©2005 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

08-14-05

Warfare God’s Way

8/14/05 Warfare God’s Way

EPH 6:13-17 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

For the past several months now

we have been involved in a study of a passage of Scripture

that is in every way

infinitely more relevant to our lives

and more practical in content

than anything you will find in this morning’s paper

or hear on the TV news this evening.

It is a handful of verses

found in the last chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians,

a section in which,

after revealing to us God’s design and purpose for His church

in the first five chapters of the book,

Paul then offers us what he calls “the armor of God”.

As we’ve moved through this study

we’ve seen him

preparing our minds for this life we’re called to live.

And he does that

by telling us that we are at war.

From the day we enter the family of God through faith in Christ,

until the day our King chooses to bring us home,

we are at war.

The war is real.

The enemy is real.

And the battles we fight each day matter more than we could ever imagine.

If you have listened to my teaching for any length of time,

one of the themes you have heard me teach repeatedly

is the way in which our God allots to each of His children

a sphere of influence perfectly matched to us

and to the work He is seeking to do through us.

He entrusts just a few people into our care,

people into whose lives

we have a significant impact for either good or for evil.

You see, it is always about people.

That is what God is doing.

And it is what He is seeking to do through us.

And whenever we loose sight of that understanding

our lives cease to make any sense.

This day each of us will impact the lives of each of those we come in contact with.

And whether we impact them for good or for evil

is the central theme

of the battle we will face this day.

If I could, in a single statement,

offer you what I believe to be

the highest calling being given to us by our God in this warfare surrounding us,

I would say it is to live with a passion for redemption

in the lives of those we encounter each day.

I mentioned last week

that every single day

every single person we meet

is, at some level, asking us to tell them who they are,

just as we are asking them the same question.

And the closer they are to us

the more powerfully their voice impacts us

and we impact them.

And each of them bring to their encounter with us

a whole lifetime full of wounds inflicted on them by Satan,

wounds designed to create within them deep doubts

about the nature or the reality of God’s love for them.

That is the warfare in which we live.

And then you, God’s child,

indwelt by His Spirit,

His chosen means through which the reality of God Himself

will now be revealed to this world,

you enter their life.

It may be just a single contact,

or it may be countless contacts over many years.

But with each of those contacts

the heart of our calling

is for us to become the means through which

they can taste at least of little of the redemptive work of God.

They already have within them

all of those wounds telling them

that God either isn’t there

or doesn’t care about them and their pain.

And our calling

is to offer them at least a tiny window into the truth -

the truth that their God loves them

as no one else has ever loved them before,

and that He longs to flood their spirits with healing,

and true freedom.

There are so many statements scattered throughout the gospel accounts

in which Christ just opened up His heart

and allowed us to see what was there,

statements like the one in John 10:10 where He said,

“The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.”

or the one in John 7:37-38 where John says,

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'"

or the one in Matthew 11:28-30 where He says,

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light."

They are statements that blast through all of the wounds

and all of the lies

and stir within the human spirit

a longing and a hunger

for redemption,

for healing,

for the Father God our spirits long for but have not dared believe could ever exist.

But here is the amazing thing,

the thing that places within our hands

both a tremendous potential power for good,

and the ability to become significant forces for true redemption

in the lives of those we encounter each day -

for, whenever we choose to act toward another person

in a way that is consistent with the way God Himself relates to them,

it stirs within their spirits

a hunger for God

and at the same time diffuses some of those lies about Him

that they have been told by the enemy.

I know I’m not saying this as well as I’d like to.

It’s just that I have been seeing some things recently

about these lies we are being told concerning our God,

and about the way in which God seeks to counter those lies through us,

and what I’m seeing is having a powerful affect on my own life.

You see, every single day

everyone of us lives in a swirl of messages coming at us

that attack who we really are in the sight of God

and how He relates to us.

They are messages that come at us

through the people around us,

through circumstances in our lives,

through things taking place in our physical bodies,

through memories of the past and fears of the future.

They are messages that say,

“You have no value.”,

or “You’re too young... or you’re too old...or you don’t look right...or you’re dumb...or you really don’t matter.”

“If you were more like your brother...

if you were more like your sister...

if you could run faster,

or think more quickly on your feet,

or do Algebra in you head,

or draw pretty pictures...

if you just looked like that person on TV,

or just sounded like the person on the radio,

then you would have value.”

