Jay Adams is the father of biblical counseling, or some people call it nuthetic counseling. He was a preeminent Christian counselor. He gives a great piece of advice on living the Christian life. It's interesting what he says. He says if you want to successfully live the Christian life, this preeminent Christian counselor says, I would say do this, look at the Christian life as if this is a battle and you're a soldier.
You're a warrior. Here's what he says. He says, quote, the fact that many of us seldom think about our lives, our problems, and our decisions in military terms, that accounts for a great deal of the flabbiness in the present day church.
You see what he's saying? Because we don't see ourselves as warriors, we are spiritually flabby. We are shooting missiles and drones on ships going through the strait. Imagine a navy ship of ours going through the strait and the rebels shoot a missile at our ship and our navy goes to the secretary of defense, if they can find them, and they say to him, this isn't fair. Why are they shooting at me? We didn't do anything wrong.
Why are they being mean to us? You know the secretary of defense would say, man, suck it up. You're a soldier. You're a warrior. That's just what happens in the war.
See, we do the same thing. Why is Satan attacking us? Why am I coming under this spiritual assault?
Because we don't view ourselves as spiritual warriors. And then Jay Adams gives an example of a Christian that he calls Brad. He said, Brad has hit a tough time in his Christian walk. He's struggling in his marriage.
The lady at the office is starting to flirt with him. Brad is about to give up. Jay Adams says this, quote, one of Brad's basic problems is that he fails to see his difficulty in military terms. Framing his whole experience with the proper biblical parameters of warfare makes a great difference in every way. And so for the next few weeks, we're going to talk about you as a follower of Jesus Christ. As a Christian, you're a warrior. You're a soldier. And we're in battle. I'm trying to get an army mobilized in this place.
Now, let me just clarify in case the FBI is listening. I'm talking about spiritual warfare. I'm not talking about let's get a bunch of right-wing militants, okay? It's the last thing I need. Controversial right-wing pastor calls for a government overthrow. That's not what I'm calling for.
I'm saying we are in a spiritual war. You with me? And this isn't just for men. This is for women, too. Ladies, like Pastor Chris said, I'll be speaking at your women's conference here.
I made this promise. I will stay as far away from this place at your women's conference thing, okay? But let me just say this to women, because a lot of you will hear me talk about you're a warrior, and we're in spiritual warfare, and this is a battle. And you're thinking, here he goes again, talking to the men of our church. Why didn't he talk to us women?
I'll tell you something. If you're a woman of Jesus Christ, you're to have a warrior spirit as well. In fact, 1 Corinthians 10 says that the Old Testament is a tupos. Or a proto-tupos.
We get the word prototype. It is a prophetic picture of living the Christian life. Isn't that interesting? If you want to see the Christian life played out in analogy form, look at the Old Testament. And in the Old Testament, you had women warriors. You had ladies like Deborah, who are warriors, and they fight the good fight of faith.
Remember her? She's this great woman of God, and when the enemy comes and runs into her tent to hide, he falls asleep, and she gets a tent peg and drives it right into his brain, okay? Now, ladies, obviously, the point of that is not that men should sleep with one eye open because they're afraid their wives are going to put a railroad spike through their head. That's not it. The point is you can be a woman and still have that warrior spirit that the New Testament is talking about.
Y'all with me on that? 1 Timothy 1.18. Paul is writing to Timothy, and here's what he says. Timothy, my son, here are my instructions for you based on the prophetic words spoken about you earlier. May they, Timothy, may these words help you fight well in the Lord's battles. Now, remember what 1 Timothy is about. That is a mess of the church at Ephesus. There are some strong leaders that are taking that church in the wrong direction, so Paul sends this young man named Timothy to go and straighten out the mess that's going on at the church at Ephesus.
Remember that? And it's interesting, very early on in this letter, he's saying, Timothy, here's what I want you to do. As you go to this church and straighten out this mess, I want you to look at yourself. You are a soldier, and you're fighting the Lord's battles. In other words, at the very beginning of this letter, Paul says, Timothy, let's frame this in terms of warfare. You're in a war. You are a soldier of Jesus Christ.
