SPECIAL DAYS: Communion Sunday, Independence Sunday

July 4, 2004 Lesson: 2 Corinthians 10.3-5

SERMON TITLE: Waging War

(Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

INTRODUCTION:

  1. We are at war.

    1. This is not President Bush's war against terrorism.

    2. This is not a war against flesh and blood.

  2. This war is against, as Paul writes in Ephesians 6:12 (NRSVA)

12For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

    1. This is a war that is real and just as devastating as any war fought between opposing armies.

      1. Revelation 12:7-9 (NRSVA)

7And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, 8but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world--he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

      1. Luke 10:18 (NRSVA)

18He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.

    1. Humanity met and lost to Satan in the battle of the Garden of Eden.

  1. This war has serious casualties

    1. It is the object of the enemy to destroy humanity.

    2. The enemy does this by attacking faith, love, hope and either undermining or destroying them.

(Top)   (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

MAIN BODY

  1. On July 4, 1776 the leaders of Second Continental Congress adopted The Declaration of Independence.

    1. The thirteen colonies would be forever free from the domination of foreign powers.

    2. We call the Fourth of July, Independence Day.

    3. We fought a ferocious war to gain our independence.

    4. It cost so many so much.

When Ken Burns was researching the PBS series The Civil War, a professor sent him a little-known letter written by a Rhode Island soldier. (1)

In July 1861, Union officer Sullivan Ballou had a premonition that he might not survive the next battle, and he wrote these words to his wife, Sarah:

"The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days _ perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

"Sarah, my love for you is deathless; it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me unresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.

"The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood, around us .... If I do not [return], my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.

"If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights ... always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple; it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again."

Sullivan Ballou was killed seven days later in the First Battle of Bull Run.

Sarah Ballou never remarried.

    1. He fought and died for Independence.

  1. We call it Independence Day, but that may be a mistake

    1. Independence is a wonderful, but false, concept.

      1. Have you ever met an independent person?

      2. I do not know an independent person.

    2. Independent = free from influence, guidance, or control of another person.

      1. Not even the hermit who lives in isolation is independent.

      2. The hermit is dependent on nature for food, water and the means to sustain and maintain life.

    3. We are interdependent = among, between

      1. Recognition of need that can only be supplied by another.

      2. It is a situation in which you must exercise a level of reliance.

    4. We are also intra-dependent = inside of, or in, within.

      1. We live within a system.

      2. There is no life outside the system.

        1. Looking at the pictures of the Mars lander on the Internet.

        2. Outside of our atmosphere there is an environment that is hostile to life.

(Top)   (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

  1. What we have within our system is the opportunity to develop Freedom

    1. We can choose to be free or not free.

    2. We can choose to act or not act.

    3. We can choose to change or not change.

    4. What we need to be reminded of are the aspects of freedom.

      1. Privileges of Freedom

        1. Religious Freedom

          1. Free from superstition

          2. Free from priestly tyranny

          3. Free from mechanical ritual

          4. Mechanical ritual is like a light bulb without light.

          5. Free from external restraints in moral and religious life.

          6. Free from the rule of the flesh over the spirit

        2. Intellectual Freedom

          1. Loyalty to truth, and faith in its ultimate triumph

          2. Light and power to attain truth

        3. Political Freedom

          1. Through the spread of the spirit of universal kinship

          2. Through the development of conscience which makes the gift of liberty safe.

      2. Dangers to Freedom

        1. It is attacked from without

          1. It has to face the assaults of the ambitious

          2. The designs of those who would exercise undue influence over others.

          3. The danger of officialism

        2. It is undermined from within

          1. The force of habit which inhibits change

          2. Habits may be beneficial

            1. Habit of Bible reading and study.

            2. Habit of prayer

          3. Habits may develop a rigidity in thought and action.

          4. Creeds which were the expressions of free thought become rigid and unyielding standards

          5. Ritual, which once excited the intellect and emotions, becomes fossilized, and yet it is cherished and venerated.

Lozenge or Collar Button (2)

The pastor was known for the clarity and brevity of his sermons. His talks were well organized and always ended promptly in 20 minutes.

