Exhortation, October 2

The church is the body and bride of Christ, the people of God and the new Israel, the temple of the Spirit and the house of prayer for all nations. In our sermon text (Eph 6), we learn that the church is also an army.

Like soldiers, we must be disciplined, doing what our heavenly General commissions us to do. Like soldiers, we must be courageous, not retreating at the first hint of return fire. Like soldiers, we must be zealous, pursuing the enemy to victory.

But there is a sinful kind of militancy. Some Christians learn that they are supposed to be fighting a battle, and they begin to pick fights with everyone. They learn that they are supposed to be

courageous, and they become foolhardy. They learn that they are supposed to be zealous, and they begin to display a zeal without knowledge.

This kind of militancy arises from immaturity but also from a misunderstanding of how the Christian church engages in battle. As David Field reminded us a few weeks ago, the whole Christian life is a war zone. When parents discipline children, they are carrying on God’s warfare; when husbands love their wives and resist the temptation of lust, they are carrying on Christian warfare; when we preach the gospel and extend mercy to the needy, we are fighting to recover lost ground.

Don’t think that you fight only when voices are raised and fists are shaken and insults are traded. Don’t be like the disciples who wanted to call down fire from heaven against Samaritan villages that did not receive them. Jesus rebuked them, saying, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of” (Lk 9:54).