That's what we're going to hit for the next couple weeks. You know, it's interesting. Paul uses all kinds of metaphors in the New Testament to describe the Christian life. Do you know the most common metaphor he uses in the New Testament to describe the Christian life is warfare. You're a soldier, and we're in a battle.
And it's all over the place, if you know what you're looking for. And it would be interesting in Paul's days, now, see, soldiers on the streets would really freak us out. In Paul's day, Roman soldiers being all over the place, that was normal. That one state, the Syrian state, had a 60,000 standing man Roman army. Wherever Paul went, there were soldiers.
We don't have that in America. Now, when we go to Israel, if I ever take y'all to Israel, if we can ever go back again, we can go back again. But you go back to Israel, there's soldiers everywhere. The weirdest thing in the world, because they have like compulsory military service, the weirdest thing in the world is to see the young, they look like models, 18 year old girls with fatigues and machine guns all over the place.
See, that's uncommon in our time. In Paul's time, soldiers were everywhere. And they weren't just any soldiers, they were Roman soldiers, the elite of the elite, probably the best fighting force the world has ever known. Paul was rescued in Jerusalem by Roman soldiers.
Paul was escorted to Rome by Roman soldiers. When Paul was in prison, as he spent most of his life in prison, he was chained to soldiers while he was in prison. Soldiers and warfare, it was an everyday part of Paul's life. So that's why he takes that analogy and he says, if you wanna know what it's like to be a Christian, think in terms of you're a soldier and you're in a war. Again, it's all over the New Testament.
Let me give you some examples. In 2 Corinthians 6, 7, Paul says, look, we have weapons, we have weapons in our right hand and in our left hand. Well, that's a Roman soldier analogy. Roman soldiers in those days had swords in their right hand, shields in their left hand. And he said, you're a soldier. You got prayer in the right hand, fasting in the left hand, the word of God in the right hand, the power of the Holy Spirit in the left hand. You're soldiers.
Let me give you another example. In Ephesians chapter 6, the spiritual warfare passage, if you read that in the original Greek, there's war analogies, war terms, war words. All over Ephesians chapter 6.
I believe in chapter 4, verse 7. Have you read this before? Paul says, hey, don't worry about what? Anything but do this. What does he say do? You pray about everything. And Paul says, if you'll stop worrying and you start praying, Paul says here's what's gonna happen, verse 7. The peace of God that you can't even explain. It doesn't make any sense. The whole world's going to hell and you're standing there with a smile on your face and you're not biting your fingers.
You're not bringing else to the quick. The peace of God that doesn't make any sense will do what? You know what it says? Guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. That word guard, it's a military term. It describes a sentinel, a soldier, a guard going back and forth in front of your heart, not allowing any anxious thoughts to come in.
Isn't that great? Several months ago, I had to drive down to Fort Bragg. The government actually changed the name to Fort Liberty. I was driving down to Fort Bragg and when I pulled up to the guard gate, there's a young guy there, young soldier, had his weapons.
He asked if my name is on the list, asked if he could search my car. He was very nice but his job was to not allow anybody who should not be on that base to come on that base. And Paul says, as a warrior of Jesus Christ, if you don't worry, you pray about everything and the Holy Spirit's peace is going to be like that guard walking back and forth in front of your heart saying, anxious thoughts, you don't belong in this place. It's a military term. Philemon 1-2, Paul calls Archippus a fellow soldier. Philippians 2-25, Paul calls Epaphroditus a fellow soldier.
Galatians 5-25, Paul says this, if we live by the Spirit, let us keep our in step with the Spirit. That word, keep in step, is one word in the Greek and it's a military term. It's like soldiers marching on parade. Soldiers don't get ahead. Soldiers don't lag behind.
