To Fight or Not

SERMON: 2013-01-27--lk2213c--to-fight-or-not SOURCE DURATION: 00:45:03.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with the speaker setting up a theological topic (ambivalence) and continues through extensive exposition, pastoral application, and scripture readings until the end of the provided window. All material is integral to the main sermon. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:41:28.820-00:44:50.460 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- I want to talk with you a little bit this morning about the ambivalence or the mixed feelings that many Christians have had historically about fighting. This ambivalence, I think, surfaces in many places. It surfaces in the sort of the conflict historically between what we could call just war advocates and pacifists or conscientious objectors. Pacifists believe that taking up the sword is simply wrong. Some believe that it's wrong under all circumstances. Some believe that it's wrong in most circumstances. Just war advocates are followers of St. Augustine, the church father of many years ago, and he theorized that under certain situations, meeting certain conditions, it's perfectly justified for Christians and for Christian nations to go to war. This ambivalence surfaces, too, in some of the tensions that Cathy Vanderkloet described a number of months ago that are faced by Christians in Nigeria who undergo terrorist attacks. Do we just let it happen? Do we fight back? Do we defend ourselves? Those are extremely difficult questions when you're in the middle of a conflict. That ambivalence surfaces, too, around here a little bit in our conflict with classes that thankfully is over. Do we just sit back and let it happen? Do we stand up? Do we defend ourselves? Where do you draw the line? When do you take up the sword or not? Now this ambivalence is, on the part of many Christians, is rooted partly in character because some of us are more passive than aggressive, and some of us are passive aggressive, and some just are peace lovers, and we want to avoid conflict at all times, and others have the kind of personality that says, "I'm not going to take this, and I'm going to step into it. Let me at it." But it's more than a personality issue. It's also a function of biblical interpretation because part of the ambivalence that Christians have had towards war and conflict historically is rooted in what can readily be seen as an ambivalent interpretation of things that Jesus says in the New Testament. Let me give you an example. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God" is one of the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. Not only does Jesus say that, but then he goes on later on in the Sermon on the Mount to spell that out even more particularly. He says, "Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also, and if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well." And that's of course one of the primary texts that conscientious objectors of the Christian or pacifists appeal to. And I remember Tony Campolo when he was last in Toronto making reference to the fact that when he grew up, he grew up in that kind of pacifist tradition, and he said that he had learned to take these words at face value until he got to seminary, and then he spent three years in seminary trying to learn that it didn't really mean what he thought it said. And that's a struggle that many of us have with biblical interpretation. So you have that whole strained in the New Testament about turning the other cheek, but then you have this passage here in Luke chapter 22 that we have just read together where Jesus says to his disciples, "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one." What in the world is he talking about now? And that's particularly difficult if you consider the fact that not very much later, Peter took him up on his word, didn't he? And so now you find Peter in the garden carrying at least one of those two swords I am imagining, and what does he do? He tries to defend Jesus, and he cuts off the ear of a slave called Melchus. That little story, it so happens, is recorded in all four gospels. What does Jesus do? Yeah, yeah, Peter, good job. No. Jesus says, "Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." And then, of course, when he stands, the Lord Jesus does before Pontius Pilate, John quotes him as saying these words, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews, but now my kingdom is from another place." Peter and the rest of us can be forgiven, I think, for being just a tad ambivalent about what it is that Jesus is saying. Do we fight or do we not? Now, let me add, this hasn't stopped Christians historically from fighting just for the record. It's just made us vaguely guilty about it when we do. Human nature, being what it is, tends to come to the surface. But how do we come to grips with this? And how do we balance out, how do we synchronize what appears to be such a conflicting teaching on the part of Jesus, which at least contributes, I think, significantly to the confusion or the ambivalence that has existed among Christians about this topic for so many years? Well, the answer lies, I think, in placing the words of our text in their proper context. And if you look further at the context of the verses that we have read together, then you discover that Jesus is preparing his disciples for his departure. The Last Supper has just taken place. Jesus has said to them very troubling words, "One of you is going to betray me." They're very upset about that. Is it I? Is it I? Who is it? It doesn't stop them from then having a fight about who is the greatest among them. Talk about insight into human nature. Love those stories. Jesus says, "The devil is going to sift you like wheat. I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail." Peter says, "You know, I'm tough." Lord says, "You're going to deny me three times before