Called Soldiers Creed Ephesians 6:12 Pastor Ryan Heller For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12 (NLT) Spiritual Soldiers Creed 1. I WILL LIVE IN GOD S POWER We are human, but we don t wage war as humans do. We use God s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (NLT) And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Matthew 16:18-19 2. I WILL ENDURE HARDSHIP Endure suffering along with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 2:3-4 (NLT) 3. I WILL STAY FOCUSED Soldiers don t get tied up in the affairs of civilian life, for then they cannot please the officer who enlisted them. 2 Timothy 2:4 (NLT) Called- Soldiers Creed Page 1 of 9
Welcome to Edge Church. A couple of weeks ago, my nine-year-old boy talked me into taking him to the Dart Wars Arena here in Centennial. I don't know if you guys have ever been over Dart Wars, but it's a fantastic place. It's better than paintball. It's better than laser tag, Dart Wars and you bring your own weapons, and they provide all of the darts. My little boy loaned me his Battle Scout Uzi. Is that incredible or what? Look at that thing. Would you be intimidated if I was running after you with this bad boy? It was awesome. I walked into the little arena that was set up and I thought, "Oh, my goodness. I got this." It was like every 7, 8, and 9-year-old boy in town was there and I was like, "I'm going to pick him off, and him off, and him off, and him off, and him off." What I didn't realize at the time was that the arena was actually designed for people 5 feet and down. I'm 6 foot one, so hiding behind all of the barricades left me rather exposed, and being the only dad that was playing, it just made the other team just want me even more. They're like, "We're going for the dad." Every time I would try to crouch down behind a barrier or lay down or whatever, I would get pinged. I think I died like every game. It was pathetic. It was so sad. I couldn't understand what the rules were because there were so many kids that were screaming. My gun kept jamming because I'm not really a seasoned Nerf warrior and, so... It just felt like every time that I was advancing a little bit, some little kid would jump out of a crack or a crevice and ping me with his little pistol. I was greatly disappointed. It was really hard. I need to go back and experience some more Dart Wars, but I was thinking this week about the passage I wanted to talk about today, and it reminded me that we live in a battle zone. There are bullets that are flying past our head. There are attacks. There is a vicious enemy. His name is the devil, and that we live in a spiritual battle zone. All of us are engaged in a spiritual battle. The spiritual battle began when the devil and all of his minions were kicked out of Heaven. Then, it escalated when Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Ever since then, there has been a major, major battle that is going on. There's a battle that's going on in your life today. See, the problems that you have are not just physical, but oftentimes, they're spiritual and the Scripture challenges us this morning to meet spiritual problems with spiritual answers and not just physical problems. Ephesians 6:12 says this, "For we do not fight against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world against mighty powers and in the dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places." Now, we've been in a series called The Called series, and in this series we've been talking about this great gift that God has given to us, called the church. In fact, the word church in the language of the New Testament is a word that means, to be called out. As a church, we are the called out ones. We are called out of this world to do something great for God. To stand out, to be called out and in week one we talked about how the church is a body, and we have all these different parts, and all the different parts of the body work together, and they cooperate, and they coordinate together. Therefore, there is life and there is health in the body, and the church is a body. It's a beautiful picture of the church. Last week, we talked about how the church is a family. The Scripture tells us that as well that we have mothers, and fathers, and brothers, and sisters and that the church is a family. We Called- Soldiers Creed Page 2 of 9
