With the opening of the Redskins season only a few days away, I really do need to get something straight, and I thought maybe I could get some help this morning. There is a rule of thumb, a maxim of football strategy, and I cannot figure out how it goes. I need some help.
Is it that the best offense is a good defense, or is it that the best defense is a good offense? I know it has to be one or the other of these two rules, but for the life of me I can I t figure it out.
Is it that the best offense is a good defense -- that the best way to win the game is to keep the other side all bottled up so that they can’t score? That makes some sense. Maybe that’s it -- the best offense is a good defense.
Or maybe it’s supposed to be that the best defense is a good offense -- that you win the game by staying in charge, by running up the score, by keeping the other team too busy trying to contain you, so that they don’t have time to score. That makes sense too.
So can I get some help? How many of you think the rule is, "The best offense is a good defense?"
All right, now how many of you think it is the other way around, "The best defense is a good offense"?
And how many of you thought you knew which way it was until I asked the question?
I
Well, if we can’t get it clear, maybe that speaks about a whole lot more than football.
He sat in his prison cell, trying to do from confinement what he had done while free. He felt the chains of prison deeply, not only as restraints on his arms and legs, but more as restraints on his fighting spirit. He had been so active, so tireless. He had the kind of personality which, when it takes on a task, does not give up easily. Even when he was wrong, he went at it with a fury. And when he was right and knew he was right, no man could match his boundless energy, his blazing zeal, and his deathless courage.
And so it was hard, painfully hard, to sit in a prison cell and think about all that needed to happen, all the things he had started, but which now needed more attention, all the disasters that might fall on the enterprises he had begun. How hard to sit idly by and be constrained when there is so much to do and so much at stake!
And so he did what he could, pitifully limited though it might seem. He took pen in hand and began to write: letters of instruction, words of encouragement, admonitions, counsel, ideas. If he could not be present with the work he had started, at least he could try to instruct others how to proceed. If he could not direct the task in person, at least he could mail out blueprints for others to follow.
But what to say and how to say it? Where were the words to communicate, where were the images to speak what needed to be spoken? He looked up from the tiny desk the warden had provided, peered across the room at the guard, and put down what he saw. It became a manual of arms for those he wanted to instruct:
Ephesians 6:10-20
Which is it now? Offense gives you defense or defense gives you offense? One answer is: it’s both. It’s both.
Listen again: Take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand … to withstand … that’s defense … to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand … stand … that’s offense.
The great Apostle Paul, in a Roman prison, saw in the uniform of his guard soldier a picture of what we as Christians are going to need in order to be what God has called us to be in the world. And he saw both defense and offense.
Interlocking, interdependent, like a horse and carriage, you can’t have one with the other.
I
Paul would say to us, first, you do need to have that good defense. The best offense is a good defense. You need to know that you are engaged in a battle that is more than what it seems on the surface. You are engaged in a battle with the forces of evil, with the cunning of the evil one. We are dealing, says Paul, not with mere flesh and blood, but with the wily strategies of evil, and you are no match for that by yourself.
So put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand.
When you catalog the things we are up against, you have to admit that they do seem superhuman, they do seem to be more than merely flesh and blood. I am not one who is much given to evil-theories. I do not run around blaming everything negative that happens on Satan. But I do recognize that the forces of destruction mounted against God’s people are enormous and powerful and driven by something that seems more horrible than the human heart could devise on its own.
When you begin to read about international drug cartels, made up of corrupt politicians, billionaire businessmen, ruthless military leaders, and a lengthening chain of hit-men, then you know you are up against something more than mere human connivance. You are up against what Paul calls the principalities, the powers, the world rulers of this present darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
And who are we against all that? This means we must be on the defensive. This means we must be well-equipped to protect ourselves against all that would destroy us. This means there are things we must be ready to withstand.
And so Paul reminds us that our gracious God has provided us with defensive equipment, with armor well suited to keep us; some of the pieces of equipment Paul saw on his guard are clearly defensive items.
He looked up and saw the soldier’s belt, for example, and spoke of having our loins girded with truth … knowledge to know how life should be lived in order to end confusion in our own minds. The belt was there to organize the rest of the soldier’s equipment.
He looked up at his guard’s stern face and saw him wearing a helmet, and for the apostle the helmet became a metaphor of salvation -- that God has given the gift of salvation, that even though it may seem that you go down in defeat, in the end our God has protected us, protected our minds and our souls with the gift of salvation, which no one, not even Satan himself, can take away.
And then, over in the corner, leaning up against the wall, Paul saw the great battle shield -- a huge thing, made of ox-hide and bronze, in layers, heavy, but most effective against what the soldiers of his day considered the ultimate weapon -- burning arrows. And Paul said, the shield you will need is faith: faith in the victory of God, faith that God in his power will not let you down, faith and courage that the risen Christ has already won this battle for you.
Take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand, in the evil day.
