Leaning In
CCCAG April 7th, 2019
Scripture- Ezekiel 22:30
Intro: Today’s message is inspired by a story I read several months ago about a speech Marine Lt General John Kelly gave at a Gold Star gathering
Speech from Lt General John Kelly
From Kelly's speech in 2010, 4 days after his own son died:
Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces. On the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, were switching out in Ramadi- called the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour.
Two Marines, 22 year old Corporal Jonathan Yale and 20 year old Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines and 100 Iraqi police.
Corporal Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Lance Corporal Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island.
The mission orders they received from their sergeant I am sure went something like: "Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." "You clear?" I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: "Yes Sergeant,"
A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way—perhaps 60-70 yards in length—and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. (explain)
The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck's engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped.
Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn't have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.
I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way through the serpentine. They all said, "We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing." The Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, the Iraqi’s ran for safety just prior to the explosion.
All of them survived. A few were injured … some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said, "We ran like any normal man would to save his life."
Choking past the emotion he said, "General Kelly, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and done what they did."
"No sane man."
"They saved us all."
One of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.
You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over or call the sergeant to ask what they should do.
Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what their orders said: " … let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass."
The two Marines had about five seconds left to live. It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open fire. By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.
For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines' weapons firing non-stop…the truck's windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the suicide bomber who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers.
The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated.
By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back.
They never even started to step aside.
They never even shifted their weight.
With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.
The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God.
Six seconds.
Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty … into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight—for you.
Semper Fi Marines
I read this to you this morning not to celebrate war, or memorialize these two young men, but to point out an attitude.
This attitude is one that we as Christians will need to have to let God develop in us in these last days.
Because we are at war. It’s a spiritual war for sure, but now it’s spilling over into the natural realm and we are feeling it’s effects in all areas of life.
The forces of darkness have turned a corner are driving a large truck at the church of Jesus Christ, They are accelerating their attack, that this truck is packed with all kinds of evil intentions for God’s people.
I have a question for all of us this morning-
As this truck bears down on you, will you run as the Iraqi’s did to save your skin, or will you stand your ground and lean in?
In Ezekiel 22 God spends 29 verses- most of the chapter describing the gross sin of Judah- extreme perverse sexual sin including open incest within families. False spirituality including witchcraft and divination were common, and the rich horribly oppressing the poor- openly stealing land and killing them if they objected.
God ends the chapter with a call to His prophet that we will read this morning-
Ezekiel 22:30-31 (God Speaking)
30 “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
Prayer
When you got saved, you received the benefits of Jesus Christ’s saving work on the cross. A transaction occurred, and the eternal recording of your sin was erased by the power of His shed blood. That is Good news! That’s the essence of the Gospel.
But what isn’t spoken of very much in today’s Christianity is the fact that we are now in a Kingdom. Kingdoms are ruled by Kings, and our King is Jesus. Jesus has some expectation of us as citizens of the Kingdom He established.
These expectations have a simple word to describe them- duty.
Websters defines duty as
obligatory tasks, conduct, service, or functions that arise from one's position (as in life or in a group), or the fulling of a moral or legal obligation to be fulfilled to society or to someone in a position of authority.
As Christians, we have a duty to our Lord. The bible says we are bought with a price, therefore worship God with our bodies and our lives. We own Him a debt of honor and gratitude that we will never be able to pay back, but that debt remains to remind us how worthy Jesus is every part of our lives.
We also owe a duty to the world we live in. Sometimes within the Pentecostal church we get so focused on how much evil there is in the world the in our minds I think we get this tendency to basically say
“Well it's all going to hell anyway so why do I need to be concerned with it? “
We need to be concerned because we have orders. Just like those two Marines leaned in toward the danger, you and I have orders from our commanding officer Jesus to execute in these last days.
Our orders are found in something called the Great Commission.
What is that Great Commission?
Matt 28:18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore 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 I have commanded you.
If we are going to be found to be faithful and what God has given us to do then we have to take our orders very seriously.
If we are going to be the salt and light and our community and our world then we have to obey the orders of our commanding officer. We need to lean in and do what he has told us to do no matter the cost to us personally.
We need to be those who are be willing to build up the walls the enemy has destroyed and be willing to stand in the gap for our neighbors, our loved ones and our friends.
Because persecution is coming. The easy version of Christianity that we have enjoyed for decades is rapidly coming to a close.
Our greatest ally Great Britain people are being sent to prison for using the wrong gender pronouns to refer to Transgender individuals. In Canada, pastors cannot speak against anything having to do with transgenderism or homosexuality or they will be sent to prison. In many so called free countries there are even some cases were saying that Jesus is the only way to heaven is considered hate speech.
The same forces that stripped away freedom of speech in those countries are here now in America.
As they would say on the street- “Homie, it's getting real.”
The days of being in the closet for Christ are over. We need to strap up with the armor of God. We need to learn to use the word. We need to get a little bit of fight in us, and understand we are soldiers in God’s army.
As God’s soldiers, we have three basic duties according to the bible.
If you want to be a person who God can use to rebuild some of the walls that the enemy has torn down. If you want to be a person who stands in the gap for his family, neighbors, or country then you need 3 basic duties to understand and to be burned into your spirit this morning.