encourage each other. We love each other. We support each other because we're family. But, if we only understand that the church is a family and a body, but we fail to understand that the church is a marching army, we will have a distorted viewpoint of what the church is all about. So, today I want to wrap up this series by talking about the army of God because the church is an army. The church is an army. We're marching in sync with Jesus Christ to accomplish the mission that He has put before us. Every soldier in the U.S. Army memorizes the soldier's creed and I want to read part of that to you. It'll make you feel very patriotic. Let me read this: I am an American soldier. I am a warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States and live the Army values. I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat. I am an American soldier. Wow! And every soldier memorizes that when they enlist in the Army. In a similar fashion, God has given us a soldier's creed that we have in our spiritual life. I want to give you three things related to that soldier's creed. That soldier's creed. Sometimes we think, well the church is here for peace and tranquility and charity and love. And, certainly that is part of it, but that's not all. God has a mission at hand before us, and we can only understand that mission if we understand that we are soldiers in the army of a mighty, mighty God. Look at this, first of all, spiritual soldiers say this: I will live in God's power. 1. I WILL LIVE IN GOD S POWER God's power is necessary to win spiritual battles. You can't win a spiritual battle by physical means. We win spiritual battles by doing spiritual warfare, not physical warfare. There is a difference, and there are so many spiritual battles that we're involved in. People always say, well, what's a spiritual battle? I mean, what is a spiritual battle? Spiritual battles take place in the mind. Your mind is the battleground in which those spiritual battles take place. Second Corinthians says it. I'll show you that in just a moment. But, feelings of fear can be a spiritual battle. You know if you wake up every morning and you're afraid, and you're uptight, and you're nervous, and you're scared that's a spiritual battle. It's a spiritual battle. If you live in a constant state of discouragement that can be a spiritual battle. That can be a spiritual battle because the mind is the battleground. Now, if you were the devil, and I know you're not the devil but if you were the devil, where would you attack a person? The attacks come in the mind because we can't do anything that doesn't come through the mind first. Right? I mean, if you're going to do something, it has to come through here, so he attacks in the mind. We have to change our thought patterns. We have to change the way that we think, so we have to replace these feelings of anxiety, and fear, and uncertainty with the Word of God and with the truth. Some of us today, the stronghold in your life may be just no way thinking. There's no way I can overcome this problem. There's no way I can save this marriage. There is no way that I can make a difference. There's no way, no Called- Soldiers Creed Page 3 of 9
way, no way, no way, no way. If we begin to tell ourselves that over and over and over and over again it can suck the spiritual life out of us and the Scripture says that the devil actually builds a stronghold there. What is a stronghold? A stronghold is a fortress in which the enemy has influence over your thinking. You see, when we begin to think thoughts that are not of God, the enemy comes in and he builds a little tent. Then he builds a 3-bedroom house, and then he builds a mansion, and then he builds a fortress, and then he builds a city. We've got to demolish those things. We've got to take those things down because if that city or that mansion is rooted in our mind, it distorts all of our thoughts, and how are we going to serve God? You see some of us today, as a soldier of Jesus Christ God is saying to some moms, I will not let the devil have influence in my family. He's saying to some husbands, and some dads, I will not let strongholds rule in this home. I'm a soldier and I'm going to operate in the power of Almighty God. It's with all that in mind that the Apostle Paul said in Second Corinthians 10:3-5, "We are human, but we don't wage war as humans do. We use God's mighty weapons, not worldly weapons to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments." Then in verse 5, "We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God and we capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ." So, we've got to tear some things down and we've got to build some things up, and a stronghold is that area where we're just held prisoner by our thoughts, by our emotions, and by our feelings. To beat the devil, we have to use spiritual weapons. Now, what are our spiritual weapons? Let me just give you a few. One is praise and we just sang some awesome praise songs didn't we? Some songs of praise. Amazing the reason that we put the words on the screen is because we want you to think about what we are singing. You see, when you sing words like that, what are you doing? You're putting your mind on the things of God and you're being reminded that... and I love to give God praise, but sometimes I need to remind myself how big God is. You know? I know God enjoys the praises of His people, but I know it blesses me, too. So, praise is a powerful weapon because praise takes our focus off