the rooster crows." And then Jesus comes up with this particular saying. And let me read you those two verses one more time. "When I sent you without purse, bag, or sandals, did you lack anything? Nothing they answered. He said to them, 'But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag, and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.'" And I want to draw from that this morning three observations that I think will help us put in proper perspective what it is that Jesus teaches on this whole subject. And the first thing is this. Seasons change. Seasons change. Ecclesiastes puts it well. There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. Seasons change. Up until now, the disciples have been with Jesus. Up until now, they have been witnessing to the people of Israel, and while there was opposition there, there were also a lot of people who supported them, took them into their homes. In fact, the women who accompanied them provided for the disciples out of their means and God was teaching them, "You can trust me to look after you while you launch on this ministry." But now times are changing. He's leaving them. Yes, later on he'll send them the Holy Spirit, but physically he will not be with them and physically he's going to send them out among the nations of the world like sheep among wolves. And because seasons are changing, as we'll see in a moment, their approach to the situation has to be different. And it's very important for us to understand that life is never static, it is dynamic. That is to say nothing ever stands still, it's always moving. And that's not only true in nature where the seasons change, that's not only true in your life and in my life individually as the seasons of life change as the years go by, but it's especially true, now listen carefully, in the coming of God's kingdom. Because God's kingdom is dynamic, that is to say it is growing in the world as people come to faith and as that faith changes their lives. That's why Jesus in so many parables is always talking in agricultural terms. He says a sower went out to sow and he says the kingdom of God is like, it's like a farmer and here is his field and there is wheat in the field and there are weeds in the field and they both grow to maturity. So dynamically or diagrammatically I'd like to show it this way, once again in terms of the diagrams that as you know I prefer to use to explain the coming of God's kingdom. Those two circles as you know represent two entirely different kingdoms, God's kingdom, the kingdom of the world. And if you were to ask me to summarize the qualities of God's kingdom I would use 1 Corinthians 13 verse 13 where the Bible talks about faith, hope, and love enduring. Those are the qualities of God's kingdom. The qualities of the earth's kingdom I would sum up in 1 John 2, 15 and 16 where the Bible talks about the pride of life, the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh. All of us are born into this kingdom. We are by nature strangers to this kingdom. Jesus comes into the world to represent faith, hope, and love and becoming a Christian for you and me, and I trust you understand this, is never just about going to church. It's never just about trying to change your life, turning over a new leaf, becoming a better person. No, it's to realize that I'm alienated from God, Satan is the God of this world, I am inherently selfish, you are inherently selfish, put enough pressure on us and conflict and confusion will be the result. That's why Jesus says as society comes to a fruition of its sinfulness, nation rises against nation and kingdom against kingdom. The more selfish we are, the more selfishly we live, the more conflict and confusion is part of the reality of life. But coming to Christ is committing ourselves to God's kingdom and while initially the difference between somebody who is in the kingdom of God and in the kingdom of the world is virtually indistinguishable, even as it is very difficult to distinguish between wheat and weeds in the early stages, when Christ is in you the hope of glory, your life begins to change from the inside out. Jesus says it is impossible to be rooted and grounded in Christ, to be on the vine drawing his life without that life changing you from the inside out. And so as time goes on, if you are in Christ, you increase in faith, you increase in hope, you increase in love. But as you do, there are two things that happen to people around you in the world. There will be those who seeing the change in you will like it, it will stir up something inside them and God uses it to bring them from darkness into light. That's how evangelism works really in its most ideal state. But even as there are some who will be drawn to the light in you, who see the glory of God on your life, there are those, or there are a lot, who go the other way. Their hearts are hardened, they turn against you, they hate you, they become more and more given over to sin, even as you become more and more given over, we trust in the Lord, to righteousness, and so there is a separation. The wheat and the weeds are growing up together, but as they are growing up, there is a differentiation. When people look at your life and in my life, from God's perspective, they ought to see in us something that is different from what they see in the world. There are changing seasons in the kingdom of God because when the kingdom of God comes, there is a differentiation between those who are in Christ and who are pursuing him and those who are not. Am I clear in what I'm trying to communicate here? You see this in the ministry of Jesus, you see. When Jesus first starts his ministry, except in Nazareth where people don't like him to begin with because no prophet has any credibility in his own town, the people, they're just enthused about Jesus. He draws huge crowds and even the Pharisees, when they hear about him and they first meet up with him and they come