Shoulder to Shoulder

SERMON: 2013-02-17--cr1613--shoulder-to-shoulder SOURCE DURATION: 01:02:49.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidates 0, 1, and 2 constitute the final spoken remarks (including an Amen) of the sermon. Candidate 3 explicitly marks the start of music, which is non-sermon material. Therefore, candidate 2 is the last token belonging to the 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: 00:59:04.880-01:02:40.280 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 --- Winding up, I think, this morning, our mini-series on spiritual warfare. Just one scripture verse that is our text this morning, one that I recall we quoted last week, 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verse 13, which reads as follows, "Be on your guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be men of courage. Be strong." And of that verse, we're especially going to be looking at that middle phrase, "Stand firm in the faith," means much more than what first meets the eye. Let's pray together as we get into that this morning. Father, we know that we contend not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, forces of evil and spirits of wickedness that not only oppose you, but that also oppose your work. And we experience that, Lord, sometimes individually and also collectively. We pray this morning, as we revisit the subject of spiritual warfare, that you will help us to understand in a whole new way what is meant by standing shoulder to shoulder and how important it is and how each of us plays such a significant role in maintaining and standing firm for that which you value in your kingdom. And then help each of us to bestir ourselves, take up the full armor of God, knowing that he that overcomes will one day receive from you the crown of life. So give me the words. I need to put this into words in a way that communicates to each of our hearts. But Lord, give all of us hearts that are open. Let the word be powerful, like a seed falling in good soil. May it spring forth and bear much fruit. And again, Lord, we'll be careful always to give you the glory. And may your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, so far in our reflections on spiritual warfare, we've pretty much put the emphasis on the individual Christian, how important it is for the individual Christian to put on spiritual armor. Ephesians 6 verse 13 puts it this way, "Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand." God wants his people to be able to stand firmly established in the truth in the middle of spiritual warfare. Fact remains, however, that single soldiers seldom win battles. Even war heroes who get decorated for their bravery do not typically win the battle on their own, but rather they do so as part of a whole much larger team. And that's what the apostle Paul is talking about in the words of our text this morning when he says, "Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be men of courage, be strong." It's not always immediately evident in the English language, but each of these is a military term. The term "be on your guard" refers not only to the alertness that each soldier is to exercise at all times, but it refers especially to the sentry who stands watch while the rest of his mates sleep or rest. "Jumping ahead, be men of courage" talks about the importance of strength in the battle when your life might well be at stake. "Be strong" in turn refers to strength in the battle when waves of adversity and opposition come rolling over you. But of particular concern and interest to us, I said this morning, is that middle phrase "stand firm in the faith" because that is also a military term. And that refers to the importance of soldiers maintaining their rank and discipline in the face of a military attack. Interestingly enough, Paul uses a very similar language in Colossians 2 verse 5 when he says, "For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see"—now notice that next phrase—"how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is." How orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. And again, in the English language, we just sort of read over that without thinking through what he is referring to, but he is referring here to the military order and the discipline of the Roman army that made it so successful in conquering so much of the then known world. Because you see, by the time Paul was alive and wrote these scriptures, the Middle East of course was experiencing what is known as the pox romana, that is to say the Roman peace. Rome had conquered much territory, they had subdued most of their opponents, and they were firmly in control of their empire. And one of the reasons they were able to do that was because of their military genius. They simply out fought and outwit most of their opponents. And when the Roman Republic first started, they had inherited from the Greeks a fighting mechanism known as the phalanx. And you see a picture here of what that looked like in its day, where they used their shields as armor, as close to an armored vehicle as they could come up with back in those days. And if you've seen the movie Troy, for example, there is an instance where the Greeks land to capture the city and they form this kind of phalanx known among the Greeks as hoplites, which was a reflection of their rounded shields. So originally that's what the Romans used. But then very early on they suffered a major defeat using that kind of warfare, and as a result they increasingly abandoned the phalanx because it wasn't flexible enough, particularly in rough territory, and they developed what now is known as one of the mightiest fighting forces in history, which would have been the Roman Legion. The Roman Legion consisted of more than 5,000 soldiers and they had a very particular structure and a very particular advantage. And just to give you a flavor of that, let me show you just