of my problems and puts them on the bigness of God. So, if I'm going to destroy and demolish the strongholds of the enemy, I've got to be a person of praise. What about prayer? Ephesians chapter 6 says, pray always. The way that we wage spiritual battle is not with Nerf guns. It's with the prayer. It's with the Word of God. We need prayer. You will never be a victorious soldier in the army of God if you don't have a prayer life. It doesn't work that way. The Word of God is truth, see. Whenever we study the Scripture, whenever we meditate on Scripture, whenever we think about the Scripture what happens is the truth begins to take root in our life and light begins to be shed on the darkness and the darkness is pushed out; and we begin to walk in the light because our mind is focused on the light. So, we need the Word of God, don't we? We need more of the Word of God in our lives. Prayer, praise, worship the Word of God and faith. Called- Soldiers Creed Page 4 of 9
Ephesians 6 says that the shield of faith is able to quench all of the fiery darts of the enemy. See, when we begin to walk down that path of worry, and uncertainty, and fear we need to be reminded about how great God is and it's like a big shield before us. A big shield, so we've got to tear down these strongholds and tear down these things. Tear down that base of operation. We can have so many personal strongholds. We can have church strongholds, and personal strongholds, ways of thinking that are so destructive. Materialism, I've got to have more and maybe the devil has an influence in your life because you feel like that you never have enough. Racism can be a stronghold. It's a way of thinking. It's destructive. It's a sinister thought pattern and it leads to pain and destruction. Pride can be a personal stronghold. We've got tear that down. How do we do it? We bring prayer. We bring the Word of God. We bring light into the darkness. Churches can have strongholds. Church thinking. Some people think, "You know what? I've got a friend and they will never come to church and never accept Jesus. Never, never, never, never." Or, "God could never use me to help them." That's a stronghold. It's not true. Some people have a stronghold when they say, "You know what? I can't give. I can't be generous. Other people can do that, I can't do that." That's a stronghold. That's not true. Let's replace error with truth. God can't use me. Wrong. God can use you. God will use you, and it's time that we get our mind in order because there's a battlefield for the mind. The mind is mission control of your life. So, what are we thinking about? What are we thinking about? What's going into the mind? What's going into the mind? Jesus spoke about this, the mindset of a church in Matthew 16, verse 18, He said this, "And, I tell you that you are, Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell, the gates of hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven." Sometimes, Christians have defensive attitudes and postures. We kind of think, " The devil's coming after me. I just need to hunker down here with the shield of faith, and just kind of endure it." I love Matthew 16 because Jesus says, "I will build my church," in other words there is progress, right? This is offensive. I will build my church and He says, "and the gates of hell won't prevail against it." Now, that doesn't mean that we don't lose some battles, but it means that when we lose a battle we know we're going to get back up because we're going to win the war. That's why every Christian should have a little bit swag. You're a soldier in the Army... You're on the winning team. Amen? I mean, it's one thing if you play on a losing team. It's another thing if you play on a winning team. Winning teams have a confidence about them. Right? They do. We play on the winning team and God is the one that's building the Church. So, we need to not just hunker down in the fetal position and just pray for the second coming of Jesus. We need to be advancing the mission of Jesus because Jesus is building the church, and God said, I will build the church, but I'm going to give you the keys of the Kingdom. Called- Soldiers Creed Page 5 of 9
You see, when we put God's sovereignty and human beings responsibility together, we've got a powerful dynamic combination. There are some things that only God can do and there are some things that only we can do. When we're faithful to the things that God has put before us, we know He's going to be faithful to do the things that He's about. Boom! That's when the church begins to grow. That's when the church begins to take real estate away from the devil. That's when the mission of the church begins to explode. Well, Jesus said, I'm going to build my church. I don't care what city you live in. I don't care how many people say they believe in God or not. I don't care how many people are into the new age or witchcraft or whatever. I will build my church. And, God is in the business of building, building, building, building, building. Advancing, advancing, advancing. Edge Church is marching, marching, marching, marching, marching. Taking ground, taking ground away from the enemy and advancing the mission of Jesus. That's why we don't have to be afraid. That's why we don't have to be afraid because God is building His church. God is building His church and we're playing offense around here. We are throwing the football all over the field is what we're doing. We're moving. We're moving. We're moving. We're marching with God. A soldier's creed also says this, I will endure hardship. 