They keep in perfect step. And Paul says, as a follower of Jesus Christ, you just keep in step with the Spirit. It's a military term. Have I made my point? This is not just an ancillary part of the Christian life. If you have enemies, you're a warrior and a soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So for the next several weeks, I might just do this next week, week, I don't know. Look, I was reading about a pastor a little while back. I respect this guy.
I wish I was like this guy. He says, I have my sermons lined up for the next two years. Like if you were to ask me, the eighth Sunday of 2025, what are you going to be preaching on? He says, I know exactly what I'm going to be preaching on.
I can't do that. I'm like a Louis Armstrong. I'm like a jazz musician. I kind of go with the flow here, okay? So I think we'll do this for the next couple weeks, but we'll see. But what I want to do is just show some similarities. All right? How living the Christian life is like being a soldier.
That's what I want to do for the next several weeks. So let me give you the first similarity. You ready for this? Look, like a soldier, we have one commanding officer. I want you to look at Second Timothy chapter two. This is a powerful passage. Second Timothy chapter two, verse three. Second Timothy. Endure suffering along with me.
Stop. Some of y'all have been told, sold a bill of goods that if you came to Jesus Christ, everything would be great. You'd be financially prosperous, no sickness, no problems, no nothing. That's not what that verse says right there, is it? You follow Jesus, your kids might rebel. You follow Jesus, you might go through bankruptcy.
That's what it's saying. Endure suffering with me as a good, what? Soldier of Christ Jesus.
The officers don't get tied up in the affairs of civilian life, for then they cannot please the officer who enlisted them. Man, that's powerful. Y'all know who Flavius Josephus was? He was like a Roman, he was a Jewish historian that lived about the time of Christ. And he wrote about life back in those days. And he has this whole treatise on Roman soldiers.
Again, they were the ultimate fighting force. And Josephus says something very interesting. When the Roman soldiers were so successful, listen to what he says. He says one of the main reasons was because a Roman soldier was taught to obey his commander implicitly. When the commander said jump, you jump. When the commander says march, you march. Edward Gibbon, who was a British historian, he was not a Christian, he's not writing from a Christian standpoint, in his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, talked about Roman soldiers as well. It was a core principle that soldiers should dread their officers more than they dreaded the enemy. Wow. You go out to fight a major army, you got all these barbarian hordes coming at you, and the Roman soldier wasn't scared.
Why? Because he was taught to fear his commander more than the army, this army coming at him. Wouldn't it be great if we had that in the body of Christ? And again, here's our problem. We're more afraid of people than we are of Jesus. And when Jesus tells us to do something, we want to vote on it, we want to discuss it, we want to give us, hey, how about this? You do it because I'm Jesus and I told you to do it. See, here's what's happening. I didn't say this first service, I'm going to say it at second service, and I like you better than them folks. Here's what's happening in the church, in our schools, and in our parenting.
We have to answer this question, but why? I'm now hearing of people in our church who are into this gentle parenting thing, and when the kid comes up and you tell them to do something, hey sport, come on over here. Hey sport, listen, let me kind of explain to you why I told you to do this, and sport, you know I love you, and we're buddies. No, no. You're the father, they're the child.
Do it. If you need to explain it, explain it, but you don't owe anybody anything, okay? In the Roman army, you didn't explain it to the soldiers. You just did it.
Marriage is between a man and a woman, but why? Because I'm Jesus, and that's what I said. I designed it that way. I hate to keep coming back to this.
I hate, it's almost like the devil, sometimes I wonder if the devil's trying to mess with my mind and kind of get me all riled up, because here's what I just saw yesterday. It is the greatest PR triumph in history is what that is, but Jesus says, I'm the commanding officer. I get to define family. You don't get to do that.
Now if you're the part of the world going to live like that, I don't care, but if you're one of mine, I get to define what reality is, and what family is, and what family marriage is. It is not. Gibbon also said that the best commanding officers, he said this, in the Roman army, you had good commanding officers, and you had bad commanding officers. Now again, he's not even writing from a Christian perspective. Gibbon says the best commanding officers encourage his soldiers in three ways.