a brief video outlining both the structure of the Legion and why ultimately it became so powerful and effective. So let's try to run that clip now and take a look at what you see here. >> By the year 100 BC, under the supervision of the Consul and General Gaius Marius, the Roman Legion looked as follows. The base of building block was the eight-man Contaburnium. Ten Contaburnia would equal a century of 80 men. Six centuries would make a cohort, which was basically 480 men. This was the basic building block of the Legion. There were ten cohorts in a Legion, the first cohort having an additional 200 men to add extra strength. It was considered the elite cohort, making the rounded strength of a Roman Legion about 5,000 men. Now, the deployment of the Legion was very interesting. Here we see some footage from the movie Spartacus. Spartacus' slave rebellion occurring in 71 BC. At this time, the Marian reforms have had time to work their way throughout the Legion. And we see here on a vast scale the deployment of a cohort Legion in a quinconx or five-sided die formation. To us, it would look like a checkerboard. And to an opponent facing such a juggernaut, it must have been utterly terrifying to watch the precision and discipline and organization of the Roman Legion on display. So each one of those boxes that you see is a cohort of 480 men. There are ten of them, if you care to pause and count. So you see one Legion in the forefront and a second Legion approaching from behind it. At a given signal, just prior to confronting an opponent, the various lines or manifolds of a Legion would close ranks, presenting a solid front to the enemy. And the advance would continue. Here we see the front rank continuing its advance while those back cohorts close ranks. And again, all this in the face of the enemy gives you some idea of how impressive the Romans were in their ability to carry out tactical maneuvers with a great deal of precision and organization. And if you're the enemy watching this, you know that you are dealing with an army of trained professionals. Giving the Roman Legion an added advantage was on the small unit scale the Romans were able to implement a type of line relief system, here illustrated as a Roman Legion prepares to defend itself against a charge of Gauls. Notice the precision stabbing motions carried out. There is an economy of force here and you have to remember ancient warfare was physically very demanding. And the Romans were able to kind of harness and economize their energy. The Centurion blows a whistle and the front rank, once it looks a little fatigued, gets some relief by moving to the back. And its place is taken by the rank behind. Again, the Centurion blows the whistle and you see this relief take place. Now during the course of any battle this could take place over and over and over again, allowing the Romans to present a fresh face to an increasingly exhausted enemy. Isn't that interesting? When it comes to spiritual warfare, it's not enough for you and me to be single soldiers putting on our armor. We need to be part of a far greater movement. We need to be part of an army and in that army we need to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder. The genius of the Roman military power was their ability to organize and structure their army in such a way that they simply were able to outperform, outmaneuver, and outpower, if you will, it's not a word but you know what I'm trying to say, the enemy. So all of that has huge implications for the church because that is what Paul is talking about when he says, "Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be men of courage, be strong." When he says, "Stand firm in the faith," he says, "Look at the Roman legion." Everybody knew the Roman legion because they had all run into them, not usually under pleasant circumstances, and he says, "Be as orderly and as steadfast as they are in the midst of the battle." So in the time that remains this morning, let me try to walk you through what some of the practical implications of that are. Number one, it means that if you are a Christian believer this morning, you are committed to a cause that is greater than you. You are committed to a cause that is greater than you. Some of you will perhaps remember that about a year ago I talked about Christian community in the context of three overlapping circles that looked like this, known as the three C's, standing for community, corporation, and cause. And if we can just leave that up for a moment, those describe what life in Christian community really consists of. Community talks about the relationships that we have, both with God and with each other. The operative word in community is fellowship, it is oneness, and the metaphor is family. This is where we do life together. And the persons receiving the most attention in family are your weakest person. In biblical language, your widow, your orphan, and your alien. In today's language, your visitor, your new believer, your struggling Christian. In the family, all the effort goes to try to maintain the health and the well-being of your weakest member. Corporation is what the church is as a business. The moment you get more than half a dozen people together, you need to structure and organize life in that community. You need to give it structure, you need to give it organization. And the model here is that of a business, the metaphor is that of organizational structure. The most important person in corporation is your most competent person. You don't want your leader to be somebody who doesn't know what he's doing. You don't want your bookkeeper not being able to add up the figures and make sure that the money matches at the end of the day or the till balances. But then there is cause. And cause is the job the church is committed to. We are not only a community, we are not only a corporation, we are not only a family, we don't