And most people

live most of their lives assaulted daily by such messages.

And even though such messages can and often do cause tremendous pain,

we continue on,

and our spirits keep listening for some other voice,

some other message that will counter the attacks.

We do

because deep within our spirits

we each know the truth -

the truth that, no matter what anyone else says about us,

we truly do have tremendous eternal value and significance.

I am utterly amazed

at the resilience of the human spirit,

at the amount of abuse and lies many people endure

and yet still they persevere with courage and determination

because they bare within their spirits the image of God,

and they know they truly do have eternal worth.

During the early years of our marriage

Sandee and I managed several apartment complexes in Kenai and Soldotna.

Part of our responsibilities included cleaning vacated units.

I remember coming across a piece of paper in one of those units

that touched me deeply when I read what was written on it.

It was printed in a child’s awkward grade school lettering and it read,

“I know I have value because God don’t make no junk.”

That truth is engraved into our spirits

by God Himself.

And even though so many of the voices we hear each day

seem to reject and deny that truth,

whenever we bump up against some dissenting voice around us,

some voice that responds to us

with dignity and respect and kindness,

in the most remarkable way

it stirs within us both hope

and, at some level, I believe a hunger for God Himself.

Sandee and I are currently involved in a remodeling project in our loft area.

It began when Sandee thought it might be time to take down the old wallpaper

and paint the walls.

But, for those of you who have gone through such projects,

you know how they do tend to mushroom on a person.

I knew we were definitely into the mushrooming affect

when I found myself on my hands and knees,

razor knife in hand,

slicing up and removing the 20+ year old carpet we’ve had up there

and Sandee and I began joking

about how many hundreds of dollars

this can of paint was going to end up costing us.

But I mention this

because at one point in the project

we made a quick run to the store

to actually buy a can of paint.

When we got to the paint desk

there were several people waiting for service ahead of us

and one employee behind the counter

who was clearly having some kind of major problem

with the automated system that was suppose to tint the paint for him.

I was pretty sure from his level of confusion

that he was fairly new in the paint department,

and clearly over his head.

I don’t know, of course, but I also had the impression

that he was a fellow who had probably received very little affirmation in his life.

My first impulse when I got there

was to find some way to put some added pressure on the fellow

with the hope of getting faster service.

But earlier that day

I had just written these words

that I then shared with you last week.

“Every single day

every single person you meet

is, at some level, asking you to tell them who they are,

just as you are asking them the same question.

And there is simply no way to overstate

the significance of our influence - either for good or for evil -

in the lives of those we interact with each day.

It is central to all that’s happening

in this warfare over our discovery of the love of our God

that we are involved in.”

I knew what I’d written was true,

and I knew it applied to my contact with this fellow

just as much as it applied to every other relationship in my life.

So, instead of attacking him,

I started joking with him about computerized systems,

and about paint,

and found some ways of affirming him

for his handling well what must at times be a very frustrating job.

We got our paint and left.

Paint is a tricky thing, of course,

and after painting several walls with the color we’d selected

we realized that what looks good on a little swatch

may look very different on a whole wall.

So several days later I was once again back at the paint department

ordering yet another shade of green.

The clerk who had helped me before was there once again,

and when he looked up and saw me

the first thing he said was, “I know you!”,

and then his face just lit up.

Joni and Matt,

our daughter and son-in-law,

have been going through prolonged frustrations

dealing with their insurance company

in trying to get approval for some medical attention for our grandson, Matty.

What should have taken just a few days

dragged on for weeks.

But there was one lady in the mix

who understood their frustration

and stayed with the mess until it was finally resolved.

When it was all over

Matt and Joni bought her a small box of See’s candy

and some flowers

and dropped them off at her office.

When they brought them in and gave them to her

Joni said the lady started crying.

Now why did she respond so strongly

to such a relatively small act of kindness?

Because she, like the rest of us, is under attack.

All day long

she receives messages that attack her at the spirit level,

messages that tell her she’s living a life that doesn’t matter

and has a God who doesn’t care.

And there are times in our lives,

especially times when those attacks are causing pain, or loneliness, or isolation,

or a sense of abandonment within our spirits,

when any voice around us

that counters those lies

can have a powerful affect on us.

It can literally become a lifeline of hope for our spirits.