to look him up in Galilee from Jerusalem because they've heard about it, they sort of have a nonchalant, "Well, let's go see what this teacher is like." At first, everybody likes him, mostly, but then eventually they begin to clue in to what he is really saying. And guess what? They begin to clue in that he really means what he says. You've got to hate that in preachers because then you can't escape what's being said. And so, read through the gospel sometime with that in mind and you will see this gradual transformation that is taking place that even as the disciples follow him and as the cost of discipleship goes up, the antagonism among the religious leaders in Israel begins to increase. And so, you have them coming to this place now where they are prepared to put Jesus to death because the light has come into the world, it has exposed their darkness, and they can't stand the light. Now, let me say again what I said last week doesn't mean that everybody that disagrees with you or me is automatically on the bad side of things, but I'm saying as a principle in the world, when the church begins to shine in changing times, then nature, the nature of things is that those who are not in the kingdom of God become increasingly antagonistic and that is a preparation for the day when the harvest will have come fully ripe and God separates the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the weeds, and the kingdom of God comes in its glory and in its power. At the end of history, there's nobody left in the middle, I hope we understand that. You're either fully on God's side or you're fully on the other side and part of the sifting is to bring out what really lies underneath. And so we read in the book of Revelation these words, "One of the angels, take your sickle and reap because the time to reap has come for the harvest of the earth is ripe." Seasons change, nothing remains static. I thought of that some months ago when Michelle and I were visiting our son Jonathan and his wife Tanya in Austin, Texas, it was the time of the Republican and the Democratic National Conventions and we watched both of them on television and I remember thinking to myself, I don't know that ever in my lifetime I have seen the kind of polarization that I am observing in American political life and I'm not favoring one party over another or one stance over against another. What I'm saying is we live in changing times. The fact that Kathleen Wynne is elected as the first openly gay Premier of Ontario ought to tell you that we live in changing times. The fact that Barack Obama in his inaugural address made sure to include publicly that gays and lesbians needed to be included in the inclusivity of the nation tells you that we live in changing times. And regardless of what a person's position is on the subject of gay rights and all of the stuff that comes along with it, you can't deny the fact that times are changing and society is changing and that is only part and parcel of what happens as the kingdom of God comes to maturity and the kingdoms of the world come to their maturity. You with me? Nobody's going to avoid that and there is no sense in putting blinders on because it's going to affect you and me hugely because everybody that doesn't agree with the positions of the world is going to end up being excluded from the process. We've already talked about that a little bit last week. So that's one observation that I want to make. We live in changing times, can't avoid it, but as seasons change, so must our strategy. As seasons change, so must our strategy of dealing with seasons. That of course again is the whole point of the words of Jesus, "When I sent you without a purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything? Nothing they answered. He said to them, 'But now if you have a purse, take it and also a bag. If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.'" Remember I said earlier, as long as they were his representatives in the nation of Israel, as long as he was with them, God provided for them through the people that were around them. But now things have changed, he's leaving them. They're going out into the world and that world is going to be very hostile. There will not initially at least be Christian believers there who are going to provide for you. So now changing seasons require a changing strategy. And he says in particular, there are two things that you used to take for granted that now you have to do differently. First of all, he says you need to prepare provisions. He says if you have a purse, take it and also a bag. You can no longer depend on the community to support you in a hostile environment. You have to look after yourself. And so as Paul launches into his ministry, what does he do? He makes tents for a living so that he doesn't have to depend upon unbelievers to provide for him. Later on when the churches get established, then the churches become responsible for looking after their spiritual leaders, but initially you got to look after yourself. That's why today before missionaries go someplace or before young people from here march out into short-term missions, they try to raise support because that's the normal way in which God now provides for his people. But secondly, and that's of course the thing that we really want to talk about here, they have to prepare for battle. Listen again. If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. If you don't have a sword, sell your coat and buy one. And as you can imagine, commentators have had one doozy of a time trying to figure this one out. A doozy of a time trying to figure it out because it's so at odds with what Jesus teaches elsewhere in the gospels. It's clearly at odds with his rebuke to Peter when Peter uses his sword. And so as commentators do, they jump through all kinds of hoops trying to make sense out of this. Some people said, "Well, it was only a little sword, didn't really count." Two