have organizational structure only, but we have a job to do. And the most important person there is your strongest person, if you will, your warrior, those who can accomplish the task that God calls the church to. Now let me pursue that with you just a little bit further, because if I were to ask you this morning, or if your neighbor were to ask you this morning, you know, you go to church every Sunday. And why in the world would you do that when you could be sleeping in and, you know, you could be reading the paper, drinking your coffee or having your beer or whatever else people do in a given Sunday morning? Why get out and why go to church? Well, you say, I go to church in part because I want to meet with my friends and I want to be part of community. I go to church because as a church, we wear an organizational structure and we all have our part and place to play in that. But more than that, we have a cause that we pursue. We have a job to do. And if somebody asked you what is the job, what would you say? There's a lot of different ways of wording that. It typically comes to expression in vision statements of church. And I can still, after all these many years, not think of a better way of wording it than what our vision statement here at Maranatha States. We are to be a biblically functioning community through which the redemptive purposes of God for the world can be realized. Every word there is pregnant with meaning and with power and we won't take a lot of time to talk about it other than to say, if we can put that back up again for a moment, to be a biblically functioning community is to be family of God together, living in relationship with God through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and in relationship with each other. Love God above all. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. That is the great commandment. Before the church does anything at all, we are somebody, we are an entity that is meant to reflect heaven's values on earth. And while we may do that poorly sometimes or most of the time, nevertheless, the more we grow in Christ, the more our lives and relationships are at odds and are different from that of the world all around us. We are a biblically functioning community. That is to say we have organizational structure that facilitates the church happening. Very important. But more than that, we have a job to do. Through which the redemptive purposes of God for the world can be realized. When you and I know that Christ is real, when he is raised from the dead and we have encountered his reality, think back to the day of the resurrection. What is the first thing the women and the disciples wanted to do when they discovered Jesus was alive? What is the first thing you want to do when you receive the good news? You want to broadcast it to everybody that will hear it because that is the nature of good news. And so the church has a task of leading people to faith in Christ, helping them grow up in him so that the church may grow and the purposes of God on the earth may be established. And that is of course best summed up, I think, in our mission statement here at Maranatha. Say it with me. Reach the? Restore the? Equip the? Release the? It is a progress, a progression whereby we come to faith in Christ, we receive the benefits of his restoration, we get equipped to share his life and his ministry, and then we are released into the harvest. And I won't pick on Jessica other than to say that you heard her pitch this morning for the fundraising that she is undertaking, but she is one example in this community, one of many, of how Jesus has touched her life and has moved her from where she was when he found her to coming to faith, to receiving some very significant restoration in the depths of her heart. Most of you don't even know the depths of her story. She has been equipping her so that eventually she can be released in the harvest. And she asked me to let you know that in the chili cook-off on Saturday, she is going to be sharing her testimony. And if you don't come for the chili, you ought to come for the testimony because it is an amazing story of amazing grace. And if you question whether Jesus is real and whether he has the power to change lives, you need to hear her story. How's that for a pitch? So to summarize it this way, this of course is the great commandment where the mission of the church is to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. Our job as the hands and the feet of Jesus is to step into the world as Jesus did, proclaim the good news, and help people move from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God. Those are the redemptive purposes of God that you and I are called to. And I will say it again, if you are in Christ today and have experienced his saving power, then whether you like it or not, you're not just part of family, you're not just part of an organization called Mary Nath a Church, you're part of a cause. And that cause is to see people come out of darkness into light. And so it is not insignificant, that in Ephesians chapter 6, when Paul has talked about the importance of putting on spiritual armor, he goes on to conclude that passage with these words. He says, "Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me, so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should." Satan doesn't like it when God's people commit themselves to the cause of Jesus. And most of us individually, and all of us collectively will have experienced some measure of this, step out and want to bear witness to your neighbor about Christ, step out and want to be used of Christ in bringing healing to the nations, or to empower God's people, or to release the workers. You don't know what trouble is, until you take seriously the Great Commission. And that's why we need the armor of God. So, all of us are part of a cause greater than ourselves. And because we