2. I WILL ENDURE HARDSHIP Now, the Apostle Paul wrote to his disciple Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 3, "Endure suffering along with me as a good soldier of Jesus." In other words, if you're a soldier of Jesus, you have to endure hardships. A lot of people today think they're going to be a follower of Jesus and life is just automatically going to become super easy. But, when you enlist in the Lord's army, you've got to go to basic training. You've got to go to boot camp. I was talking with somebody who'd been to boot camp. They said it's not a pleasant place. Some of you have been to boot camp. Soldiers don't sit around and drink soda, and eat candy, and watch movies at boot camp. They fight. They march. They go without sleep and without food and shelter. They beat your brains out. Why are they doing that? So you can become strong. Do you become strong by sitting around playing video games? You become a warrior by fighting. And, the same is true in the Lord's army. The only way you can be strong is to fight, and the only way we learn to fight is to go through hardship. Now, we don't like this. I don't think anybody's been to boot camp and said, "This was awesome. Loved this." If you knew you were going to be deployed to Afghanistan or the Middle East or somewhere in the next few months, what would you be... training your brains out. T=You'd be over at Crossfit 3 times a day, wouldn't you? You'd be getting ready. Listen, you are in a battle, and that's why spiritually, we've got to get in shape because we're in a battle. We're in a war zone. We're in a war zone that requires maximum attention and focus in our lives. We have to endure that hardship. The devil does not attack weak people. He attacks strong people. Did you know that? The reason you're going through all the stuff that you're going through today is not because you're weak. It's because you're strong and he's Called- Soldiers Creed Page 6 of 9
trying to take your kneecaps out because you are strong. He's working... Listen, if you're weak, the devil doesn't have to worry about you. He's like, she's nothing. I'm more worried about him. I'm more worried about her. So see, you're strong today. You're strong in the Lord, and you're strong in the Lord and the power of His might. See, that's why you're strong. It's not just because you're good looking and intelligent, and know the right people. You're strong because God is in you. God is with you. God is for you. That's why you have vitality and strength, and that's why you're strong. And, if you're a soldier of Jesus Christ, you're a warrior. Now, notice he says here in 2 Timothy chapter 2, he says, "Endure suffering along with me as a good, say it with me, soldier. Right. He doesn't say, you're a poet of Jesus Christ. He doesn't say you're an artist of Jesus Christ. He doesn't say you're a computer programmer of Jesus Christ. He doesn't say you're a philosopher of Jesus... You are a soldier. You're a warrior and when you're a warrior, you have to have a warrior mentality. A warrior mentality. We've got to fight. We've got to fight, and fight, and fight, and fight, and fight. That's how we do. We endure hardship, and when we endure hardship we become warriors. You know? You can tell people who are like soldiers, like legitimate bona fide soldiers. We live in a military town, don't we? Those people from Buckley Air Force base, some of you guys are from Buckley Air Force base. I can tell by your biceps, you know? When guys walk into the church and they have the haircut and the biceps, I'm like I know what you do. I don't even need to ask. You know? Do we look like soldiers? Do we have a soldier mentality? Are we ready to fight? Are we ready to do warfare on our knees, and to take ground for God? To do great things for God? We have to endure the hardship to get there. The reason that you're working in that office with all those crazy people is because God's teaching you patience. How bout that? The reason you're going through financial difficulty's, God's teaching you faith. See? See how that works? You're becoming a... Your muscles are getting bigger, okay? So, you can do warfare. See what's great is that as you grow in Christ and you get stronger, and you get more endurance in your life the problems you've got today, 3 years from now will be like, aw, that was nothing. But, right now it feels like you're about to drown. You're like, "I don't know if I can take this anymore. I'm at my limit. I'm overloaded." But, God's building you up. You know? It's just like when you went to boot camp and you could only do 2 pushups. You left boot camp you could do 100 pushups, you know? You have to start where you are and you're a soldier. Soldiers also have a focus about them and part of the soldier's creed is staying focused. I will stay focused. 