This past Wednesday was Veteran’s Day. I don’t want to let that day go by without honoring our veterans and thanking them for their service. After all, if it wasn’t for their service, we might not have the freedoms that we have.
But in 2 Timothy 2: 1-4, Paul talks about being a soldier for Christ. Most veterans have experienced first hand the battles that this country has been engaged in. They know what it was like to suffer and go without. They know the struggles that are involved when they accepted the call to be a soldier for this country.
But in the same way, being a soldier for Christ has its challenges as well. Let’s talk about that first-hand experience as a Christian. I’m not going to flower it up. Don’t get me wrong, when you accept Christ and become a Christian, that’s the most important decision you’ll make in your life. That’s when your Christian life begins.
And believe me, Satan hates it. When you become a Christian, life doesn’t become all puppy dogs and rainbows and white puffy clouds and butterflies. No! That’s when you began to face a lot of challenges. And you veteran Christians know that Satan is going to do everything he can to cause you to fail as a child of God. That’s where you become a soldier for Christ.
READ 2 Timothy 2: 1-4 Looking at this Scripture really drives home the importance of serving in God’s mighty service and I believe to honor our vets we must place God first in our thoughts and relate military service to that of our service to God. We need to ask ourselves, “What is involved in serving Christ? Do you consider yourself as being a soldier for Christ.
Veteran’s Day was originally named Armistice Day. President Woodrow Wilson first proclaimed an Armistice Day for November 11, 1919. An Act approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday. All veterans need to be honored for their dedication to our country—for their hardships they have endured, for the Warfare they have battled, and for the struggles that each has battled within their lives. Being a soldier and serving this great nation is an honor and it is one thing that I am sure every veteran is proud of. But I can’t help but to think of a greater calling to a service that God has called all of us to. We are all called to be Soldiers of Christ!!
In the first portion of Paul’s letter to Timothy, Paul says: “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” I believe this has a lot of meaning that deserves some thought.
Most people would generally agree that serving as a soldier during wartime is no fun to say the least. Being a soldier during a time of war is a difficult thing to deal with. Soldiers often go without water, food, sleep, medical treatment, seeing their family, not to mention other unimaginable hardships. Sacrifice is the major hardship for the soldier.
The hardship of being a soldier is un-comprehendible unless you’ve served yourself. For me to stand here before you this morning and try to paint the picture for you will never truly bring it to life. This is a truth that many of us seem to forget or really don’t understand in the first place. In much the same manner, once we gave our lives to Jesus, we enlisted into His Army. By joining His Army, hardships are going to follow…. Sacrifices!
For some, their friend circle gets smaller. When I first became a Christian, many of my former friends seemed to fade out of the picture. But let me tell, on the positive end, I gained so many more even better friends that also knew Jesus.
I’ll admit that I came very close to enlisting in the Air Force. But circumstances came about and God changed my path. The problem was that my recruiter didn’t exactly tell the whole truth about what they would offer me for enlisting. So, when it came to the truth, on the day I walked into the room to swear in, I was pulled to the side and then found out about the lies that were told to be to get me to enlist.
I don’t speak for all the recruiters but not many of them were totally honest to say the least. If you were to ask one of them if they ever lied to their potential recruits, they would tell you “of course not, I just didn’t tell them everything.”
If you were to ask the mass majority of soldiers today that are actively serving if they knew totally all the hardships that came with serving, they would probably answer “nope, not even close.”
Isn’t this the same for us? When we joined in God’s service, maybe we didn’t realize the hardships that came with giving our lives to Him? Maybe we never truly thought about what we had to deal with and do without in this world as we serve.
Someone once said, “Boy this Christian thing sure is tough! It keeps getting in the way of things and it stops me from doing what I want to do!”