are, second implication of this is that we all have a part to play in this. The genius of the Roman military might, as I said earlier, was their commitment to organizational structure. Not only was their legion carefully organized with manageable fighting units, but they had many auxiliary services. They had troops with them, auxiliary troops that would test the strength of the enemy. Each legion had 300 or so cavalry attached to them, and many supply lines that would service the rest of the soldiers. The smallest group of eight all shared a donkey. And the donkey carried much of their equipment and many of their supplies, although each soldier to keep them swift on their feet on their marches had to carry something like 70 pounds of equipment, and food enough for five days, and water, and all of that kind of thing. And even today, the success of a military campaign is never just determined by the soldiers on the front who bravely fight and risk their lives for whatever particular cause they're fighting for. It is highly dependent on the support personnel, whether that's the guy that fixes the vehicle, or that drives the truck, or that fuels the equipment, the cook in the kitchen, or the people back home who are, you know, in old parlance knitting and rolling the bandages that keep the troops supplied on the field. Chances are, when we talk about spiritual warfare, there are at least some of you sitting here and you're saying that's a world that I don't understand, it's a world that I'm not particularly interested in being part of because, well, you know, I'm just little old me, not significant enough for the devil to take note of, and besides that, I'm not really the fighting type. You know, I like to be at peace with everybody as much as I can. Welcome to the club, wouldn't we all? But we're recruited into an army with a cause. And even though you may not be out on the forefront, you may not be the kind of intercessor that knows how to take on spiritual principalities and powers. You may not be the kind of person who can be out in public and proclaiming the name of Jesus. You may not be the kind of person who can even stand up to your friends in the middle of testing and trials and temptations. But you can be part of the support group. You can be the individual Christian behind the scenes, as I know many of you have been in the struggles that we've gone through, praying to God for those who are in leadership, praying to God for those who lead ministries, praying to God for those who have leadership responsibilities that the Lord will sustain them. I've shared with you before. I would not be standing here if it hadn't been for those kinds of prayers from so many of you. You may not. I love this kid song. Some of you, we had a record of this with Marcy when our kids were little. "I may never march in the infantry." If I could sing, I would lead you. I think this is just a great song. "I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery. I may never fly o'er the enemy, but I'm in the Lord's army." Yes, sir. "I'm in the Lord's army." Yes, sir. "I'm in the Lord's army." You are in the Lord's army. All right. And that means you have a place to fill. We'll talk more about that in a moment or two. Switching analogies. The apostle Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. When he uses these words, he says, "The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts, and though all its parts are many, they form one body, so it is with Christ." And then he goes on to say, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you.'" All the parts of the body are equally important. And so part of the challenge for you and me in the body of Christ is to know where is my place. And as we'll see in a moment, am I filling my place? Am I doing what I need to do? Am I an asset to the mission of the church, or am I a liability? And that's why each of us needs to grow up in Christ so that we can become producers rather than simply consumers. There's a lot more to say about that. I'll let that rest for the moment. Third implication of what Paul is talking about when he says, "Stand firm in the faith," is that we are called to stand shoulder to shoulder. Listen to what Paul says to the Philippians chapter 1 verse 27, similar language to what we've been talking about in our text this morning. He says, "Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you say it with me. Stand firm in one's spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel." Again, as I pointed out, the success of the Roman legion was their ability to stand together in the face of incredible opposition and simply sustain their position until the battle was won. And part of the tragedy of the Christian church over these 2,000 years is that often we've turned the guns on each other as opposed to standing together against the enemy that seeks to impose a whole different agenda on the world than what the Christian community stands for. I was reminded of that just incidentally this past week when Huntly Street was in the news. I don't know if you've heard that story, but Huntly Street has received over half a million dollars from the Canadian International Development Agency to help third world countries. In this case, they're using it to build wells and health facilities in the nation of Uganda. And they're doing that through a Uganda Christian organization, and this particular Christian organization on its website stated fairly categorically their opposition to the gay movement. Now understand that in the nation of Uganda, countless thousands of children are orphaned because of the plague of HIV/AIDS, and that is true for a lot of parts in Africa particularly. And so the Ugandanation has really gone on record to crack down on homosexual practices and activities to the degree that many other countries are extremely upset with them for a very black and white position. Somebody