The Lutheran Hour
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"Are You in the Right Fight?"
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Text: 1 Timothy 6:12
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Many people listening to this message will remember fallen service men and women this weekend. Most countries around the world honor their citizens who gave the highest sacrifice to defend their land. Sadly, war is an unfortunate necessity in our sin-broken world. For historians, war may be a topic of study. For some businessmen, war may be an investment. For some soldiers, war may be an opportunity for glory. But for all of us, war is a tragedy and a reminder of a deeper, personal conflict that we all must face.
During the American Civil War, President Lincoln relied heavily on Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs. General Meigs kept the Union troops well supplied. He also directed the ambulances that carried the hundreds of thousands of Union and Confederate wounded. No doubt Meigs became resentful of the Confederate leaders whom he blamed for the war. When Meigs was called upon to plan a cemetery for Union soldiers, he indulged in a little payback by choosing General Robert E. Lee’s front yard for Arlington National Cemetery. However, that same year his own son was killed in battle and buried in Mrs. Lee’s rose garden. Whatever emotions war may generate among people, the tragedy of war cannot be denied.
As a pastor, I have stood by many a casket of a veteran. I’ve listened to the Taps being played. I’ve watched the American flag being folded and graciously being presented to a grieving family. As I walk through the cemeteries, I cannot help but notice the way we honor those who served. No one remembers how much money we made, the degrees we earned, or the books that we might have written. What we remember most at the end of life are the sacrifices. Thank God for those who were willing to make the sacrifices needed to preserve freedom and to prevent the rule of tyrants.
Yet even on this Memorial Day weekend my eyes are looking past the flags, the parades, and even the sacrifices of our veterans. All of these things point me to the most important of all wars – the war that God is waging against the tyranny of Satan. All the wars that nations wage today in some way or another come back to this war – the war between good and evil, the war between heaven and hell. Earthly wars are certainly tragic affairs, but the greatest tragedy of all would be to ignore the battle for the soul.
St. Paul referred to this war when he wrote to a young pastor named Timothy: “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12). The “fight of faith” – are you in it? Are you in the right fight?
When my boys were young, they played Little League baseball. When they were very young, it was not unusual to see a few boys getting distracted during the game. Their young minds just couldn’t keep focused on the game at hand. Picking a few dandelions or chasing a grasshopper in the outfield was too tempting. A lot of Christians, and those God is calling to this faith, sometimes get caught up in distractions. A serious war for souls is underway, and we can be oblivious to it. Many of our concerns, which seem so huge at the moment, shrink when compared to “the fight of faith.” How can it be that we are so concerned about how slow a person is driving but not be concerned about his soul? How can we be so worried about what’s going to happen tomorrow, and yet give no thought to our eternity? How can we care so much about our financial investments, but give no consideration to our spiritual capital?
Jesus understands these distractions perfectly. The beauty of His life and work was that He was not distracted, and He was very patient with distracted people like you and me. He came to fight the good fight. He came to make the greatest sacrifice. Martin Luther said that the will of God is done “when He breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature.” These three enemies stand against us every day, and it was these three enemies that Jesus came to defeat.
As soon as Jesus began His public ministry, He was confronted by Satan, who wanted Him to turn away from His mission to save us. Jesus countered Satan’s every temptation with the truth of God’s Word. Throughout His ministry Jesus was confronted by demon-possessed people. Today you may wonder if, in fact, there is a devil and if demons exist. In the Bible, the telltale sign of demonic activity is destruction. In his Revelation, St. John says that one of the names of Satan is “Apollyon” which means “destruction” (Revelation 9:11). Every week we see in the news another tragic story of murder-suicide. Spouses kill one another, their children, and themselves. Rampaging individuals murder innocent bystanders before destroying themselves. The destructive influence of Satan is strong in this world, and there is only one who has confronted it – Jesus. Jesus healed demon-possessed people. Jesus still delivers us from evil. With every baptism we ask, “Do you renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways?” When we answer “yes,” we have joined “the fight of faith.” In our baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we have the same victory over evil that Jesus had over Satan and over every demon-possessed person He encountered.
