SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to what we hope is the penultimate Sunday of online church.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that uh a great thing to be able to say?
SPEAKER_00: And we pray to God that that will be the uh the last uh time that we will be uh unable to meet in person.
SPEAKER_00: We look forward to being with you on uh on the 16th.
SPEAKER_00: Can I encourage you um as you think about your whole life kind of coming out of lockdown?
SPEAKER_00: What I'm sensing is that people are like, oh, I've really got to think through what the logistics of that are.
SPEAKER_00: Can I invite you to to make a plan to be there on the 16th?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're going to be putting that information with regards to registering for our services.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we suspect strongly that there will still be two services as uh as has been our custom and uh and to register for those in good time and to plan to come along and to to celebrate uh the ability to meet in person again.
SPEAKER_00: So it's going to be so good to see uh one another's faces uh on that Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking forward to seeing you.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, that's uh reciprocal.
SPEAKER_00: And uh if not, then uh I'm very sorry about that.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for us as we continue our series in 2 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: Please keep that passage open uh in front of you in 2 Corinthians 10.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we ask now that you would give us uh meek uh hearts, uh gentle hearts, uh, especially in the face of uh criticism.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to uh image Christ and to take every thought captive uh in obedience to him.
SPEAKER_00: We pray it in his name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: It is one of the hardest things, isn't it, to uh to deal with, uh to navigate personal criticism.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the things that we all have to face as human beings, and perhaps particularly as Christians, this idea of being criticized personally, of people challenging you, speaking badly of you.
SPEAKER_00: At one level, we hear the warnings of Jesus in the Gospels, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: In that encouragement uh or that warning, I guess, that there will be those who hate you, there will be those who who speak ill, who speak badly of you.
SPEAKER_00: And and maybe in a sense, we kind of expect that.
SPEAKER_00: We expect those outside of uh the Christian family uh to be those who challenge us, to be those who push back, who think less of us on one level, we kind of expect that, and yet also sadly, there are those within the church, within the uh the family of God, or at least professing to be followers of Jesus, who also are critical of us, and those are the harder wounds, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00: By those who at least profess to be on the same page, on the same team, that they come and inflict those blows.
SPEAKER_00: Those are often the wounds that are most unexpected and hardest to bear.
SPEAKER_00: I am sure uh that most, if not all, of you watching this morning uh have known what it is to be unjustly criticized, either inside of or outside of the church.
SPEAKER_00: I imagine that there are some of you watching this who are disillusioned with the Christian faith precisely because of this sort of sniping, this sort of criticism.
SPEAKER_00: It is certainly very common for pastors, people doing the job that I do, to burn out and to resign, to leave the ministry because of the weight of unjust criticisms.
SPEAKER_00: They weigh on us, they keep us awake at night.
SPEAKER_00: And I am uh extraordinarily blessed uh by City Church to be in a context where uh that is not usual.
SPEAKER_00: It's not unheard of, but it's not usual.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it is from inside or outside the church, we will all face ridicule for what we believe, criticism about our convictions, questions maybe about our character.
SPEAKER_00: Christians often get criticized for being hypocrites, don't they?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that an accusation that those close to you like to throw at you that you're a hypocrite?
SPEAKER_00: Because they think that you should be perfect now that you are a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, as followers of Jesus, our actions and our speech they don't match up to what the Bible says because we are not.
SPEAKER_00: We're followers of Jesus, we're not Jesus, and so people can be ready to pounce on our feelings and imperfections.
SPEAKER_00: We can find ourselves ridiculed.
SPEAKER_00: Our skills, our competencies, our abilities undermined, and so we feel inadequate.
SPEAKER_00: Some criticisms will be outrageous, some criticisms will be subtle, other criticisms might even be justified in part.
SPEAKER_00: Others will be false and spurious.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes there will be a mixture of truth and lies.
SPEAKER_00: For some of you watching this, I'm sure the thought of being criticized is terrifying.