And that is important: to withstand. To withstand the temptation to go with the side that looks cool and powerful and wealthy. To withstand the path of least resistance and lose your integrity. To withstand the siren song of those who would say, "There is no God, and if there is, He is powerless to hurt you; come on, do your thing, you’re only young once." It is important to use the weapon of truth against falsehood, to use the weapon of security against false popularity, to wield the shield of faith against the apparent attraction of the gaudy.
It is important to have a good defense. Maybe that is the best offense.
II
But I must speak for the other side of this truth. I must speak for the need for a good offense as the best defense. I must speak for the other weapons in the arsenal which God supplies. I must speak not only for withstanding but also for standing.
You see, what we Christians have done too often is to define ourselves by what we do not do, by what we stay clear of. Too often we have described ourselves as good or good enough if we kept away from things which were obviously unworthy.
You know, the kind of Christian who could describe himself as "I don’ t smoke, don’t drink, don’t chew, above all don’t go with girls who do."
The only trouble is, when you have built and protected your purity, what have you done with it other than to keep your own skirts clean? When you have withstood, when all you did was to defend, then what gain was there? What benefit was there?
Take the whole armor of God -- the whole armor -- offensive, and aggressive equipment as well as defensive equipment; and withstand, yes, of course, but having done all, stand.
Stand at attention and hear the Lord’s cry forward.
Stand up and be ready to march forward and claim new ground.
But stand.
If you have heard the hymns we’ve been singing today, every one of them has used the imperative, "stand". "Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross" "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand" "Standing on the promises I cannot fail" -- and by the way, standing on the promises is not the same thing as sitting on the premises!
You see, it is not just what you withstand, it is also where you take a stand, what you stand for, what you stand up to.
The world knows pretty well by now what Christians are against. But we have not done enough or said enough about what we are for.
We are not using effectively enough God’s whole armor, and especially the offensive weapons in the arsenal. Look up again at that soldier standing in Paul’s cell; what else does he wear?
Paul says, put on the breastplate of righteousness; and that word “righteousness” has a long history in the Bible. It means a whole lot more than personal moral purity. It means justice, it means being there for the oppressed people of this world. To wear the breastplate of righteousness is to take a stand for a world in which justice for the poor and the oppressed has a chance.
And put on your feet the sandals, the gospel of peace. Not some namby-pamby, peace-in-the-valley kind of peace, but the peace that marches forward aggressively. When Paul looked over at his Roman guard, I guarantee you that he did not see silky satin slippers suitable only for the ballroom; he saw sandals with hobnails on the bottom, so that the soldier would have a sure footing, no matter what conflict he had to enter. The Good News of peace on our feet means that we are to take the gospel into every circumstance where there is conflict.
And take the sword of the Spirit, which is -- better translation might be -- who is -- word of God. Take the spirit with you to cut a swath ahead of you. Trust God’s Spirit to go ahead of you wherever you go and to claim the territory before you ever get there.
My point this morning is really very simple: that it is not enough to withstand temptation, not enough to keep ourselves unspotted from gross sin. We are called by Christ to be on the advance for him, to be on the offense and to stand with him and for him wherever he goes.
The world will not be won over by the silence of good people keeping themselves good. The world will have to hear some noise from us and will have to know that we do stand for something.
It will not be enough to say, "I stayed out of drugs". If we have accepted the whole armor of God, then what are we doing to push back the frontiers of drug abuse in our community?
It will not be enough to say, "I don’t drink at office parties." Not when the Lord of battle wants to know what weapon you used to show somebody else they didn’t need that prop either.
It will not be enough to say, "I withstood the temptation to waver, I kept my marriage together"; if we receive all of God’s armor, he will ask us not only how well we did in deflecting the fiery darts of evil, but also whether we walked the Gospel of peace into someone else’s family life.
It will not hold up to say someday, "I sent my kids to nice clean schools and sweet middle-class colleges and kept them out of trouble". It will not hold up because the Lord has equipped them with offensive weapons too and wants them to witness in His name.
It will not be sufficient to keep our church program free from worldly influences and our young people from exposure to tawdry materialisms; some day the Lord who supplied us all this armor will appear to wonder if we used it all and equipped our young people to reach out to the high schools, the colleges, the discos and the clubs, and bring others home to Him.
It will not feel right when the Lord of the church wants to know what we did with all these weapons he has given us for marching, for standing, and we can only murmur, we held all the ruffians out, we made sure nothing was changed.
And at that great day of judgment, when the king will ask, did you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, the imprisoned, the impoverished, I do not think I will be very comfortable if all I can say is, Lord, I took care of me. I was a big enough job. Just kept myself clean and let the world go by.
You know, about this armor, the great Puritan thinker John Bunyan noted that Paul does not mention any sort of back protection. He guesses that that means God never intends for us to turn tail and run from the battle.
Come to think of it, I guess it is that way around: the best defense is a good offense. Paul, looking again at his guard in all that armor, looked at his own offensive weapons, chained though he was, and spoke of himself as an ambassador in chains … an ambassador, speaking boldly on behalf of his Lord.
It must have worked to stand as well as withstand: in another letter he was able to write, "The saints, even those we’ve made in Caesar’s household, greet you."