Being a Soldier for Christ isn’t easy. It demands many sacrifices but at the same time it brings much joy and peace. As we serve Jesus, we remove ourselves from the ways of the world and the sin that is so very tempting to each of us. Let’s be honest about it; “Sin is fun!” If sin wasn’t fun, no one would be sinning! Sin is of the flesh and the flesh desires comfortability.
Each time the Holy Spirit talks to us and convicts us, our flesh cries out! This is why many hate feeling convicted and many battle over changing their sinful lives. We even see people leave good churches because of conviction.
We live in a Burger King Society, “We want it our way”! And unfortunately, this is how we treat our Service to Jesus. When you give yourself to Christ and His service you are automatically in a battle with conviction of the flesh but it doesn’t stop there. As a Soldier for Christ you are ………ENGAGED IN WARFARE.
The second portion of Paul’s letter to Timothy that I want to point out and focus on this morning is found in verse 4. Paul says, “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”
There are two basic reasons to have soldiers. One is to prevent, or be ready in case of war, and the second is because there is a war going on. In our case, there is a war going on. This war has been going on since God cast Satan and 1/3 of the angels out of heaven. Since then, they have been attacking mankind on earth.
Satan wanted to be God. He thought that he was better than God and he wanted to exalt himself above God. Satan was full of pride! Satan was made so perfect, so beautiful, so knowledgeable that he became self-centered instead of God centered. This is when God found unrighteousness within him and cast him out of heaven.
Since then, the devil has been striking out at God’s people. He must hate us because we remind him of God. God tells us in Genesis that He made us in His own image. Maybe the devil knows that he can never defeat God, so the next best thing is to destroy His creations by fighting to keep them from salvation.
Whichever the case, our war as Soldiers of Christ is a real one. We have a real enemy with real weapons and with a real plan. Satan knows his fate in the end because it is foretold in the Book of Revelation. His only consolation is to take as many of God’s people to Hell with him as he can. As the old saying goes, misery loves company.
Before you enlisted into God’s Army, Satan’s attacks were more than likely absent from your life. Before your point of Salvation, you were not engaged in War, at least not the war with Satan. Here’s 4 quick things you might find interesting if you didn’t already know them:
1. You are not an enemy of Satan until you accept Salvation.
2. We face many battles each day from Satan as we serve Jesus. We battle Pride, Anger, Selfishness, Envy, Deceit, even Little White Lies.
3. Giving your life to Jesus is like putting yourself on the front lines of a war. But this war is a spiritual war and though you may lose several battles, unlike worldly wars, we know the outcome.
4. We must remind ourselves daily of whom our enemy truly is. Our only enemy in this war is the devil and his band of demons. Every other person on this earth has a spirit that God wants saved.
The last point that I want to share with you this morning is quite frankly the area in which we Christians really defeat ourselves. In verse 4 we read:
“No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”
Other than serving our Lord & Savior, what else in this life matters? I’m almost afraid to look and see a true survey of how many people actually put the glorification of Jesus as #1 on their list.
Look at what Paul tells us in the last portion of this verse. He says, in this life. “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life.”
We claim to be Christians, but do we really act like it? If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? The truth is, that the vast majority of us are so consumed by things of this life that we forget about our service to God and our spiritual life.
Things like Sports, TV, Politics, Jobs, Possessions, Money, Music, Dating, Games, Entertainment, Education, Hobbies, all have become our idols. These are the things of this world that we have been distracted with. And it’s very easy to fall into the trap of being distracted by them.
• In Genesis, Abraham was successful until God showed him that material wealth was really poverty compared to eternity.
• In Exodus, Moses had it made as the adopted son of the Egyptian pharaoh, but he discovered that the finest clothing, the best education and a daily regimen of well-prepared meals were meaningless unless life was devoted to God’s desires.
