Opportunity Series

Opportunity

Ephesians Series

CCCAG 5-29-22

Scripture- Ephesians 5:15-18

When I went to ANOC, which is the school in the Army to qualify you for senior NCO ranks within your military specialty, they gave you a recommended reading list to enhance what they were teaching you. One of the books was called The Art of War by Sun Tzu, in which this ancient Chinese general who lived about 600 years before Jesus was born. Sun Tzu shared his philosophy about life and war. From that came a saying that I’ve always remembered-

In the Chinese language, the word crisis has two meanings. The first meaning agrees with our English way of understanding a time of potential danger or risk.

The other meaning is – a time of opportunity. Keep that in mind for a moment. I’m going to take a step back from the central message but then bring it all together in a moment.

The time I am writing this is Tuesday, 5:54 pm. It just came across the news wires that there was a horrific school shooting in Texas where (edited)19 children and two teachers were killed.

Let’s take a moment and pray for those families.

Again, the news just is reporting this now, but I’m going to make a few predictions- and I’m not using any information other than what I briefly read in a news article on the internet-

1. The shooter was well known to law enforcement.

2. He was mentally ill

3. Question of the legal status of the firearm he possessed. In this case- the pistol.

Given these facts, and the fact he already broke federal law by being within 1000 feet of a school with a firearm, the anti-freedom people will still call for additional laws and restrictions on those who would never use their right to keep and bear arms to harm anyone who wasn’t trying to harm them first.

But more laws won’t stop the next mass shooter. You can’t legislate away evil.

If you could- then Jesus didn’t need to come- we could have been perfected by simple obedience to the law, but the bible is very clear that we can’t be made perfect that way- humanity will always fail in this.

This tragedy showed us the following-

The kingdom of darkness understands how to wage war better than those who are in God’s kingdom. They never ever let a crisis go to waste to promote their agendas.

I was thinking about warfare and God and thought, “God really doesn’t need to even know warfare. After all, He is all powerful.

God’s smallest thought could send the entire universe into nothingness.

Snap- there goes creation. Done.

However the bible shows us that God’s favorite name for HIMself in the Old Testament is Yahweh Sabaoth- the LORD of Hosts.

That’s a military title. In our way of thinking today- that’s a grizzled old Army General sitting on top of an Abram’s tank growling, “Let’s go get them boys!”

So God knows and understands warfare, and he does expect us to understand a bit about warfare, but not so much warfare on this plane of existence- but in the arena of our true existence- which is the spiritual place of existence.

Here is an example of God telling us how to wage war on this plane-

2 Cor 10:3-6

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of 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.

What the bible is teaching us is that we need to become wiser in the way we conduct ourselves here. On this Memorial Day weekend- We need to start believing and living as if we are in a war.

It’s a war that has weapons

It’s a war that has an enemy that hates you

It’s a war that will have casualties.

And it’s a war that will determine your very survival- both in this life, and in the life to come.

Premise-

As Christians we have to treat this like a platoon of soldiers navigating a minefield with snipers in every tree- that’s our spiritual reality. We need to be very careful how we walk in today’s world.

At the beginning of the message, I talked about the Chinese word for crisis.

We are in crisis, but instead of trying to avoid the danger in the crisis, let’s use the crisis as an opportunity to show the World Jesus in our lives.

That brings us to our central verse for today-

Eph 5:15-18

15 Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish but understand what the Lord's will is.