The first duty we as Christians have is to
I. Our duty- to stand
Eph 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.
One of the things I think that keep Christians for making stands For God is that they think they need some special calling or anointing before God can use them. It is probably a holdover from some of the mainstream church beliefs, particularly the belief of a clergy congregational separation.
There are 2 problems with that. Number one is that we are all called to be clergy in the sense that the Bible says we are all a royal priesthood.
As just a quick exercise I want you to put the title Reverend or pastor and then just say your name.
No I'm not saying that the Bible doesn't speak about particular positions within the church that require a particular calling. But when you read about those positions it comes with the caveat that those positions are train God's people for works of service. Therefore, in reality the people that your world sees the most isn’t the guy standing up here, but the person sitting down there.
You are to make the stand for God. I may be a bit chubby but you are not going to be able to hide behind me when the persecution comes your way.
Let me illustrate why this is important-
Do you remember from the Gospel accounts that Jesus said when the shepherd gets struck down the sheep will scatter? What happened when Jesus was arrested? The disciples, including the disciple that Jesus called Rocky (AKA Peter), scattered.
Those believers were completely dependent upon the physical presence of their leader and when that leader was struck down, they all scattered and went back to their old lives of fishing.
Now we get to see the genius of God. You see God knows our weaknesses may God knows that we will always look to another human being to be the leader instead of just relying on him. Even in the 21st century right now we are still just like they were during King David's time and that they wanted a King or earthly man to follow. God in the New Testament flips that on its head and said all of you are now the leader and have the potential to carry the same power, anointing, and Kingdom privilege as the man or woman you call pastor.
Where do I get that from?
1 Peter 2:9- But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
As part of my training to become a noncommissioned officer in the army we had to go and learn some basic leadership tactics regarding infantry maneuvers and how to set up an ambush. One of the basic tenents of setting up an ambush is that the first person to be targeted is the leader. Once you shoot the leader, the followers don’t know what to do and are easy pickings for the rest of the ambush.
The kingdom of darkness operates the same way- the harshest attacks come against the leader.
However, what they don’t realize is that we are all supposed to be the royal priesthood of God. That’s your calling, your position, and your responsibility before our King.
In other words, it’s your duty. Your duty to stand firm in your most holy faith and be counted as one of his disciples regardless of what position you may hold in your local church.
With the duty to stand, comes the calling to occupy
II. Our calling- to occupy
Luke 19:13 (parable of the 10 servants)
And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.
That word occupy is a military term meaning to hold ground that was won at a cost. In other words, someone had to fight for that land, and now your job is to make sure it doesn’t get taken back.
Jesus Christ paid the ultimate cost to give you your salvation. HE fought against every demon of hell and overcame them by His blood.
Your job and calling now is to occupy- to keep that which he won for you in trust so that when he comes back you can give it back to him with interest as an act of worship and thanks for what He did for you.
Many of you here have been following Jesus more than my 49 years of life. You have stood firm for HIM longer than I’ve even been alive.
You’ve occupied the sphere of influence Jesus has given you.
For some, you’ve raised Godly children who have gone on to raise their own children of faith.
For some, you are the only light in the darkness of where you live or work.
For others, you may be lighthouse for others navigating the storms of life.
In other words, you didn’t take the light Jesus gave you hand hide it under a bushel.
Standing firm is our duty and occupying is our calling. It means you are to plant the flag of God’s kingdom firmly into the ground Jesus has given you and set up an embassy for God’s kingdom. That’s your calling- to fly the flag on foreign and hostile soil. To represent the characteristics of your God to those who might not know HIM. You are an ambassador of the King to bear witness of His love for all people.
That’s how you occupy.
If our duty is to stand, and our calling is to occupy, our mission then is to:
III. Our mission- to save as many as we can
Our God is a God of purpose. He doesn’t do things by accident. That means you are not an accident. That means that where you are right now- He has planned around that. Even if you have majorly messed up in your life and you’re not a good place- our God is big enough to take that into consideration and still use you to fulfill the basic mission of every Christian who has ever lived and ever will live-
To save as many as we can.
One final illustration-
Any here ever been a lifeguard?
95% of a lifeguard’s career is spent sitting in a chair, or standing watch in a tower. They keep an eye out, and once in a very great while have to dive in the water to save someone, but for the most part their job is pretty boring most days.
It’s kind of the same way with you and me. We won’t be able to save someone every single day. Generally speaking, we will go through most days and never be able to even speak the name of Jesus outside of our home. In fact, much of our lives are going to be spent simply living life and trying to be good reflections of Jesus to our world.
But like the lifeguard, we need to keep our eyes open and be ready to act when we see a person struggling to stay afloat. We need to be ready to breathe the life giving breath of God to a person drowning, and finally we need to be ready to stand and lean into the attack from the enemy when it comes.
(All Rise)
Leaning in. I started this message today telling you about two brave Marines who stood their ground knowing that they were about to die. The didn’t hesitate, they didn’t back down.
How much more should we as Christians be willing to stand, to occupy, to save as many as we see drowning, and to lean into the fight when it matters most?
Altar Call