Number one, by their presence. The best commanding officers wouldn't go say, fight the enemy. They'd say, no, no, let's go fight the enemy. I'm going to be right there with you. Jesus Christ did not tell you to go out in the world and try to live the Christian life through your own power. Jesus said, I am with you always. I'm a good commanding officer.
We're going to go out and fight this battle together. I'm going to be right there in the enemy life where the average soldier would say, I want to be just like that commanding officer. I want to be like him. I'm almost to the point where I don't care how other pastors pastor. I don't care how they preach. I don't care what the celebrities do. I'm not looking at pastors. I'm not looking at celebrities. I'm now to the point where I'm just looking at my commanding officer.
You know what? I just want to be like him. If I can just be like Jesus.
I don't care if I'm like Billy Graham. I don't care if I'm like, I just want to be like him. He has set the best example. That's my command.
I just want to be like him. The best commanding officers gave his men the presence, their example, and the number three, their personal instructions. They would teach them how to fight.
They give them basically their fighting manual. Their instructions from your commanding officer how to fight the good fight of faith. We serve a good commanding officer, don't we, church? He's given us his presence, his example, and his instruction. Now I want you to go back to 2 Timothy 3, 4. Look at this. 2 Timothy 3, 4. Our goal in life, Paul says, is to please our commanding officer.
That's it. I'm going to give you a 100 money back guarantee. I was just about to say I will refund your tithes.
I'm not ready to do that yet, but I'm going to give you a 100 money back guarantee. I want you to listen to me. If you'll get to the point in your life where you respect Jesus and you only want to please Jesus, boldness is going to well up inside of you. You'll never be afraid of people again. I don't think you're going to be afraid, period.
Jesus says that in Luke 12, by the way. Don't be afraid of people who can kill you. You want the secret of boldness? You just fear the one who has the power to send people to hell. You fear him. You respect him. You honor him. When you come to the point in your life when you only want to please Jesus, and not your 1,223 Facebook friends, you just want to please Jesus, everything gets a lot more simple.
Boldness just wells up inside of you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't go to that movie. You guys go to the movie.
Not going to judge you. I can't go to that movie. Why? Because my commanding officer said I'm not supposed to put any unclean thing in front of my face. I can't go to that movie. Y'all go. I can't because I serve a commanding officer. It makes life so much easier. I've said this a couple weeks ago. That sounds real good in here when we're a bunch of like-minded people.
The challenge is when you start trying to live that out there, that's a lot harder. Isn't it? You are going to find the closer we get to the second coming of Jesus Christ, fewer and fewer people will be listening to the clarion voice of the commander, Jesus. I'm not talking about outside the church.
I'm talking about inside the church. You're going to be set apart. Trust me. I want to be different. You want to be different?
That's fine. You follow Jesus. You're going to be different. The world's not going to like you. If the world doesn't say anything bad about you, I question your walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm now to that point. You're taking on the word of God, this idea that you're going to follow Jesus no matter what. Athanasius, you need to understand the whole world is against you.
I love his response. He said, well, that's fine that I'm against the whole world. That's why they called him Athanasius Contramundum. Athanasius, the one who stands against the world because I just want to please Jesus.
Beloved, that concept played into an audience of one. It's all over the Bible. Chapter five, verse 14.
If you do some digging in this, you realize this is a pre-incarnate manifestation of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ appears to Joshua. Joshua's just crossed the Jordan River.
It's dark. They're about to go and take on some giants and this man with a sword stands up as Joshua's having his quiet time. He must have looked fearful because when Joshua sees this man with this flaming, this sword, he fell down on his face and he said, I am at your command. What do you want your servant to do? I am at your command. Now you tell me what you want me to do.
Wouldn't it be a great way to start every single day of your life to fall on your face before the king of kings and the Lord of lords and say, Jesus, today I'm your servant. You tell me what to do and I want to do it because I'm not in charge. You are. You're my commanding officer. I am your servant.