SPEAKER_00: The thought of somebody challenging you makes you want to shrink away and never never go out again.
SPEAKER_00: Might paralyze you so that you're hardly able to do or say anything.
SPEAKER_00: You put up a front.
SPEAKER_00: Especially when our Christian witness is being aligned.
SPEAKER_00: How do we navigate these challenges?
SPEAKER_00: If that's you, this passage helps us.
SPEAKER_00: This whole chapter, so over the next two weeks, helps us.
SPEAKER_00: We were entering into the final portion really of this letter.
SPEAKER_00: It concludes around chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: And all the way through this letter, Paul has been uh subtly defending his ministry, contrasting it with the ministry of the Old Testament, contrasting it with uh with the ministry of those who had infiltrated the church.
SPEAKER_00: And up till now he hasn't he hasn't named them, he hasn't taken direct aim at them, at his detractors, but now he will.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's going to call some stuff out, and in doing so, he helps us to see how we should meet our own critics, those who challenge and criticize us.
SPEAKER_00: Two points this morning, uh, really, in this first six verses.
SPEAKER_00: The first being that we are encouraged, or one of the things that we can learn from Paul is to be gentle when criticized personally.
SPEAKER_00: I, Paul, myself entreat you, just notice that the the last couple of chapters he's been talking about the people around him, been talking about his apostolic team, and it's almost like he steps forward for a second into the into the spotlight.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This isn't about them.
SPEAKER_00: Let me deal with the criticisms about me.
SPEAKER_00: I, Paul myself, entreat you.
SPEAKER_00: That is, I'm I'm begging you here by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I who am humble and face to face with you, but bold when I am away, I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: It is hard not to take criticism personally, to let it gnaw at us and keep us awake at night, especially today when people run very quickly to the personal attack, don't they?
SPEAKER_00: The criticism often goes straight to character, not to the ideas that somebody has, not to the thing that a person did, but who they are.
SPEAKER_00: People criticize us on a personal level these days.
SPEAKER_00: They go back years into social media accounts and pull up the most foolish and or reckless tweet or post and they smear a person with that.
SPEAKER_00: They said, This is who they are.
SPEAKER_00: They are a racist, they are a bigot, they are phobic against some sort of minority grouping confrontations.
SPEAKER_00: Rarely are a clash of ideas that go straight to the person so quickly rather than dealing with the substance of the issue at hand.
SPEAKER_00: Paul here, similarly, was being personally attacked.
SPEAKER_00: The personal attack is that they thought that Paul was two-faced.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he says in the little kind of dash part in the Bible where he says, I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold towards you when I'm away.
SPEAKER_00: That was their criticism of him.
SPEAKER_00: That they thought he was two-faced, that he was a raging lion with a pen from miles away, but as meek as a lamb when he was with them in person, that he was all bluff and bluster, but nothing impressive when he showed up.
SPEAKER_00: And now others in the church were accused him of these double standards.
SPEAKER_00: They were trying to dismantle his reputation, his work in Corinth.
SPEAKER_00: And so, how does Paul respond?
SPEAKER_00: He responds by picking up his pen and not by being a raging lion, not with bluff and bluster, but as we see, with the meekness and gentleness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He starts soft.
SPEAKER_00: He's trying not to take it personally, in a sense.
SPEAKER_00: What is the meekness and gentleness of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Christ is he who didn't revile when he was criticized.
SPEAKER_00: Think of his trial.
SPEAKER_00: How he made not a word in his own defense.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't answer the false accusations, he took the blows and the lies.
SPEAKER_00: Is this an easy thing to do?
SPEAKER_00: No, of course not.
SPEAKER_00: Which is easier?
SPEAKER_00: To lash out and to say, let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just point out to you what's really going on here.
SPEAKER_00: Or is it easier to respond with meekness towards those attacks?
SPEAKER_00: Of course, it is much harder to be meek.
SPEAKER_00: It requires much more strength to be meek and gentle.