One Sunday, he seemed to wander and drift around a bit and was still preaching to the congregation after 35 minutes. His wife managed a small signal, which fortunately he recognized as a sign he should come to a close.

When they got home after the service, the wife asked him why he got so muddled and why he went on speaking so long.

He answered, "Well, I've gotten into the habit of tucking a lozenge in my mouth before I stand to speak. When the lozenge has dissolved, I know it is time to stop. This morning, unfortunately I picked up a collar button instead of a lozenge."

            1. Churches have liturgy

            2. It may be simple or complex.

            3. Don't mess with my liturgy.

            4. Even when it has lost its effectiveness and vitality.

        1. The atmosphere of liberty is too much for some people who retreat from it.

          1. There are some who want to live under authority.

          2. They want the scope and restrictions of life and relationships to be defined for them.

          3. These good folk may never be free.

(Top)   (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

    1. Duties of Freedom

      1. Called to take a stand against all that encroaches on Christian freedom. (Christ fought and died to win liberty. We must fight to maintain it.)

        1. That we may not be degraded to servitude

        2. Servant-hood and servitude are often confused, but they are not the same. (3)

Servitude is imposed; Servant-hood is embraced.
Servitude enslaves; Servant-hood emancipates.
Servitude denigrates; Servant-hood uplifts.
Servitude crushes; Servant-hood fulfills.
Servitude despairs; Servant-hood rejoices!

        1. That we may have scope for the unhampered service of God and humanity

        2. That we may hand on to future generations the heritage of liberty.

  1. It is no wonder that Paul in his letter to the Corinthians is deeply concerned with the subject of the Christian Freedom.

    1. This is why he wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, NRSVA

3Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; 4for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments 5and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.

    1. We are at war.

      1. It is a war of the spirit by the spirit and for the spirit.

      2. We may not choose to participate in it.

      3. It has to be more than rhetoric:

President Woodrow Wilson said about the Declaration of Independence, "...you will note that it is not a Fourth of July oration. The Declaration of Independence was a document preliminary to war. It was a vital piece of practical business, not a piece of rhetoric...Liberty does not consist, my fellow-citizens, in mere general declarations of the rights of men. It consists in the translation of those declarations into definite action."

      1. We cannot escape it.

(Top)   (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

CONCLUSION

  1. Martin Niemöller was a Lutheran Pastor

Martin Niemöller had been a U-boat captain in WW I prior to becoming a pastor. And he supported Hitler prior to his taking power. Indeed, initially the Nazi press held him up as a model... for his service in WW I. [Newsweek, July 10, 1937, pg 32]

But Niemoller broke very early with the Nazis. In 1933, he organized the Pastor's Emergency League to protect Lutheran pastors from the police. In 1934, he was one of the leading organizers at the Barmen Synod, which produced the theological basis for the Confessing Church, which despite its persecution became an enduring symbol of German resistance to Hitler.

Rev. Martin Niemoller was protected until 1937 by both the foreign press and influential friends in the up-scale Berlin suburb where he preached.

Eventually, he was arrested for treason. Perhaps due to foreign pressure, he was found guilty, but initially given only a suspended sentence.

He was however then almost immediately re-arrested on Hitler's direct orders. For seven years, until the end of WW II, he was held at the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. Near the end of the war, he narrowly escaped execution. [from Charles Colson's Kingdoms in Conflict]

    1. The following is taken from an article on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of WW II that appeared in TIME Magazine, Aug 28, 1989.

First they came for the Communists,
    and I didn't speak up,
        because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
    and I didn't speak up,
        because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
    and I didn't speak up,
        because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
    and by that time there was no one left
        to speak up for me.

--by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

    1. Will this be what will happen to you and me, if we do not fight for Christian principle and moral values?

    2. The threat is a serious one.

    3. We can only stand firm in Jesus Christ and the faith that he helps us to develop.

COMMUNION

1. Frederick Waterman, "The Great Good-Byes," Hemispheres, April 1994, 81.

2. Pastor Tim [posts@cybersaltlists.org]

3. A. Roy Medley, "As One Who serves," American Baptists in Mission, Winter 2002, Abc-usa.org.

(Top)   (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)