Calvary Road Baptist Church

“PERSONAL STRATEGY” Part 3

Second Corinthians 10.3-6 

Second Corinthians 10.3-6: 

3  For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

4  (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

5  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

6  And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled. 

This is our third look at the passage, revealing the Apostle Paul’s strategy for waging extraordinarily useful spiritual combat against Satan and his minions. You might remember our consideration of Second Corinthians 10.1-2 and the surprise some of you might have experienced when you were faced with the meekness and Christlike gentleness of the Apostle Paul. He was the superlative example of spirituality and godliness in the New Testament.

The surprise would not have come about due to Paul’s meekness and gentleness, or of Christ’s meekness and gentleness, but in reflecting upon the utter absence of such meekness and gentleness in the lives of so many men who occupy positions of prominent spiritual leadership in our day. The leadership model so often seen in our Churches is not only appalling but patently unscriptural. I titled that sermon “Gentle Warriors.”

When we first looked at Second Corinthians 10.3-6, you might have been alarmed by the evidence in God’s Word showing that our lives are caught up in a spiritual war of immense proportions. It is a war that began in heaven and was spread to the human realm by a creature now known to us as Satan, the Devil, whose name at his creation by God and before his revolt against God was Lucifer.

The Lord Jesus Christ has already won this war that you have been born into as a member of the human race with His triumph of crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Conflict still rages, but the end is determined when Christ returns, establishes His millennial kingdom here on earth, His theocratic kingdom. He will reign for one thousand years, will crush a revolt led by Satan at the end, will preside over the final judgment of the damned at His Great White Throne Judgment, and will cast death and Hell into the lake of fire, where all the rebellious angels and all who lived and died without turning to Christ for forgiveness will suffer the eternal torment of the damned.

When all that is accomplished, we who are redeemed, along with the holy angels loyal to God and Christ, will live throughout eternity in bliss and glory. But that will be then, and this is now. What about now? What about you?

In addition to pointing out that we are in a war, we also recognized that those who know Christ are on God’s side of the conflict, while those who are dead in trespasses and sins are on the other side, the wrong side, the losing side, the rebellious side, the unholy side of the conflict. It is the side you were born into, and to switch sides so that you are on God’s side, Christ’s side, the side of the redeemed, the side of victory, you must be born again.

What has been made clear to those who read Paul’s words in Second Corinthians 10.3-6 is that we who are on the Lord’s side must adopt a personal strategy to govern our conduct and activity as soldiers of the cross. Paul presents his strategy, and it would be foolish for us not to employ the Apostle Paul’s tried, tested, and successful approach to living the Christian life, to fight our spiritual battles.

Then we visited this passage once more. We are convinced that everyone involved in the spiritual conflict needs a strategy, a plan. Who would wish to find himself standing in a grocery store parking lot confronted by a seasoned fighter and having no idea what you are going to do? How do you protect your wife? How do you safeguard your children? Is your plan to call the police and hope the bad guy does nothing for ten minutes until the police arrive? That’s a brilliant strategy.

My daughter and my wife remember the two guys who came to our house one night and the fight that ensued. They also remember our neighbor, Linda, who dialed 9-1-1 while my wife watched. Finally, they remember the police arriving twenty minutes later, traveling the one mile from the police station to our home. It was over. It had long been over. Then the police arrived.

If it is appropriate to have a plan for dealing with physical threats, how much more important is it for you to plan to deal with spiritual threats? As well, when dealing with threats to your safety, spiritually or physically, is it better to implement an offensive strategy or a defensive strategy if you find yourself in a skirmish you cannot avoid? Since the very best you can hope for by playing defense is a draw, it is always better to plan and implement an attack. That is what we concentrated on during our second consideration of Second Corinthians 10.3-6. Likening the human mind to a fortress that must be breached (without using physical violence, of course), Paul’s outline of the plan, his strategy, was to lay siege to the fortress of the mind and then seize the territory taken.

Recognize that many believers in Jesus Christ cannot imagine themselves implementing anything like an offensive spiritual strategy. They have nothing that anyone would describe as an aggressive personality. They are live and let live types of individuals who don’t want to needlessly offend anyone, arouse anyone, aggravate anyone, or irritate anyone. Therefore, the notion of laying siege to someone’s thinking and then seeking to bring into captivity their thoughts is something they do not want to think about.

Really?

Have you thought this through?

Do you have any real notion of what this spiritual war is all about and what the stakes are?

Are you so committed to your gentle and passive approach, your laid back and easy-going manner, that you will let the enemy take your little girl without a fight?

Is it your plan to be casual and soft as they steal your son?

Remember that your children were born into the enemy’s camp. You may be surprised to wake up one morning with the realization that you have married a lost person. How successfully do you think this will all turn out throughout your marriage and rearing your children with you committed to only playing defense? Ask some Christians who have played defense their whole lives. Ask them how their plan has worked out so far.

Has any of this sunk in? Do you believe the Bible? Do you accept the Word of God shows us to be in nothing short of a war? Do you also acknowledge that our opponents are utterly ruthless, have the experience of thousands of years of dealing with people like us and that we have no hope of success apart from embracing the plan, the strategy, that has proven effective?

I well remember the first year of my pastoral ministry. One of the young women in the Church, recently married, was not at all shy about openly disagreeing with me while I was preaching. And she frequently did so by turning to her wimpy and spineless excuse for a husband and loudly whispering defiant questions in his ear. Sadly, he did not have the wisdom to deal with her about this nasty and disrespectful habit in private. During a preaching service is not when or where disagreements and disputes are to be settled.

Though I cannot remember the precise message I was preaching, I dealt with our spiritual warfare and the need to engage our spiritual adversary. This young wife, thoroughly acculturated to be of a properly and respectably antiwar mindset, turned to her husband and whispered loudly, “Why does he always describe spiritual matters in terms of war and fighting?” I responded to her too loud question by saying, “Because that is the way such issues are described in the Bible. I am employing Bible terminology.”

This is war. You are in the war whether you want to be in it or not. If you are lost, you are on the wrong side, and you are a loser. If you are a child of God, you are on the winning side, and you are a winner. But are you effectively waging war? Are you doing what is necessary to claim your unsaved spouse, your unsaved child, your unsaved siblings, or anyone else for that matter?

One does not typically see a spouse come to Christ without going on the spiritual offensive, implementing Paul’s strategy, executing the plan. The same is valid for children. Their minds are the fortresses you must lay siege to. Their thoughts are the ground that you must seize. So, are you ready to consider implementing in your life this strategy used by Paul, this plan for a soldier of the cross? 

Finally, THERE IS THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PERSONAL STRATEGY 

You don’t just ride into town with guns blazing. Paul did not do that, and you and I should not, as well, think of ourselves as one-man or one-woman spiritual police officers. There is a brief word that Paul used in verse 6 which shows us how to balance the zeal we have to do great things for God with the discretion that will prevent us from committing many foolish and immature sins: 

“And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.” 

How do you discern when to address a problem in someone’s life, be it your spouse, your son, your daughter, or a colleague? Because remember, the spiritual warfare that we wage against Satan and his will be on the battleground of our own and other people’s thoughts. Jump on a problem in your own thought life right now, but exercise caution when attempting to deal with others using the following guidelines.

First, there is your readiness.

When Paul indicated that he was “ready to avenge all disobedience,” he was suggesting that he was ready to vindicate every error. He stood prepared to straighten out every problem in a person’s thought life. Might I mention that his readiness to deal with every errant thought would necessarily include a willingness to deal with his errant thoughts? How many people who are ready to address other people’s problems are just as eager to address their own?

Paul was ready to tackle even his problems. This suggests he was just as prepared and eager for someone to approach him and inform him of a problem they thought he had as he was to approach them. It takes humility for that, does it not? We are our brother’s keeper. But to make sure that we do not become insufferably pious and self-righteous, let us each make sure in our own heart and mind that we are just as ready to be dealt with as to deal with others.

I am persuaded that you are not ready to engage in spiritual conflict unless and until you are ready and willing to be dealt with by others. Are you so willing? Does anyone know you are so willing, or do you maintain an intimidating ferocity? Some people project an aura of untouchability by their unwillingness to seek counsel, their aversion to being corrected, and their thin skin reactions to people.

Galatians 6.1-3: 

1  Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

2  Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

3  For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. 

Here we see Paul’s wisdom regarding a child of God dealing with an issue seen in the life of another believer. Do you see from this the need to be receptive to take from the person you approach what you had planned to give to him or her?

How do you respond when the lost person you speak to speaks back at you? As well, do you have the kind of relationship with your spouse or your child that allows them to speak to you about perceived faults as freely as you would speak to them? The bottom line is this. You are not ready to talk until you are prepared to listen. And this readiness should not be optional. We should be open for this from anyone, insisting only that such exchanges be respectful.

Then, there is your restraint: 

“... when your obedience is fulfilled.” 

Here is where Paul indicated that he gave people some slack. Here is where he stated that he gave people space to address spiritual problems they might have. Does it seem unreasonable for me to say that a problem you may take a day to work out may take me a week or a month to wrestle with? I don’t think so. I think it is most reasonable. Paul here informs the Corinthians of the strategy that he will employ when he arrives in Corinth to engage in spiritual warfare. But whether he takes up the battle will depend on whether or not they deal with the matter themselves.

One of the most challenging decisions a Christian makes is knowing just when to step in and address a spiritual problem. Whether it be a pastor, or a dad, or a mom, knowing when to take up spiritual arms and fight the Devil’s influence in your kid’s life and when to let your kid fight his own spiritual battle is the most challenging call a leader will ever have to make. Sadly, most moms and dads have no plan to address issues in their child’s life because they are so committed to spiritual defensiveness that the thought of going on the spiritual offense for the benefit of their child never occurs to them. Don’t be that kind of dad. Don’t be that kind of mom. Don’t be that kind of Christian.

Sometimes a spiritual battle in your son’s life can be won without necessarily dealing with him, but by your engagement in spiritual conflict in someone else’s life that he sees evidence of. In other words, your son might benefit from your offensive spiritual engagement in someone else’s life. Your attempt to persuade someone else to consider the claims of Christ may have the unintended consequence of persuading your son. Does this mean you wage war with everyone else while passively refusing to engage with your son? Of course, not.

Remember what Vince Lombardi used to say. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” Do not allow spiritual fatigue and ignorance of God’s plan to defeat you before you ever start. The very best way to reach those closest to you is by trying to reach them and by them seeing you trying to reach others. 

You now know what it is you are supposed to do. On a spiritual plane, using spiritual weapons, you are to engage the enemy in a battle over the thought life and the ideas and concepts which Satan has thrown up against the truth of God’s Word. In order to fight the spiritual warfare, you have to be spiritual, #1, and you have to learn your Bible, #2. Along the way, you will observe that those who are successful are always receptive to others’ help and ministry. No one knows it all. Everyone can learn from those believers who are more seasoned, more experienced, and wiser.

I guarantee you that when someone attacks you, the time to engage in spiritual conflict is now. But when you observe the effects of untruth and pride in the life of another individual, in the life of someone God has given you watch care responsibility for, then you have a tough decision to make.

The question now is, What are you going to do? Are you going to tune out, or are you going to put into effect this personal strategy that Paul has outlined for us all? Sadly, some moms and dads are experts at playing ostrich and sticking their heads in the sand, convincing themselves that it is best not to talk to their son or daughter about spiritual matters.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that you bully or dominate anyone into submitting to your way of thinking or complying with your wishes. But it ought to be a prerequisite to living in your home that mom and dad have the absolute right to engage anyone in that house in a spiritual conversation without getting a “I don’t want to talk about it!” or “Leave me alone!” as a response.

“Pastor, are you going to give us a personal strategy, kinda like a connect the dots drawing where all we have to do is do it by the numbers?” Oh no, my friends. To put your strategy into effect requires diligence, perseverance, hard work, the study of God’s Word, wisdom, and fervent and effectual prayer to make the best use of your personality, spiritual equipment, and unique situation and relationship with the person you are dealing with. But the result is, you win every time, you defeat the Devil every time, you sometimes introduce people to Christ, you perhaps save your family, you might preserve your marriage and fill it with joy, you certainly glorify Christ, you walk through life with the confidence that only a warrior for God can have.

Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.

Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church