found out that this money was going to this particular organization and so the guns were turned on Huntly Street. Why is the government giving them half a million dollars to support this anti-gay organization in Uganda? And for a season this past week their money had been pulled because of the uproar that this created. I heard later on in the week that it had again been returned to them, but Huntly Street had to do some fast backpedaling to let the whole world know that even though philosophically and theologically they do not support the gay movement, that nevertheless they love gay folks like Christians are commanded to love their neighbor. But I'm using that as an illustration to show you how fragile Christian presence in the world is and how quickly we get overwhelmed by the pressure that comes against us and how important it is then for God's people to stand shoulder to shoulder. Now let's work that out a little bit in the time that remains for us this morning because that too has to get very practical. Standing shoulder to shoulder in the Christian community means first of all that we need to all be vigilant or watchful. Listen again how all of these scripture passages talk about watchfulness. Peter in that passage that we've often quoted talks about being self-controlled and alert. That's the passage where the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for somebody to devour. Paul says exactly the same thing in Ephesians 6 18, be alert, always keep on praying for all the saints. And then of course in the words of our text, 1 Corinthians 16 13, he says be on your guard. To be on guard, to be vigilant means you keep your eyes open to see where the enemy is active and what he is trying to do to undermine the solidity of the kingdom of God. I've said to you before Satan is no slouch. He is a very strategic fighter and he knows how to find your weaknesses. He is not so foolish as to throw his full force at places where you and I are thoroughly reinforced and where he knows we're going to stand. He doesn't mind testing us, he doesn't mind trying, but typically warfare is based on trying to find the weakness of the enemy. Remember these auxiliary troops that we talked about in terms of the Roman Legion? Their purpose was to take skirmishes against the enemy to find out where their defenses were the weakest so that they could go after those places and try to win. In the victory. And likewise the enemy in your life and in my life and both individually and all of us collectively is constantly prodding our defenses. The Roman Legion, the weakest link was the greatest point of vulnerability. And that is why every last one of us in community needs to put on the full armor of God because half the armor isn't going to do it. Most of us here have heard the phrase Achilles heel. How many have heard the phrase Achilles heel? Achilles, the story of Achilles heel is part of Greek mythology. And when Achilles was born as a baby, I don't know how else he'd be born, there was a prophecy that said he would die young. And so his mother had to dip him in the waters of the river Styx, S-T-Y-X. And that would make him immortal. But she had to hold on to the kid and so held on to his heel while she dipped him in the water. So there were two spots in his foot where he had not been covered with the magical waters of the river. And wouldn't you know it, as he grew up, became a very famous warrior in the myth, a poisoned arrow found one of those spots on his foot. And that is how he died. How many of us are not taken down in the battles of life because there is a place where our armor is not in place? How many of us become a liability to the greater community because we're careless about putting on the breastplate of righteousness or the belt of truth or the helmet of salvation or the sword of the spirit or the shield of faith or the shoes that we need to stand firm? We need to be vigilant and constantly be on guard against the wiles of the enemy. Secondly, we need to fill our space. And I like the way Romans chapter 12 puts it. Paul says, "Think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." And the earlier part of that verse says, "By the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you want with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith that God has given you." That's how we ought to think of ourselves. Sober judgment. And I've often thought when it comes to how we view ourselves, there are two extremes that we tend to fall into. Some of us think more highly of ourselves than we ought to. We think we are immune to temptation. We think we're pretty strong in the faith. And like Peter, you know, we make these bold declarations. Nobody's going to take me down. I love the Lord. I would never do that. Be careful. Because the Bible says, "Let anybody who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall." I don't care how strong you are. I don't care how mature you are. As I said the other week, if God were to allow the devil to turn his full cannons on you, there isn't a one of us that could outwit him or that could stand against him. That's how powerful he is. It's only the armor of God that keeps us standing. So that's one danger. We just think too highly of ourselves and we step, you know, we step into danger. We go into places where angels fear to tread. But there's another side too, isn't there? And that's the side where we minimize our own importance. Oh, I'm just poor little old me. I'm not educated. I'm not a strong Christian. I don't have the resources. I can't really make a contribution to the body of Christ because, well, I'm too busy. Too many other things that I need to attend to and on and on it goes. And it's very easy for this kind of a person to minimize his or her importance to the body of Christ because the body of Christ is us collectively. And it is as much the one talented Christian as it is the five talented