SPEAKER_00: And so don't misunderstand.
SPEAKER_00: Meekness in the face of criticism is not weakness, it is incredible gospel wrought strength.
SPEAKER_00: To be able to say, look, I'm not answering the personal criticisms.
SPEAKER_00: We will deal with the criticisms around my ministry and I will defend them.
SPEAKER_00: You want to speak badly?
SPEAKER_00: Well, fine.
SPEAKER_00: Christ calls us to be meek.
SPEAKER_00: The world will see it as weakness, the world won't see it as strength, but it is an incalculable strength of character to say, I am not going to respond in kind.
SPEAKER_00: That is not to say that you don't defend yourself in any way.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is going to defend, but he's not going to respond in kind.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to sling more mud.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to sling more personal attacks.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to go to the lowest common denominator, personal attacks, just like they have.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to play that game.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to rise above it.
SPEAKER_00: Or is it uh that uh Michelle Obama uh used to famously say to say, you know, when they go low, we go high.
SPEAKER_00: It's that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: When they go low with their spurious, false personal attacks.
SPEAKER_00: Say, do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna dignify that, I'm not gonna play that game.
SPEAKER_00: You want to talk about the issues, you want to measure it up with my life and what we have already, what we've said with God's word and those sorts of things, then we can do that.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not gonna get into the mud with you.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's critics had no idea the kind of heart that the gospel produced in a person's life.
SPEAKER_00: It was a it is a heart of gentleness, a heart of humility.
SPEAKER_00: But they thought that being humble was an insult.
SPEAKER_00: They thought that if you were gentle, you were weak.
SPEAKER_00: But this sort of humility, meekness, gentleness is only something that Jesus can produce in us.
SPEAKER_00: And it is the way that we should follow him.
SPEAKER_00: It was his character.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he lived and ministered among us.
SPEAKER_00: By nature, we're not this, by nature we're not gentle, by nature we're not humble or meek.
SPEAKER_00: No, by nature, our hearts are wrecking balls.
SPEAKER_00: That's what our hearts are by nature.
SPEAKER_00: They're wrecking balls, ready to swing out and to destroy the person in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: Or if they don't do that, what they do is they swing on the inside and they destroy you with self-loathing.
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts are wrecking balls in the face of criticism by nature.
SPEAKER_00: Gentleness does not come naturally to us.
SPEAKER_00: This is why it is called the gentleness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is a gift of his grace, it comes to us by his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That is why it is counted as one of the fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: How does this work?
SPEAKER_00: How do we grow in this?
SPEAKER_00: How does the gospel produce this in us?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the fundamental thing that the gospel does is the gospel displaces you or me from the center of my universe.
SPEAKER_00: It takes Mark out of the center of the universe, my own little personal uh existence, and places God there where God should be.
SPEAKER_00: It makes him supreme, not Mark supreme.
SPEAKER_00: And once we displace ourselves from the center, that actually gives us perspective on what truly matters.
SPEAKER_00: That it's not about defending me because I'm not supreme.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, as we will see in the passage, we defend the gospel, we defend criticisms of Jesus, we defend what God has done and is doing in the world.
SPEAKER_00: We are so naturally defensive of our rights, our reputation.
SPEAKER_00: How dare you?
SPEAKER_00: Who do you think you are?
SPEAKER_00: The gospel flips that around.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel says to you know what?
SPEAKER_00: My reputation does not matter.
SPEAKER_00: My reputation only matters insofar as the reputation of the gospel matters.
SPEAKER_00: JC Ryle, who is a bishop in Liverpool at the uh the turn of the 20th century, said, Preach Christ and be forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: Preach Christ and be forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: That is what matters.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel frees us, therefore.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel frees us to take ourselves lightly and to take Jesus seriously.
SPEAKER_00: That is what one of the things that we have always sought to cultivate as a church.
SPEAKER_00: We take ourselves lightly.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you'll meme this sermon and uh and do so because I I hope that I am growing in a way that shows that I don't take myself too seriously.