Lord, what do you want me to do? Romans 14, eight. If we live, it's to honor the Lord. If we die, it's to honor the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
I have one commanding officer. Galatians 1, 10. I love Galatians 1, 10. Paul says this.
These people, I would not be a servant of Jesus Christ. Do you see what he's saying? You're going to have to make up your mind.
Who are you going to listen to? This world, this system, this going to hell, this under the righteous wrath of God, this world that's passing away. Are you going to try to carry favor with this world or are you going to serve the Lord Jesus Christ but it's one or the other? See, some of y'all are so excited because the world loves you. The world accepts you. The world affirms you.
I know of Christians in Hollywood, they're so excited because they can call themselves Christian but they're getting elevated in the secular Hollywood scene. Listen to me. Nobody cares about getting a promotion on the Titanic. You're now the captain of the Titanic. Great, this whole thing is going down but thanks for the title. And it's like God is saying, this whole world is collapsing.
And you're excited about the accolades this world has given you. You're going to either be a servant of this world or a servant of Jesus but you can't be servants of both. Isaiah 8, 12. Isaiah 8 is interesting. There is national calamity coming upon Israel, the people of God.
Imagine this. It's not just a couple dozen Hamas soldiers. Imagine an entire army, hundreds of thousands of people who have that Hamas mindset.
They're coming in to destroy the land. You understand why they're a little bit nervous. Everybody is freaking out and God says to his people, his select few, be your dread. Or as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, those who are still afraid of men have no fear of God and those who fear God have ceased being afraid of men. That's what it means to say, I'm a soldier of Jesus Christ and I have one commanding officer, Jesus.
If I can just please Jesus, let the chips fall where they may. I'm just telling you, that's the key to boldness is to say, you're a warrior. Ma'am, you're a warrior et. We are warriors of Jesus Christ and we have one commanding officer. We seek to please Jesus.
That kind of mentality will change this world. I shared this several months ago at our men's conference. There's a legend of Alexander the Great. Here's a picture of Alexander the Great. We're not quite sure what it looked like. I think this was kind of painted close to his time.
I don't know if his eyes were that big or not. At any rate, Alexander the Great was one of, if not the greatest military leaders of all time. There's a legend that sprung up around Alexander the Great called the incident at the Sogdian Rock.
Alexander and a small company of soldiers approached this. It was a highly fortified city. They called out to the king, you need to surrender this city. You know what the king did? He just laughed at Alexander the Great and said, have you seen this city?
It's impregnable. Y'all ain't going to take this city. Alexander again said, you really need to surrender this city. The king said to Alexander the Great, why should I surrender this city to you? You cannot do us any harm. Alexander the Great said, why?
Let me show you why. In a single file line, his soldiers. He said, forward, march. His soldiers began to march. They kept marching.
They didn't lose a step. They get to this giant cliff. The king and the people in the city that are watching this, they're expecting the guys just to stop.
Those guys didn't stop. First one marched right off that cliff. Second one marched right off that cliff.
Third one marched right off. Alexander the Great's soldiers, without missing a step, marched right off that cliff to their deaths. Then Alexander the Great said, stop. He said to the king, that's why you probably need to surrender to me. You know what the king did? He surrendered his city because he knew that a man that inspired that kind of unquestioned loyalty among his soldiers, that man could not be defeated. If this world could see some radical, passionate, sold-out followers of Jesus Christ that obeyed Jesus more than anything else, if they could see people who didn't really care about the accolades of this world, they'd just want to serve and to obey and to honor their commanding officer.
If our world could see in the body of Christ what that city saw that day, I think we could probably do something significant for the kingdom of God, don't you? He's our king. He's our commanding officer.
When he says jump, we say how high. When he says march, we march, knowing that the battle has been won, that the victory is secure. We serve a good commanding officer, don't we?
I'm going to say this. You're going to serve somebody. I believe in independence. Do you know independence is a facade?