Christian who makes the church succeed. So don't ever think you don't matter. The very fact that you're here week after week speaks volumes about the health of community. The fact that you bring your contribution, bring it into play whether it's the widow's might or whether it's a large sum of money makes a huge difference in terms of the strength and the undergirding that a community needs in order to accomplish the purposes of God. The fact that you attend a Bible study or the fact that you come to church with a good disposition and you smile. Do you know how powerful smiles are? You know what a difference it makes when you greet a stranger or a neighbor or your friend and you radiate the love of God all around you? Don't you ever underestimate the importance of what it is to be an individual believer even if you're a backmencher because not everybody can be in the government's cabinet and not everybody can be in the forefront of the army and doesn't need to be. But you can be at home rolling bandages. You can be at home writing letters to the troops. You can be at home saying God keep them safe, give them strength, help them to do what needs to be done. We all have to fill our space. I often say in civilian life if your shoe is untied it may not make much difference. You may trip and fall flat on your fanny. But if in the middle of the battle your shoe is untied and you go down, not only will you go down but so will the guy next to you. You've heard the saying for the want of a nail the shoe is lost. For the want of a shoe the horse is lost. For want of a horse the battle is lost. It's accumulative. You matter. And please don't ever forget that you do. Moving on just very quickly, implication number three, we have to cover each other. When you saw the phalanx isn't that a powerful picture of people covering each other? In fact in the early Greek phalanxes they would put family members together in the same group because they figured they would fight harder for each other than they would for a stranger. And I said my land that was brilliant thinking. How critical in the church that instead of exposing each other's shortcomings we cover them graciously. Scripture says bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another, forgive as the Lord forgave you. Ephesians 4.3, make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. Proverbs 79, he who covers over an offense promotes love. But whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. And when Corinthians 13, 6, and 7, love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God wants his people to cover each other. And that doesn't mean turning a blind eye to each other's sin. And that doesn't mean not holding each other accountable. But it means recognizing that we all live by the grace of God. And that we all have a vested interest in making sure we all prosper in the kingdom of God. How easy it is to point fingers. How important it is to look at our own lives. Very quickly then, moving along, it also means we need to care for the wounded. Two stories in the news this past week that caught my attention in that regard. The first story relates to the guy who claims to have been the shooter who killed Bin Laden. He's left the military. He's left the military four years short of receiving a full pension. And he is reportedly complaining in a newspaper article because health services had been declined to him because he left early. Be that as it may, it illustrates the point. The second story, we have 7,500 veterans in this country who have taken the federal government to court about suing them for $887 million for clawback pensions that they have not received. The Supreme Court is going to be ruling on that very shortly. And I'm not interested in getting into the particulars of who's right or who's wrong other than to say when the church is engaged in its mission, there's going to be casualties. Did you know that? People are going to get hurt. People are going to get shot out. And sometimes it will be their own stupidity because they didn't put their armor on. Sometimes it's just because they've been so far out front that the enemy snipers take the light in trying to bring them down. And the measure of a church is our ability to care for our wounded. Many of us remember Jimmy Swaggart's fall or Ted Haggart's fall or the fall of other prominent leaders in the Christian community and how easy it is to turn against them and to point fingers and to say, "Oh, I knew they were a bunch of hypocrites." But remember, but for the grace of God. But for the grace of God, that could be you. That could be me. We need to be a hospital where there is room for people to pull back from the action and recover. Did you notice in that video clip the brilliance of the Legion lineup where the guy in front, when he gets tired of fighting, he goes to the back of the line, he gets a chance to recover before he steps into the line all over again. That's the Christian community. Well, there's a whole lot more that I'd like to say about this. We need to honor, reward our soldiers and all of that kind of thing in the spiritual battle. What I want to do as we bring this service to a close is tell you the story of the hymn, "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus." We're going to be singing that very shortly. And it, together with other military style hymns, has fallen out of disuse in this day and age because we're uncomfortable with the soldierly notion of the church because it's been abused and misused so many times in the course of history. Fact of the matter is that Paul uses the analogy of soldier repeatedly. And as long as we understand that our war is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, then we can keep it all in perspective. But the year was 1858. The place was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There was an amazing move of God in that decade. So