SPEAKER_00: But I hope also that you know that I take the gospel very seriously, and I want to, as far as the Lord by His Holy Spirit enables that, to model that.
SPEAKER_00: We don't take ourselves seriously, we take following Jesus incredibly seriously, we take defending the gospel incredibly seriously, but we don't take ourselves too seriously.
SPEAKER_00: That's the essence of what Paul's doing here.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, look, you can attack me all you want, but I'm gonna defend the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And notice how this confounds their expectations.
SPEAKER_00: As I've already pointed out, they thought he was brash with a pen and gentle and entreating in person, but now he flips it.
SPEAKER_00: But he also gives them a warning.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, You think I'm meek?
SPEAKER_00: Or so you think I'm a lamb?
SPEAKER_00: You think I'm not all that when I'm when I'm before you?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there is a warning here.
SPEAKER_00: I will discipline those who are maligning the gospel, I will discipline those who are who are criticizing and leading others astray.
SPEAKER_00: When I'm there face to face, I will be bold.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to, but I will.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the mark of a of a pastor who loves his people.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't want to have this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: That's essentially what he's saying in verse two.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, You want to criticize?
SPEAKER_00: Like, you think that I'm just manipulating people?
SPEAKER_00: That's what walking according to the flesh is.
SPEAKER_00: You think I'm manipulating people?
SPEAKER_00: You think I'm deceiving people?
SPEAKER_00: I will challenge that because the gospel's at sake.
SPEAKER_00: I will be bold with regards to that.
SPEAKER_00: I will discipline, I will be firm.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's saying in verse two, and he reiterates it in verse six.
SPEAKER_00: He says that he will be ready to punish every evil disobedience when your obedience is complete.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I'm encouraging you as a church to turn back to the gospel that I am giving you, to the way of living that I have delivered to you, the way that I have modeled godly living to you.
SPEAKER_00: And whoever is left in persistent disobedience, I will challenge that.
SPEAKER_00: This is the mark of a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: A bad pastor permits everything, never challenges.
SPEAKER_00: A bad pastor challenges everything and is always criticizing.
SPEAKER_00: No, a good pastor knows when to challenge wrong.
SPEAKER_00: That is not his desire.
SPEAKER_00: He wants them to repent.
SPEAKER_00: He wants them to turn.
SPEAKER_00: It would be perverse, actually, for a pastor to say, do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I really like I really enjoy the um uh the rebuking conversations.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really love it when I just have to kind of you know give it to uh a person who who is in sin in the church.
SPEAKER_00: That's absolutely perverse.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking personally, I would always rather that that not be the case.
SPEAKER_00: I would always rather that people would see their sin and turn away from it rather uh voluntarily.
SPEAKER_00: I never want to go into those conversations.
SPEAKER_00: And I always go into those conversations with much fear and trembling, even if it requires me speaking frankly.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is willing to have those conversations if and when those conversations are necessary, not for his own reputation or good, but for the reputation of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Why do we why does the pastor call anything out?
SPEAKER_00: Why does the pastor have a conversation with you and say, you know, I I've noticed this pattern, or I am concerned about this area of your life.
SPEAKER_00: We do it because we love you and we want to help you be a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We don't do it because we're we're somehow perfect or morally superior.
SPEAKER_00: We are given care over your souls by God, and we take that responsibility immensely seriously.
SPEAKER_00: But also the reputation of the gospel is at stake.
SPEAKER_00: There are those around you who are looking at your life and saying, Well, the gospel doesn't really matter all that much to him, or it doesn't really matter all that much to her.
SPEAKER_00: Because look at how she's living.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the choices that she's making about her life.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the choices that he's making.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Why would I follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Meekness is not weakness.
SPEAKER_00: It is knowing what and when to fight.
SPEAKER_00: It is being gentle with people.
SPEAKER_00: Wanting them to see their error error.