There's no such thing as independence. You're going to serve somebody, either Satan and this world who are horrible taskmasters or Jesus Christ. You're going to serve somebody. I just thank God that today I serve the king of kings and the lord of lords, the lamb who sits upon the throne. I serve a good commander named Jesus Christ.
Join the Roman army, and again, they were becoming the elite of the elite. When military recruits joined the army, they actually swore an oath of allegiance to the commanding officer. They would basically say, we're joining the army. And they would be asked, you sure you want to do this?
Yes. So they would have this elaborate ceremony where these soldiers would swear their allegiance to their commanding officer and then later to the emperor and basically say, as of this moment, I belong to him. Do you know what that oath, that loyalty oath was called back in those days? You know, they spoke Latin back then in the Roman republic. That loyalty oath was called the sacramentum.
What English word do you think we might get from that? Sacrament. Somehow the early church looked at the kind of loyalty the Roman army had for their commander and the loyalty oath they took to the their commander and they said, when we're taking communion, we're basically doing the same thing. We are pledging our allegiance to that commander named Jesus Christ. And so if you're a born again believer, I'm going to ask that you take communion with me. If you're not born again, don't do this. This is just for Christians.
I know I said this several months ago. I'll say it again because some of y'all need to be reminded. Parents, if your little kids have not been born again and baptized in the body of Christ, don't let them take communion.
This is just for those of us who have been born again, saved and baptized in the body of Christ. You with me on that? Well Chad, I don't like to tell my little kids no. I know you don't and that's why our society is in the mess it's in today.
But this might be a good time just to say no, okay? Soldiers to your feet. Soldiers, take out that piece of bread and be reminded of the fact that Jesus was the bread of life who came down from heaven. He satisfies every hunger. He is our sustenance.
He is our food. When Jesus said to consume his body, what he's saying is, I want to be so important in your life. I want you to be so committed to me. It's like you're just bringing the whole of me into you. This isn't just a casual relationship. This is a close, intimate relationship. Jesus said take and eat for this is my body which is broken for you.
Do you know what cross assembly is? We're a bunch of messed up people led by a messed up man. And I want to go to heaven one day, I have no doubt. So how can you not have doubt? The Bible says these things are written that you may know that you have eternal life. I know I have eternal life but I'm not going to get there because I worked harder and tried. It's because the precious blood of Jesus cleanses me from all unrighteousness. And Jesus said take and drink for this is my blood.
Which is poured out for you. Lead us in this and let's sing this to the Lord. You paid the debt I owed. Broke my chains, freed my soul for the first time I had hope. Thank you, Jesus, for the blood of Christ. Thank you, Jesus, it has washed me wide.
Thank you, Jesus, it has washed me wide. Thank you, Jesus, you have saved my life. Brought me from the darkness into glorious life. And there is nothing stronger than the wonder working power of the blood. The blood that calls us sons and daughters. We are answered by our Father through the blood. Thank you, Jesus, for the blood of Christ. Thank you, Jesus, it has washed me wide. Thank you, Jesus, you have saved my life. Brought me from the darkness into glorious life. Church, a couple of years ago I introduced you to a Hebrew word. We've put it on mugs, shirts, coasters and I don't know what else.
The Hebrew word is chazak. What does that mean? Be bold, be strong. Why did the Holy Spirit prompt us to do that? I think it's because as this world becomes more confused and more chaotic and more cowardly, I'm not trying to be mean.
You're actually operating in a very scared, cowardly world. And when there are men and women of God who throw their shoulders back and they're confident and they're bold, they know who they are and they know whose they are, I'm just telling you that attracts this world to Jesus Christ. And so that's why, soldiers of the cross, I say to you, chazak ve'matz, al tarot ve'alekhet, gi imcha adonai elehecha ve'hor asher telach, which means cross assembly, be bold, be strong. Man, y'all don't be afraid and you don't be terrified of anything this week.
Why? Because the Lord your God is going to be with you everywhere you go. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we pray, troops dismissed, forward march. Let's go change this world for Jesus Christ.