What Satan doesn’t try to accomplish directly, he tries with the assistance of the world that has fallen under his influence. St. John taught, “For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). You can be sure that you are in the right fight when you get the sense that the world is going one way, and you’re being called to go another. The world’s way always leads to self-idolatry and destruction. God’s way leads to life for us and for others in Jesus Christ.
St. John reminds us of our hope in this world when he wrote, “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Five children were taking their first swimming lessons. All five of them feared putting their faces in the water and lifting their legs from the security of the pool floor. But until they learned to float they would never be able to swim. The water would always win! Finally, a little boy named Philip trusted his teacher, took a deep breath, and lowered himself into the water. At first he sank a little below the surface, but because of the air in his lungs he floated up again. Soon he found that he could float comfortably on his stomach or back. The fear of the water was gone. With God in us through His Word, we cannot be overcome by the world, no matter what kind of pressure it exerts against us.
The last opponent in this fight of faith is the one we least want to admit – our own sinful self. Now I know we all think we’re pretty good people. We go to work, we take care of our families, we obey the laws. By that yardstick most of us are pretty good people. But “pretty good” and “perfect” are not the same thing. Jesus said, “You shall be perfect, just as Your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Noah, Abraham, Job, and David were all “good” people by our standards. But God still sent His own Son, Jesus, to suffer and die on the cross. Jesus came to give His perfect life for their imperfect lives and for our imperfect lives.
Satan will make easy work of us if we just keep on pretending that everything is OK. In his book Adjust or Self-Destruct, Craig Massey reminds us of the “animal-like” behaviors that we have to confront. A deceitful person is a “snake in the grass.” A grouch is an “old bear.” A glutton is a “hog.” Inside all of us there are natural tendencies and lusts that cause us to disobey God. How do we overcome our natural desires that Satan is always eager to exploit? David said in Psalm 138 “The LORD will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O LORD, endures forever” (Psalm 138:8). St. Paul reminds us “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
I’ve talked a lot about Satan, his temptation and influence. But do you know what Satan dreads the most about us? More than anything else, Satan dreads our honesty. His power depends on deception. His battle plan is always based on lies and falsehoods. The moment we begin to take an honest look at ourselves and admit our failures and our sins, his power begins to crumble. The moment we begin to look to Jesus and believe that He is the Son of God and that He gave His life so that we could be forgiven, at that moment – Satan is totally defeated.
Paul urges us to “Fight the good fight.” In Greek the word “fight” is agonizomai, and it gives us the English word agony. It is certainly agonizing to admit our sins and our need to be saved. But this is the right kind of agony. This is the right fight that we all need. It can certainly be agonizing to live by faith and to have to carry the cross as Jesus said. But all these struggles are temporary. When Jesus fought the good fight on the cross and rose again on the third day, His agony took away the power of Satan, the world, and our own sinful nature.
During the Vietnam War, a friend of mine, and a fellow Marine, told me of an unusual and frightening experience. He was a forward observer whose job it was to find the enemy and call in air strikes. One day while hiding in his position deep in enemy territory, he found himself surrounded by a huge contingent of North Vietnamese soldiers. They were literally marching on top of him. He could have let them pass. He could have kept hidden to save his own life. But instead he called an air strike right on top of himself. The air strike was devastating, but by God’s grace he was not hurt. Sergeant Maurice was what I call a “non-survivor.” He put away all selfishness and acted upon duty.
That’s what Paul was saying to Timothy when he said, “Fight the good fight…” No one can hide out and avoid the battle that God is waging for the souls of mankind. We become non-survivors when we give up trying to survive in this world on our own. We survive not by trusting in ourselves but in God and by fulfilling the duty to which God has called us. Each of us is called to our own post. Are you a young person? Then you are called to step into the fray by standing up for Jesus and not conforming to the world. Are you a parent? Then you are called to teach and model the Christian life. Are you an older person? Then follow your Savior even through the valley of the shadow of death. He is with you and will not forsake you. Your faithfulness to the very end is a powerful encouragement to all who come after you.
God, be with us. Awaken us to the battle. Lead us through the tumult and on to the final victory. Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for May 25, 2008
The VisitationANNOUNCER: Now, Pastor Ken Klaus answers questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer, and we have a question today we received in response to one of our previous topics.
KLAUS: Those are always interesting.