swords is hardly enough to take on the whole mob that's coming. And on and on it goes. And my conclusion is this, it doesn't really matter much how you try to interpret it because at heart the battle is never physical, is it? It's always spiritual. Listen to these words of Paul, very, very familiar, Ephesians 6 verse 12, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, it's against the principalities and the powers, the authorities, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. And what Paul means to say there is that behind this whole physical universe, behind the polarization that you see in society, behind the conflicts that rage, behind the philosophies that compete for attention, behind the models of economy that people buy into, there are powers in the universe that are pulling the strings and that are trying to dictate to us what ought to be happening. Diagrammatically, just very quickly putting it in this context, again, you can see that while Satan is the god of this world according to scripture, and God has to a large degree - I wouldn't say that he is withdrawn because he is everywhere present, but he's pulled back his presence, which is why it's often so difficult to connect with God, of course. And the darkness of Satan rules over the world, but Satan runs a campaign military style. And he isn't just the big head honcho himself, he's got all kinds of spiritual powers behind the universe that govern the affairs of men. And in the scripture they're called rulers, authorities, powers, and spiritual forces of evil. That is to say there are powers behind the scenes that try to gain access to the human heart and the human mind and that dictate to us the battles, the conflicts, the progress of human society. Give you a quick example, something that I hope we can relate to. Quite a number of years ago when some of us were in prayer about what God is doing in terms of building prevailing churches in this community, one of the things that came to some of us is that what in part we are dealing with in not only this area of the world, but I think in many other areas of the world is what I've chosen to call the spirit of Cain. You know the story of Cain and Abel? The spirit of Cain in my book, and you can disagree with me if you like, but the spirit of Cain is characterized by three words, entitlement, rejection, and murder. By entitlement, I mean the notion among the firstborn that I should have God's favor because I have been around the longest, I have worked the hardest, and I bring to the table a certain number of advantages that God ought to take notice of and he ought to bless me for. You see it in Cain, don't you? He brings his offering to God, God rejects his offering and of course he's furious, why? Because he has a sense of entitlement. Entitlement says I have a right to the blessings of God because God ought to be impressed with me. Now scripture says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. All through scripture, God bypasses the firstborn, why? To bless subsequent born because God is trying to teach his people that his blessings are not based on what you and I bring to the table, but rather our relationship with God. Is that not true? We don't become Christians because God is impressed with our goodness, we become Christians because we bend the knee and we put our faith in Jesus. But when you come to God on the basis of entitlement, when you want God's attention because you have been good, have worked hard, or deserve it you think, then God turns his back on you like he turns his back on Cain. And that, believe you me, feeds rejection like I'm not wanted. And if you look at Cain and you experience his history, then you know how upset he is that God has not received his offering when he has tried so hard. So now what happens? God says you've got a chance, all you have to do is you come to me on the basis of humility. God says to him, sin is couching at the door, you've got to resist it. If you will come and present an offering that comes out of a repentant place that knows you need the grace of God, then God's grace is there for you also. But you see Cain, the New Testament tells us, is of the evil one. That is to say he is allied with Satan and Satan is the ultimate example of this spirit of entitlement and rejection and anger. And so Cain won't bend the knee and he goes out and what does he do? He hates his brother Abel and he kills him. There are, there is behind every terrorist activity in the world today some manifestation of the spirit of Cain. You look at any of these interminable conflicts, no matter where you find them in the world, and you will discover there is entitlement. I have a right to this, that, or the other thing. I'm not getting what I want and so I feel rejected and now because I feel rejected I'm justified in my anger and that anger becomes murder because it comes from Satan himself. And so how do you fight principalities and powers? How do you fight terrorism? You can kill every terrorist under the sun and for every one you kill there will be ten new terrorists that rise up, isn't that true? That's been our experience in recent years, why? Because you're feeding entitlement and rejection and fueling murder. And so the battle is not against flesh and blood. The battle is not against, the battle is not one of human swords that are going to poke into the spiritual powers that are behind this and that feed this. No, it is only spiritual weapons provided in Christ that can break this power. Ultimately Christ triumphed over Satan. Not by beating him up, that comes at his second return, but by dying on the cross and being raised from the dead. And so Paul writing to the Corinthians puts it this way, he says, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world, or the world. On the contrary they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Psalm chapter 12, and you know this well, gives us a three-fold