SPEAKER_00: Being patient with people longing to longing for their good.
SPEAKER_00: None of this comes naturally.
SPEAKER_00: It is a work of grace.
SPEAKER_00: We need Jesus' help.
SPEAKER_00: We need his Holy Spirit in our lives to soften our wrecking ball hearts.
SPEAKER_00: To help us not to stand on our own reputation, but to respond with true humility.
SPEAKER_00: That's how Paul responds first.
SPEAKER_00: He is gentle when criticized personally.
SPEAKER_00: Second, Paul is courageous when the gospel is criticized.
SPEAKER_00: And so be courageous, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: When the gospel is on the line, show courage.
SPEAKER_00: This is something worth fighting for.
SPEAKER_00: The irony is that people were accusing Paul of being manipulative and two-faced, and yet this is exactly what they were doing.
SPEAKER_00: They were manipulating the Corinthian Christians, manipulating away from Paul, speaking, whispering into it into their ears, going, Oh, I don't, I don't think Paul should have said that.
SPEAKER_00: Or Paul was very harsh.
SPEAKER_00: But when he comes here, you know, he's very uh, you know, he's not really all that much.
SPEAKER_00: The sum of verse 2, he says, as I count on showing against some, the sum there are those who he will later identify uh ironically with this uh this phrase, the super apostles.
SPEAKER_00: This comes up in chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: They're the ones who were deceiving the church, and Paul is taking aim at them.
SPEAKER_00: Paul responds here by helping the church to see what is worth fighting for.
SPEAKER_00: The super apostles fought over who was more powerful, who had the biggest following, who was the best orator, who had the largest bank balance.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul's saying, I'm not fighting about that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care about any of that.
SPEAKER_00: That is not a fight that is worth fighting.
SPEAKER_00: He's fighting rather for the gospel, and so he says, verse 3, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: That is, he recognizes that he is a human being, that he's in the world, but he's not fighting with the weapons of the world, he's not prioritizing the things of the world.
SPEAKER_00: His main objective is to make Christ known.
SPEAKER_00: That is the chief and controlling aim of his life, and he does fight for that, but he fights for that in a Christian way.
SPEAKER_00: He uses this uh image of warfare and weaponry.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it with me in verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
SPEAKER_00: We deploy arguments, sorry, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What are the weapons that he is using for this godly fight, for this righteous war?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he says here that they are not of the flesh, and so we know what they're not.
SPEAKER_00: What would the weapons of the flesh be?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we've seen the uh the super apostles, those who are criticizing Paul, using them in other parts of the letter.
SPEAKER_00: They are deceitfulness, lying, doublespeak, flattery, manipulation, glory-seeking.
SPEAKER_00: And so conversely, he has told us in other parts of the letter what those weapons are, what the godly weapons are.
SPEAKER_00: What are the weapons that we use to fight for the reputation of the gospel, brothers and sisters?
SPEAKER_00: Their integrity, plainness of speech, gentleness, humility, kindness, forgiveness, joy, peaceableness.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the weapons that Paul deploys.
SPEAKER_00: They are not the weapons that the world values, but they are the weapons of Christian warfare.
SPEAKER_00: You know the phrase it comes from Shakespeare, I think.
SPEAKER_00: The phrase, all is fair in love and war.
SPEAKER_00: You know what that means?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that means that if you are in a war, or indeed fighting to win a lover, it doesn't matter what tactics you deploy.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what means you use.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not true for the follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, first of all, wants you to get your end goal right.
SPEAKER_00: Your end goal is not fighting for yourself, but fighting for the gospel, fighting for the reputation of Christ amongst the people who God has placed you with.
SPEAKER_00: That is the end goal that you are aiming your life towards.
SPEAKER_00: The to fight the spiritual war for the magnifying of Christ among the nations.
SPEAKER_00: That's the end goal.
SPEAKER_00: But your means of doing that also matters.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't just care about ends, he also cares about means.
