Sep. 19, 2010 Commentary

Sermon Date: Sep. 19, 2010

Sermon Title: The Army of God

Sermon Text: Eph. 6:10-11 & Tim. 2:1-4

Small Group Text: Eph. 6:10-11 & Tim. 2:1-4

In the routine of our daily lives, Christians tend to forget we are at war. But truthfully, we live in a hostile territory as “God’s good creation has in fact been seized by hostile, evil cosmic forces that are seeking to destroy God’s beneficent plan for the cosmos. God wages war against those forces, however, and through the person of Jesus Christ has now secured the overthrow of this evil cosmic army. The church as the body of Christ has been called to be a decisive means by which this final overthrow is to be carried out.”

(Gregory Boyd, God At War) THE WAR IS REAL: IT’S NOT A FAKE FIGHT Who’s fighting?

Most Christians have at least heard of the idea that the church is involved in spiritual warfare – the on-going battle between good and evil, putting on the armor of God and all that. Against whom are we fighting? And what form does this conflict take?

Since the beginning of time, God and Satan have been at war. The earth, humanity and the church go the victor as the spoils of war. Since he cannot annihilate God, Satan lashes out by attempting to destroy all that God loves (John 8:44; 10:10; 1 Peter 5:8).

This war, first declared in the Garden of Eden, will be waged until the end of time. (Genesis 3:14-15; 1 John 3:8). Today, God’s church is still on the frontlines, confronting the forces of evil. But every Christian soldier battles-on knowing that the ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ was the turning point of the war. Though the war rages on, victory is assured since the evil forces and principalities of the universe were virtually disarmed (literally, stripped) of their power at the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:15).

THE MISSION IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR No soldier will sacrifice personal comfort and convenience, or peace and pleasure unless he/she is convinced the war serves a greater cause. A real war always calls for sacrifice and self-denial.

What’s at stake?

1. The world and humanity in general has fallen under the power of the devil and now exists as a satanically organized system that hates and opposes all that is godly (John 15:18, 23).

2. The majority of humanity – those without Christ – live broken and destructive lives as they unconsciously follow Satan as their ruler and lord. “The whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), also called “the god of this Age” (2 Cor. 4:4). The unsaved are now in the clutches of this “ruler” and blindly follow his opposition to God. (2 Corinthians 4:4). Subsequently, all of humanity has come under the wrath of God and the curse of eternal death. (Romans 6:23; Ephes. 2:1-3) What’s our mission?

1. Jesus came to… a. Restore spiritual sight to the blind and set Satan’s captives free (Luke 4:18; Eph. 4:8) b. Give people abundant life (John 10:10) c. Destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8) 2. Our mission: Jesus has commissioned his church to participate with him in redeeming this lost world back to God – restoring spiritual sight, setting captives free, proclaiming the message of abundant life and destroying the works of the devil. (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Ephesians 3:10-12) MY PART IS ESSENTIAL! The church is called to join with God in restoring the world to its original beauty and perfection. But in this war, we do not wield the weapons of this world (2 Cor. 10:3-5). We do not strategize like the world (Romans 12:1-2). This is a call to a passion for God, a call to holiness (moral clarity) and godly actions (spiritual practices and agape love). In this sense, prayer and Bible reflection, feeding the poor, showing charity, etc. can be seen as weapons of warfare – powerful acts which prevail against the evil and chaos present in our world.

This viewpoint, unlike some of the more popular Christian perspectives, actually expects life and ministry to be difficult (1 Pet. 4:12-16). The Christian is in the middle of a war zone.

Satan and his minions are powerful adversaries. Bad things can and do happen to good people in war. God does not promise complete protection in this life but only that He will be victorious in the end and that nothing can separate us from His love (Rom. 8:35-39).

Something to think about: What would be different in our world if every Christian thought of him/herself as a faithful solider in this spiritual conflict?

Read 2 Timothy 2:1-4 THE SOLDIER OF CHRIST (2 Timothy 2:3, 4) Commentary adapted from the Daily Study Bible (William Barclay) Accept your share in suffering like a fine soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier who is on active service entangles himself in ordinary civilian business; he lays aside such things, so that by good service he may please the commander who has enrolled him in his army.

The picture of man as a soldier and life as a campaign is one which the Romans and the Greeks knew well. "To live," said Seneca, "is to be a soldier" (Seneca: Epistles 96:5).

"The life of every man," said Epictetus, "is a kind of campaign, and a campaign which is long and varied" (Epictetus: Discourses, 3, 24, 34). Paul took this picture and applied it to all Christians, but specially to the leaders and outstanding servants of the Church. He urges Timothy to fight a fine campaign (1 Timothy 1:18). He calls Archippus, in whose house a Church met, our fellow soldier (Philemon 2). He calls Epaphroditus, the

messenger of the Philippian Church, "my fellow soldier", (Philippians 2:25). Clearly Paul saw in the life of the soldier a picture of the life of the Christian. What then were the qualities of the soldier that Paul would have repeated in the Christian life?

1. The soldier's service must be a concentrated/focused service. Once a man has enlisted on a campaign he can no longer involve himself in the ordinary daily business of life and living. No longer “business as usual.” He must concentrate on his service as a soldier. The Roman code of Theodosius said: "We forbid men engaged on military service to engage in civilian occupations." A soldier is a soldier and nothing else; the Christian must concentrate on his Christianity. That does not mean that he must engage on no worldly task or business. He must still live in this world, and he must still make a living; but it does mean that he must use whatever task he is engaged upon to further the campaign of Christ and God’s redemptive purposes.

2. The soldier is conditioned to obedience. The early training of a soldier is designed to make him unquestioningly obey the word of command. There may come a time when such instinctive obedience will save his life and the lives of others. There is a sense in which it is no part of the soldier's duty "to know the reason why."

Involved as he is in the midst of the battle, he cannot see the over-all picture. The decisions he must leave to the commander who sees the whole field. The first Christian duty is obedience to the voice of God, and acceptance even of that which he cannot understand.

3. The soldier is conditioned to sacrifice. A. J. Gossip tells how, as a chaplain in the 1914-18 wars, he was going up the line for the first time. War and blood, and wounds and death were new to him. On his way he saw by the roadside, left behind after the battle, the body of a young kilted Highlander. Oddly, perhaps, there flashed into his mind the words of Christ: "This is my body broken for you." The Christian must ever be ready to sacrifice himself, his wishes and his fortune, for God and for his fellow men.

4. The soldier is conditioned to loyalty. When the Roman soldier joined the army he took the sacramentum, the oath of loyalty to his emperor. Someone records a conversation between Marshal Foch and an officer in the 1914-18 war. "You must not retire," said Foch, "you must hold on at all costs." "Then," said the officer aghast, "that means we must all die." And Foch answered: "Precisely!" The soldier's supreme virtue is that he is faithful unto death. The Christian too must be loyal to Jesus Christ, through all the chances and the changes of life, down even to the gates of death.

Why don’t we care?

Perhaps you don’t care about this great war because…

• You don’t know there is a war • You don’t believe there is a war • The war hasn’t affected you personally • You’re tangled up with other things in your life • You don’t know what to do about the war – you feel helpless