Now, the two examples I’ve shared here

are both situations in which our contacts with the other person

were both brief and superficial.

But the intensity of our impact on the lives of others

increases in direct proportion to the amount of our exposure to them

and the significance of our position in their lives.

Our marriage partner,

our children,

our grandchildren,

our work colleagues,

our neighbors,

our employees...

all of these relationships

bring tremendous potential for us to either confirm or deny

the true nature of our God.

And what I see our God calling us to

is a radically different way

of thinking about the relationships we encounter each day.

Left to ourselves,

without the transforming work of the Spirit of God within us,

we all develop for ourselves

our own survival techniques in our relationships.

Some of us become dominant and aggressive,

blasting those who get in our way,

or developing highly refined manipulation techniques for getting others to do what we want.

Some of us survive by becoming passive or submissive,

avoiding conflicts at all costs.

Some learn to survive on the basis of their intellect,

or their appearance,

or their skills in some specialized area,

or their charismatic personality,

or their sense of humor, and on and on.

But left to ourselves

we will just naturally cling to whatever survival skills we have tried and found effective.

But when we come to our God

He begins talking with us

about a radically different approach

to every one of our human relationships.

After telling us that we are now the means through which

the Spirit of God Himself will express the reality of God to the world,

He then tells us

that we fulfill that role

through relating to others

in ways that reflect the true nature of God Himself.

And even that is making it more complicated than He does.

He says simply,

JOH 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

And,

MAT 22:37-40 And He said..., "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

Whenever we act in love toward another person

we mirror to them truth about God

and at the same time diffuse some of the power

of the lies being communicated by Satan to that person

through the wounds he is inflicting on their lives.

What is it we’re here for, folks?

Is it really so that we can carve out for ourselves

some tiny piece of “the good life”?

Will that quiet that churning withing your soul?

Will it bring you the peace with yourself that you long for?

Will it cause your spirit to then overflow with joy?

I will tell you what our God says we are here for

and what He says will bring the fulfillment in life for which we hunger.

It is our discovering the reality of the love of our God for us through Christ,

and then rediscovering His love each day through a faith that silences the lies and the wounds they bring,

and then through reflecting His love to others

as we act toward them

in ways that are consistent with the way our God acts toward us.

There was a time in my Christian life

when I lived with a concept of “witnessing”

that was little more than the presentation of a religious formula for how to “receive Christ”.

Now, I know that with everyone of us,

God is seeking to bring us to a point in our lives

when we truly do bow before Him through simple faith and submission to Christ.

When I got down on my knees in that dorm room in 1966

and told my God if He wanted my life He could have it,

it was literally my first critical step into the kingdom of God.

And there have been times in the years since then

when I have realized that I have been with a person

at a point when they were able to hear that call of God in their own life.

And I have said to them,

“My friend, you must choose to place your life into His hands.”

But that is a very tiny part

of what it really means for us to witness to the reality of our God.

Most of it is done

through our doing what our God asked us to do -

through our acting in love toward each person we meet

each day we live.

When we do

we proclaim to them

the reality of the source of all love - Christ Himself.

And in the most remarkable way

the Spirit of God

takes that tiny reflection of Himself

that we offer to them

and He amplifies it in their lives

in ways that go far beyond anything we would ever anticipate.

In the summer of 1977

I spent one week helping out at a Bible camp.

During that week I noticed and then showed just a little kindness and friendship

to a very wild and confused young camper.

When camp ended

I never saw him again.

Six or seven years later

our phone rang

and it was that same boy, now a young man dealing with some critical issues in his life

and asking for my help.

When he hit a point in his life

at which he desperately needed guidance

from someone he knew he could trust,

look what he did.

He mentally sifted through all the relationships from his past

and found one in which he knew he’d been loved and affirmed.

And that’s where he went for help.

You see,

there are no such things

as small acts of kindness.

Every time we act toward another person

in a way that reflects to them the image of our God

it is quite simply huge.

And it takes on a significance in their life

far beyond the significance of the act itself.

There was a passage in 2 Corinthians that says what I’m trying to say here so well.

I was going to amplify on it

but I’ve run out of time

so I think I’ll just read it in conclusion without comment.

2CO 2:14-17 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.

Next week we’ll return to our armor study

and take a look at the second layer

of that breastplate of righteousness.