SPEAKER_00: The end is not personal reputation, but the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so the means are not manipulation, but the means that Christ Himself uses and embodies.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the weapons of our warfare.
SPEAKER_00: And what are the effects of these weapons?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul tells us here.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 again, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
SPEAKER_00: What do these weapons do?
SPEAKER_00: These weapons of gentleness, integrity, humility, plainness of speech, peaceableness.
SPEAKER_00: What do they do?
SPEAKER_00: They destroy strongholds.
SPEAKER_00: That's the paradox of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is not magnified, Christ's kingdom does not advance through force of arms, it doesn't advance through manipulation, it doesn't advance through flattery and deceit, it advances through prayerful, meek, dependent people living lives of faith and truthfulness and integrity and love.
SPEAKER_00: And in the face of that, the strongholds of this world come tumbling down.
SPEAKER_00: Paul has a very specific image here.
SPEAKER_00: He is the image of a siege engine coming up against a city.
SPEAKER_00: In the movie The Return of the King, one of the things that you see there in the Battle of Pelanor Fields is these large siege towers that are wheeled up towards the walls of Minas Tirth.
SPEAKER_00: And they enable the uh the enemy to breach the walls and to take control of the city.
SPEAKER_00: They allow those strongholds to fall down.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is using that Roman image to say that our meekness, our gentleness, our joy in the gospel has that effect.
SPEAKER_00: It is like rolling a siege engine up against the walls of some enemy stronghold, and they will come tumbling down and they will be brought down by our love.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that wonderful?
SPEAKER_00: And how encouraging here that Paul doesn't say, and our our hope are uh like we really are praying and hoping that uh you know the the stronghold might begin to crumble uh someday soon.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'd really love uh to to see uh this opposition to Christ be uh be moved, and so we're we're just really hoping uh for that.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says the weapons of our warfare have divine power to destroy strongholds.
SPEAKER_00: God uses our love, our integrity, our peacefulness, our gentleness, our kindness, and through the power of his Holy Spirit, he breaks down the walls of opposition, he breaks into people's lives.
SPEAKER_00: There's no maybe about it.
SPEAKER_00: This is the effect of our weapons.
SPEAKER_00: Take up those weapons of faith, salvation, hope in the gospel, faith and joy and love.
SPEAKER_00: Take up those weapons with confidence that God will advance his kingdom through them.
SPEAKER_00: And notice what these weapons are used against.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: What does Paul destroy?
SPEAKER_00: He says, We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What does Paul destroy?
SPEAKER_00: Not people.
SPEAKER_00: Our world destroys people, our world will attack people, it will attack personal reputations and seek to end careers.
SPEAKER_00: That's the weapons of the world.
SPEAKER_00: What is the weapon we destroy here?
SPEAKER_00: It destroys ideas, it destroys lofty, that is pride and opposing worldviews, arguments, prideful opinions that set themselves over and against God.
SPEAKER_00: These are the weapons that the Christian takes up in order to take every thought captive for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What we fight against is not people, but sinful opposing worldviews that people propagate.
SPEAKER_00: Christians love people, we are gentle towards people, but we fight for the truthfulness of the gospel on the frontier of the mind, in the battlefield of the mind and the heart.
SPEAKER_00: That, incidentally, is what tolerance used to be.
SPEAKER_00: Tolerance used to be that ideas were disputed, and we contended for the faith in the public square, in the universities, where in our workplaces, wherever God had placed us, and other people come and they have other ideas and other worldviews, and and we speak into them and against them and seek to persuade people of the hope that we have in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we disagree with our work colleague, or we disagree with our lecturer, we disagree with our classmate, we disagree with our family member, but we love them because they're image bearers of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what tolerance was.
SPEAKER_00: We disagreed at the level of ideas, but we loved and tolerated people.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't seek their harm or the destruction of their business or the destruction of their career.
SPEAKER_00: But not so nigh, not so nigh.