ANNOUNCER: Our listener writes, “Rarely do I disagree on the fundamentals of what you say. One could say that I, myself, follow the teachings of Jesus … however …you made a comparison that just as we teach our children to not play in the streets, or not to drink poison, if we’re careful to do that then we should also feel obligated to save our children’s souls, as well.
KLAUS: Yes, I remember that.
ANNOUNCER: Well, here’s our listener’s problem. He writes, “Whereas there is empirical evidence that it’s not good to play in the street or drink poison, you really can’t say the same thing about whether one believes in Jesus as his or her Savior. After all, faith is belief without tangible evidence. And while I agree that we are obligated to guide our children towards positive influences, when it comes to something like faith, teaching a child only one thing is hardly offering them any real choice.” That’s what our listener says.
KLAUS: Great question. First, we have to thank him for listening carefully and coming to us with his thoughts. We like to know how people feel about us and how they hear us.
ANNOUNCER: Agreed.
KLAUS: Now, let’s see if we can come up with an answer. If I heard rightly, everything the listener said can be boiled down to this: he thinks faith is faith, and fact is fact.
ANNOUNCER: Well, I think there you may have boiled it down a little too far.
KLAUS: OK, let me try again. He’s saying we accept the facts of science because they can, or have been, proven. On the other hand, faith, by virtue of it being in the spiritual realm, cannot be proven. He’s saying scientific truth can be empirically tested but religious truth cannot be.
ANNOUNCER: And we might think here of the words Jesus said to Thomas when He said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).
KLAUS: Or Hebrews 11:1 where it says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
ANNOUNCER: But I’m sure our listener is hoping there’s more that you can say about this.
KLAUS: Yes. Actually there are two things. The first is this: “How many of the things we say we ‘know’ are really nothing more than belief?” For example, I flick the light switch and the light goes on. How did that happen?
ANNOUNCER: Well, it received electricity from the power station.
KLAUS: And how do you know that? Have you seen the power station?
ANNOUNCER: Well, actually, yes. I do see it every day on my way home from work. But I haven’t really examined the cables to make sure they are directly connected to my house.
KLAUS: OK, but have you ever seen electricity, then?
ANNOUNCER: No.
KLAUS: We hold a lot of things by faith. Here’s another example. We are at war in Iraq, but I don’t know there is an Iraq. I’ve never seen it, and I’ve never been there. How do I know?
ANNOUNCER: That’s easy. You can talk to soldiers who have been there and have come back.
KLAUS: Right now, there are a fair number of people who think we never landed on the moon. And the same kind of case could be made in regard to Iraq. People think that was just a TV show (the moon landings). There are others who offer different explanations of Kennedy’s assassination, or think the terrorist attacks of September 11th were an inside job. Much of what people hold as fact is based on faith and depends upon whom you trust. I got a flu shot last year. I don’t know what was in that syringe. But I trust my doctor to do what is right. The same thing is true for God. In the Bible He’s telling us to trust Him in Holy Scripture. He’s calling us to follow His teaching, and trust that He alone is the Savior who died and rose to forgive our sins and bring us to eternal life.
ANNOUNCER: Now you said there were two things you could say in regard to this question.
KLAUS: Yes, there is a second one. Because of the passages we’ve already quoted, a fair number of people, and I’m not including our listener here, have decided religion, unlike the “real” world, is based on belief and nothing factual. They think when it comes to God, they’re required to turn off their brains.
ANNOUNCER: But that’s not true.
KLAUS: No, it’s not. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are better supported by historical fact than many of the other people that we believe about and read about in history books. The power of Christ’s rising from the dead shook the world more than September 11th shook our country. It was a watershed moment in history, and I use that word history very deliberately. Now, I can’t reproduce Jesus’ resurrection in a laboratory, but neither can I duplicate the conquests of Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar and I believe that those men existed and they did those things.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Music selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“All Depends On Our Possessing” arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
“Fight the Good Fight” arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
“Creator Spirit, Heavenly Dove” arr. Carl Schalk. From Hymns for All Saints: Lent, Easter, Pentecost (© 2006 Concordia Publishing House)
“All Depends On Our Possessing” arr. Paul Manz. From Hymn Improvisations by Paul Manz (© 1992 Paul Manz)
“Oh, That I Had a Thousand Voices” arr. Chris Loemker. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC