The promise is rooted in righteousness. You cannot take the promise out of the context of the righteousness it is attached to.
Righteousness affects your relational world. When your ways please God, even opposition from enemies is disarmed. This is not a passive promise - it is the active result of actively pursuing alignment with God.
A Wall of Holiness Around Your Home
A twelve-year-old girl had just started attending youth group. She was going out every night, getting drunk, using drugs - and her mother knew and said "go ahead." One evening she came to Dr. Foss in tears and asked: "Why doesn't my mother love me? Why doesn't she stop me? Why doesn't she stand in front of the door and block me?"
Children push against boundaries on the surface. But deep on the inside, they want a parent who loves them enough to fight for them. They want someone to say: "No matter if you hate me, no matter if you never speak to me again, I am going to build a wall of holiness around you and guard you from the enemy for as long as I can."
That is not legalism. That is not control. That is love. That is compassion. That is righteousness at work as a protective wall.
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Holiness Empowers
Romans 1:4 • Matthew 5:6 • Matthew 6:33 • Colossians 2:9-10
Holiness does not only protect - it empowers. This is what the devil is most afraid of, and why he has worked so relentlessly to sell the church on the idea that holiness is weakness.
The greatest demonstration of supernatural power in all of human history - a dead man walking out of a sealed tomb - was connected directly to the Spirit of holiness. Holiness and power are not opposites. Holiness is the channel through which power flows.
Jesus did not act on earth in His own inherent power. He emptied Himself, took on human form, and lived in complete alignment with the Father. As He lined up with the nature and character of God, the same power that flows through the Father flowed through Him. That is the Spirit of holiness at work.
Being filled with the Spirit of God - the fullness of His power - is connected to the hunger and thirst for righteousness. The reason the power of God was released in the upper room is because those believers had gotten aligned with God. They had surrendered everything, and the power had nowhere else to go but through them. You cannot hold power back when alignment is present.
"That is the posture of the person wearing the breastplate of righteousness. Not I, but Christ. Not my strength, but His character flowing through me. Not a performance of religious obligation, but a life aligned with God because I love Him and have received His grace."
- Dr. Steve FossFill in the Blanks