SPEAKER_00: Tolerance now means that we must believe that every idea is is equally right.
SPEAKER_00: And that to disagree with someone is to harm them at the level of their person.
SPEAKER_00: It is to undermine them, it is to be phobic of them, it is to be a bigot towards them.
SPEAKER_00: We must fight against this redefinition of tolerance.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian is called to love people, but to contend for the exclusive truthfulness of the Christian worldview, to contend for the exclusiveness of Christ as the only means of salvation, because we love people and souls are at stake.
SPEAKER_00: People without Jesus go to hell.
SPEAKER_00: That is the bottom line.
SPEAKER_00: And so we contend on the battlefield of the mind and heart, that spiritual battlefield where enemies that go beyond the realm of sight would seek to manipulate and deceive people.
SPEAKER_00: We contend there with the weaponry of love, with the weaponry of truth.
SPEAKER_00: This very curious phrase that Paul seeks to take every thought captive in obedience to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Well, again, we're back at the siege engine.
SPEAKER_00: So the the enemies have come, we have scaled the walls and gone into the city.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're seeking to take captives, not captives for our own sake, for our own glory, but captives for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If you are a follower of Jesus, you are a captive in obedience to Jesus, and that is where true freedom is.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul seeks to take every thought captive.
SPEAKER_00: At a basic level, what this means is that, well, for you and I as followers of Jesus, one of the things that this means is that we all have ways still, because we are in the flesh, ways of thinking, ways of speaking, ways of acting that are contrary to the teachings of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be constantly taking our own thoughts captive.
SPEAKER_00: How often do you let thoughts of accusation and shame run riot in your head and in your heart?
SPEAKER_00: Those things that you have repented of, those things that you have been forgiven by uh from by Jesus of, and yet they still keep you up at night.
SPEAKER_00: Those ways of valuing, those ways of prioritizing, prioritizing mere economics in your decision making rather than your spiritual health or the spiritual health of your family.
SPEAKER_00: That's a fleshly way of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Paul would say, you know, you gotta take that thought captive, you've got to take every decision and bring it into subjection, into obedience under Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What would Jesus have me do in this situation?
SPEAKER_00: How would Jesus think and act?
SPEAKER_00: How would he have me move forward here?
SPEAKER_00: How can I bring my life, my thought life, my feelings in line with what he teaches?
SPEAKER_00: But this idea also helps us to understand our evangelism, what evangelism is.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you feel so often on the defensive?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you feel so often on the back foot when you are speaking to others about Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: So often what happens is that somebody will challenge you with a question.
SPEAKER_00: And so you're constantly kind of leaning back and thinking, oh, okay, well, I've got to try and get the right answer to that.
SPEAKER_00: I've got to have the answer to, oh you know, how could a good God allow so much suffering in the world?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you so anti-scientific that you don't believe in evolution?
SPEAKER_00: And you're on the defensive.
SPEAKER_00: There's lots to be said for that.
SPEAKER_00: There is a defensive aspect to the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: But here, what Paul is encouraging us to see as well is that the gospel also has an offensive quality.
SPEAKER_00: We scale the walls of every worldview, we scale the walls and speak into people's lives and come to them with the gospel, not as confrontational jackasses.
SPEAKER_00: We do it with the weaponry of love and joy and peace.
SPEAKER_00: But that does mean perhaps that we ask the odd question.
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, when someone says to you that you know, Christians shouldn't make exclusive and absolute truth claims by which other people should live by.
SPEAKER_00: That's not something that you should do.
SPEAKER_00: Well, perhaps with gentleness and love, you might graciously point out that the very sentiment that they are claiming is an absolute truth claim, and that they are insisting that you should live by it.
SPEAKER_00: It is okay to have an offensive, not offensive, but an offensive aspect to your evangelism to say, no, why do you think that?
SPEAKER_00: Or can you see that that's also an absolute truth claim?