3. I WILL STAY FOCUSED Look back at 2 Timothy 2:4, "Soldiers don't get tied up in the affairs of civilian life, for they cannot please the officer who enlisted them. You've got to stay focused. Called- Soldiers Creed Page 7 of 9
Your attention can't be diverted. I'm a soldier. I'm a Christian. I have to be focused on certain things. There are certain sins I can't get involved in because I'm a soldier and I'm under the command of God and I have soldier business to take care of, and if I'm not doing that... If I'm doing that, I can't be a soldier. In the Roman world, if you were a soldier, you were someone who was exclusively a warrior. You didn't moonlight. You didn't do part-time. They didn't have Army Reserves and stuff like that. You were in the army you fought. You don't worry about planting seeds. You don't worry about herding cattle. You don't worry about selling vegetables at the market. You are a soldier. This is what the Apostle is saying to Timothy. He's saying listen, there's just some things when you're a soldier you don't have time for that stuff. I believe the greatest distraction in our life may not be our sins. It may be things that are good things to do, but they just distract us. Hobbies are a real good thing, aren't they? A lot of us have hobbies. I hope you have a hobby. Hobbies are good things. But, listen if all of your attention gets focused on your hobby and you do that all the time and you think about your spiritual life 2 minutes a day, are you a soldier? You can't do it. Some people are so into working out, they spend hours working out. They spend 2 seconds thinking about God and they wonder why is their butt getting kicked in the spiritual realm. You're a warrior. You can't do that. It's true with work. Work is a good thing. I hope you do a lot of work. I hope you're really successful in what you do, but your life is not all about work. You have a walk with God. You have a spiritual life, and if you come to church and you're making lists of all the things you've got to do when you get to the office, guess what. Your focus can't be on God. That's why Paul's saying to Timothy, don't get sucked into civilian matters. That's how civilians think. That's how everybody else thinks, but you're not a civilian. You're different. You're a warrior, and when you're a warrior you have different priorities. You have different goals. You have different agendas. You have different perspectives. You have different focuses in your life. Different focuses. So that means I have to say no to some things so I can say yes to what's most important. Are you saying no to some things so you can be a warrior? So that you can be strong? The soldier's creed says I will always put the mission first. The mission, the mission of the Christian life is rescuing souls. It's seeing people come to Christ. That's why we're so pumped about Easter weekend because Easter weekend will be one of those weekends where we will see, perhaps, the most people come to Christ that we see in a whole year on one particular weekend. But, that can't happen if the soldiers, if the infantry is not out doing the work, inviting people to come in and to hear this message. That's why I'm challenging you to come next weekend, but to bring a row of people not to bring like one or 2 people, but bring as many people as possible to take those cards, and invite, and invite, invite because you're a soldier. Now, I know other people aren't doing that, but they're not you and you're a soldier. That's why you're different. So, we've got to do soldier stuff, soldier activity serving in the church. That's why we give generously here at Edge Church because we want the army to be equipped. What good is an army if they don't have any weapons? What good is an army if they can't do Called- Soldiers Creed Page 8 of 9
anything, right? So, our finances are a big part of helping the mission advance. Jesus says I will build a church. I will build a church. I'm going to give you keys of the Kingdom, but I want you to remember. I'm going to build the church and there's bullets that are whizzing by our heads. There are attacks that are coming from unexpected places, but God's going to build His church and He's looking for soldiers that will say, "I will live in God's power. I will endure hardship, and I will stay focused on the things of God." Let's pray together. Called- Soldiers Creed Page 9 of 9