• In the Book of Acts, Paul was a social climber in the ranks of the religious leaders, but his encounter with God taught him that success wasn’t based on routine, tradition, contacts, forensic skill or intelligence
Many times, it’s our own pride that has become a distraction to us and entangles us in the affairs of this life. Let me tell you what I mean by that. It seems that many believers today are drawn to the feel-good churches. You know, the churches that give you the feel-good messages that keep you feeling warm inside and complacent within your Christian walk. The churches fail at feeding the soul but succeed in pleasing the flesh.
Paul wrote that in his letter to Timothy as well. 2 Timothy 4:3 – “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”
I think this time that Paul wrote about has come! All over this Great Nation we have churches that are watering God’s Holy Word down and deceiving people. This is because of our own desires and not allowing the Holy Spirit to be present in our churches.
The days we live in are full of evil and obstacles that lure us away from God and His love. You know something is wrong with our world when people turn to false teachers to hear what their itching ears want to hear rather than hearing from God.
You see, I believe it may be our pride that keeps us from accepting the convicting messages that God so desperately wants us each to hear in order to grow and become the soldiers for him that we need to be.
Sadly, this is more than likely the major reason why people choose a certain church over another and also why people may leave a certain church to attend another. We search for churches much like we search for a great vacation package. What’s in it for me? Or how will I be served?
As a soldier for Christ, how effective do you think we will be if we are more concerned about the flesh and the things of this world that so easily entangles us?
How do we view our church? How do we view our service to God?
When you serve this (Christian) flag, Christ expects you to be completely devoted (consecrated) to Him and His Kingdom. To be a Soldier for Christ, we must be completely devoted to the service of our Lord Jesus Christ.
A story is told of an elderly German woman who, as her village was being entered by an American unit during the final days of the Second World War, she stood in the middle of the street holding a small U.S. flag. Her friends told her she was crazy; she should hide and wait to see who would win.
She replied, “I already know who’s going to win, and I want them to know which side I’m on.”
Let me close with this brilliant statement written by an anonymous author. I read this and thought, this should be our stance as a Soldier of Christ.
I am a soldier in the army of my God. The Lord Jesus Christ is my commanding officer. The Holy Bible is my code of conduct. Faith, prayer and the Word are my weapons of warfare.
I have been taught by the Holy Spirit--trained by experience, tried by adversity and tested by fire. I am a volunteer in this army, and I am enlisted for eternity.
I will either retire in this army at the rapture or die in this army; but I will not get out, sell out, be talked out, or pushed out. I am faithful, reliable, capable, and dependable. If my God needs me, I am there. If He needs me in the Sunday school to teach the children, work with the youth, help adults or just sit and learn I’ll be there. He can use me because I am there!
I am a soldier. I am not a baby. I do not need to be pampered, petted, primed up, pumped up, picked up, or pepped up. I am a soldier. No one has to call me, remind me, write me, visit me, entice me, or lure me. I am a soldier.
I am not a wimp. I am in place saluting my King, obeying His orders, praising His name, and building His kingdom! No one has to send me flowers, gifts, food, cards, candy or give me handouts. I do not need to be cuddled, cradled, cared for, or catered to.
I am committed. I cannot have my feelings hurt bad enough to turn me around. I cannot be discouraged enough to turn me aside. I cannot lose enough to cause me to quit. If I end up with nothing, I will still come out ahead. I will win.
My God has, and will continue, to supply all of my needs. I am more than a conqueror. I will always triumph. I can do all things through Christ. Devils cannot defeat me. People cannot disillusion me. Weather cannot weary me. Sickness cannot stop me. Battles cannot beat me. Money cannot buy me. Governments cannot silence me and hell cannot handle me. I am a soldier.
Even death cannot destroy me. For when my Commander calls me from this battlefield, He will promote me to Captain and then allow me to rule with Him.
I am a soldier in the army and I’m marching, claiming victory. I will not give up.
I will not turn around. I am a soldier marching, heaven bound.
Soldiers of Christ, if you are with me, it is time for us to stand bravely before the enemy and declare our loyalty in a loud, clear voice. After all, we’re on the winning side.