SPEAKER_00: That you're trying to get me to live the way that you want me to live, but I'm not allowed to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Just for example.
SPEAKER_00: We all know all too well, don't we, that our minds are battlegrounds.
SPEAKER_00: Thoughts of anxiety and fear and self-loathing.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's desire here is to take every thought captive.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that there are belief systems and individual thoughts that wreak havoc in our mind.
SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things that we need to press into as a Christian community is this idea of taking every thought captive.
SPEAKER_00: How can you do that?
SPEAKER_00: How can we take every thought captive in obedience to Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the first thing that we should do is that we should learn Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Learn the Christ of the scriptures, know what it is he says, know his character, know his love for you, know the whole sweep and drama of biblical revelation, of God's great divine love story of redemption, know how he has acted on your behalf, and know how to answer those accusations that crop up in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: Another thing that you can do in order to take every thought obedient unto Christ is to pray frequently.
SPEAKER_00: I rarely have uh a sermon application that essentially devolves into read the Bible and pray more, but there's a lot to be said for reading the Bible and praying more.
SPEAKER_00: When we pray, we cry out to God.
SPEAKER_00: When we pray, we are putting a circuit breaker in those thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: When those thoughts of inadequacy or uh or accusation come, you immediately turn them to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Lord, I feel fearful and nervous.
SPEAKER_00: And on one level, hi aham, just dust.
SPEAKER_00: That is what your words are.
SPEAKER_00: And so I need you to come to I need you to help me here.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to give me the words to say.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to be in the hearts of the people who are hearing me.
SPEAKER_00: Or when those thoughts of shame come, of stuff that you have been forgiven, that you've repented in the past, and still the enemy would seek to accuse you.
SPEAKER_00: You circuit, you'd say, I do not claim that I am without sin, as one John says.
SPEAKER_00: But I confess and have repented of that sin, and so I thank you that I have been cleansed of all unrighteousness through the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Help me to live and to know that more.
SPEAKER_00: Circuit.
SPEAKER_00: You're taking every thought captive in your worry, in your anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: Say, Lord, I am terrified of what this next stage of my life might entail.
SPEAKER_00: I do not know the future.
SPEAKER_00: And yet you do, and you are good.
SPEAKER_00: Please would you help me to know that goodness?
SPEAKER_00: Help me to trust.
SPEAKER_00: Like the man who comes to Jesus, that father who comes to Jesus in Mark in Mark chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to him and says, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that you are good.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that you are in control of this, and yet I am still struggling.
SPEAKER_00: Help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Circuit breaker.
SPEAKER_00: The other thing that you can do to take every thought captive under Christ is to live with and amongst those who will speak and act in ways that help you, that model this taking thoughts, this taking every thought captive that will build you up and encourage you, that will give you perspective when you are see when you are losing it.
SPEAKER_00: There is a battle to be fought.
SPEAKER_00: It is waged in every human society, it is waged in every human heart.
SPEAKER_00: It is not tribe against tribe or good person against bad person.
SPEAKER_00: It is a war against the lie that we have been told from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: That lie that we can be our own gods, that lie that we are at the center of our own universe, that we are our own creators, our own evaluators, our own judges.
SPEAKER_00: Our own saviors, the lie that God is neither good nor true nor beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Our societies, our lives believe that lie, and we combat those lies not with further deceit, but with love, with graciousness and self-forgetfulness, with unwavering conviction to who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And the promise of the passage is clear that when we wage that good and godly warfare, strongholds come tumbling down.
SPEAKER_00: May we fight together with one another side by side, our shields locked in our own hearts and for those around us whom we love.
SPEAKER_00: May God be glorified in and amongst us as a church family.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Help us, Father, to live in these ways that we do not do by nature, to live gently, to live with meekness and yet also with great courage for the gospel and for the cause of Christ in our day.
SPEAKER_00: May we see strongholds shaken in our lives and amongst those whom we love for the glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Amen, everybody.
SPEAKER_00: See you in two weeks.