formula on how to handle the sword of the spirit to fight spiritual warfare. It reads like this, "They overcame him, that is the saints of God, they overcame Satan by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death." Notice very quickly a three-fold formula there, "They conquered him by the blood of the lamb." The blood of the lamb is the blood Jesus shed on the cross, that our sins could be forgiven. We have been purchased by his blood to belong to God. And so Satan no longer has a claim over us in Christ, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Then it goes on to say, "They overcame him by the word of their testimony." The word of their testimony is the declaration in Christ, I am seated with him in heavenly places, you don't own me, I don't have to listen to you, I have the armor of God, as we'll see in a moment, that will protect me from all the stuff that you're coming against me with. And then of course, the third one, "They didn't love their lives even unto death." Why is it so hard for the nations and the armies of the world to defeat the power of terrorism? Because many terrorists are not afraid to die. And when you have a person who is not afraid to die, you've got no power over him. And as long as the devil can appeal to your fear and my fear, not just about dying, but about losing something in life, my reputation or my relationships or my comfort or my wealth, all the devil has to do is feed that in you or me, fill us with fright, fill us with fear, and he can dissuade us from standing against him and resisting him, isn't that true? But you see, if in Christ we have died, and we know that in Christ we are raised from the dead, then Satan loses his power over us. Because if I don't care about losing my reputation, if I don't care about losing my comfort, if I can entrust my children to God, if I can entrust my future to God, then Satan has lost his power. Through the fear of death, he has held us from lifelong bondage, but thanks be to God, the power of death has been broken. That make sense? So God is looking for people who are not afraid, because they are secure in Christ, and they know that by faith, Christ will be victorious in the coming of his kingdom. So there's lots more that I want to say, but I've probably said enough. Let me try to summarize it this way. The Lord calls us collectively, as well as individually, to a mission. His aim and his purpose is for the light of God to shine through us and to be a light to our community. There are many people all around us who need to come to saving faith. Satan does not want that to happen. He not only blinds the minds of unbelievers, but he will do everything that he can to make sure that you and I are incapacitated in that fight. As the world moves forward and our society moves further and further away from biblical values, the battle will intensify. And you and I need to understand not only that seasons change, but that changing seasons means our strategy for dealing with the world has to change. We have to understand that as the battle increases, we must increase our vigilance. We need to be alert. We need to increase our awareness of the protection that God provides. If I had more time this morning, I wanted to talk about the armor of God in Ephesians 6, provisions that God makes for you and me so that we can engage in the battle. We need to pray in the Spirit so that we can discern the movements of our day and age. And we need to cry out for God, for the church to have a voice and to boldly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord for the glory of God. It is still day, but the night is coming. And my invitation to you this morning is to take sober stock of where you are. Where are the places of vulnerability in your life? Where do you know the devil can poke you so as to immobilize you in the battle? Will you in those places put on the armor of God? Will you plead with God? Will you cry with God for God to make you strong so that you're filled with the confidence of Jesus? And then, will you stand together with God's people shoulder to shoulder, holding on to the full armor of God, knowing that the world has yet to see what the church can look like when the church engages the world in the authority and the power of God's Holy Spirit? None of us can do it alone, but by grace of God, we can do it together and we will still see what God's grace looks like when he uses us to bless other people for the coming of his kingdom. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:41:28.820; remove through 00:45:03.000] These are the days of Elijah, declaring the word of the Lord. And these are the days of your servant Moses, righteousness being restored. And all these are days of great trials of famine and darkness and thorn. Still we are the voice in the desert, crying, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Behold he comes, riding on the clouds, shining like the sun, and the trumpet call. If your voice, you hear it to believe, now the signs to salvation come. And these are the days of Ezekiel, the dry walls becoming its flesh. And these are the days of your servant David, rebuilding a temple of praise. And these are the days of the harvest, the fields are as high in the world. And we are the labors in your gringes, declaring the word of the Lord. Behold he comes, riding on the clouds, shining like the sun, and the trumpet call. If your voice, you hear it to believe, now the signs to salvation come. There's no God like Jehovah. There's no God like Jehovah. Behold he comes, riding on the clouds, shining like the sun, and the trumpet call. If your voice, you hear it to believe, now the signs to salvation come. Behold he comes, riding on the clouds, shining like the sun, and the trumpet call. If your voice, you hear it to believe, now the signs to salvation come. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:45:03.000; resume after this marked segment]