much so that a young Episcopalian, we'd call him Anglican preacher by the name of Dudley Ting, not only conducted his own Sunday services, but he began conducting midweek services at the YMCA. And on Tuesday, March 30 of that year, over 5,000 men gathered at a noonday meeting at which he spoke on the text from Exodus 10, 11, "Ye that are men, go and serve the Lord." It was a holy moment, a moment of visitation of God's Holy Spirit. A thousand people of that crowd were slain in the Spirit and gave their lives to Christ and to Christian service. One of the statements that Ting made during his message was this, "I must tell my masters errand, and I would rather that this right arm were amputated at the trunk than that I should come short of my duty to you in delivering God's message." Now those proved to be very fateful words because on Wednesday of that week, he was visiting a farm where a corn grinder was being operated by, I believe, an ox, and his robe got caught in the cogs. Any farmer can tell you if you're going to work around a piece of machinery that turns, do not wear loose clothing. It grabbed hold of his arm and literally tore it out at the shoulders. And as he lay dying due to loss of blood and injury, his friends and colleagues gathered around him as was the custom in those days to find out what his last words would be. And his last words to his family and friends in a whisper was this, "Let us all stand up for Jesus." And then he died. So the following Sunday, a close friend and fellow worker, the Reverend George Duffield, who pastored the Temple Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, preached his morning sermon in honor of his friend's dying comments from the text Ephesians 6-14, "Stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness." And at the end of his sermon, he quoted a poem that he had written in this context to celebrate his friend's death. And that poem we know of today as "Stand up, stand up for Jesus." I was intrigued to discover that in addition to the four verses that we typically sing, there are two additional verses. And I want to read those to you just as we bring this service to a conclusion. The first verse, you know, "Stand up, stand up for Jesus, you soldiers of the cross. Lift high his royal banner, it must not suffer loss. From victory unto victory his army shall he lead till every foe is vanquished and Christ is Lord indeed." Then verse two, I had never heard before. "Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the solemn watchword here. If while you sleep he suffers away with shame and fear. Wherever you meet with evil within you or without, charge for the God of battles and put the foe to rout." Then comes verse three, "The trumpet call obey for to the mighty conflict." And this is "Glorious Day." And another verse, but then this verse. And this is the one that really, really hit me in the context of standing shoulder to shoulder. "Stand up, stand up for Jesus, each soldier to his post. Close up the broken column and shout through all the host. May good the loss so heavy in those that still remain and prove to all around you that death itself is gain." Let me ask you this morning as we wind up this little mini series on spiritual warfare. What has the Lord spoken into your heart about the matters of which we have been speaking? Which piece of the armor hit you closest to home? What place of vulnerability or weakness has God by His Word or by His Spirit revealed? What resource in Christ has God laying before your eyes so that by faith you can put on the full armor of God? More than that, what challenge has He placed before you? What place of duty, what place of calling, what place of faithfulness, what place of standing shoulder to shoulder has He laid on you for you to rise into so that as a church we can go forward and do the work of God? Because remember, this isn't just about staff, this isn't just about counsel, this isn't just about leaders of Bible studies or people that do work teams together. This is about you and me. And the call on each of our lives is to lay hold of God's grace in Christ so that like a mighty army, we can not only remain standing, but we can carve out new territory for Jesus. Because there's a lot of people around us who don't know Him, and they're not going to know Him unless you and I are faithful to our calling and to our mission. And my prayer is that God will so baptize us by the power of the Holy Spirit that we cannot but speak and say of the things that we have seen [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:59:04.880; remove through 01:02:49.000] and heard. Amen. (Music) Listen up, Lord Jesus, He's soldiers of the cross. Lift high His royal banner. It must not suffer long. From victory unto victory, His army shall be made, Till ev'ry foe is hanged, And Christ His glory be. Stand up, stand up, Lord Jesus, The trumpet call of the way, For through the mighty conflict In His victorious day, The element now serve Him Against the numbered foes, With courage rise with danger, And strength to strength oppose. Stand up, stand up, Lord Jesus, Stand in His strength alone. The armor of the flesh will fail you, Beware not, trust your own. Put on the gospel armor, Teach us the way, Where duty calls for danger, Beware the wanting hand. Stand up, stand up, Lord Jesus, He's soldier to His foes, Most love the broken father, And shout through you, Make good the love so heavenly, In those that still remain, And prove to all around you, That death itself is made. Stand up, stand up, Lord Jesus, The strike will not fail you. Stand up, stand up, Lord Jesus, Stand in His strength alone. The armor of the flesh will fail you, Beware not, trust your own. Put on the gospel armor, Teach us the way, Where duty calls for danger, Beware not, trust your own. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 01:02:49.000; resume after this marked segment]