Winning the Spiritual War

1:06The British soldiers are cutting through the camp, and it looks like they're going to win the battle, but then a lot of the German soldiers are able to escape and sprint to the edge of the woods where they've dug these bunkers that are equipped with the newest technology, machine guns. And the rest of that scene, it cuts back and forth between the charging British officers who have no option. To retreat and the riderless horses running past the machine gun nests into the woods. It's very powerful.

1:39World War I was the turning point in military technology. Horses and swords and hunting rifles were simply no match for machine guns and mortars and tanks. Ever since the Garden of Eden, we have been in a spiritual war. And the war isn't against flesh and blood. The war can't be fought or won with the weapons of this world. Paul understood this. And so when his ministry came under attack in Corinth, he knew the kind of battle that he was fighting, and he knew the weapons that he needed to win it. So what we're going to learn today is that to win a spiritual war, we must fight with God's weapons.

2:32Before we jump into 2 Corinthians 10, we need to take a few minutes to reorient ourselves and get our bearings because we've spent the last six weeks studying Ecclesiastes and sleeping and eating holiday food. You know what I mean. The first week of Christmas, it's like, look at all these desserts. And then when there's still left last week, you're like, I'll finish. The pie. So, we haven't been in this messy church series through the book of 2 Corinthians in a little while, and so I just want to reorient us now. So, Paul came to Corinth, this narrow isthmus on Greece, in the early 50s A.D., and he preached the gospel and he established a church there. He was there for about 18 months. And after he left, he wrote a letter to the church which has been lost to history, but that he refers to in what we call 1 Corinthians. And in that timeframe, he found out that there were some problems in the church, and that's what prompted him to write what we call 1 Corinthians.

3:38Well, sometime after that, Paul went back to Corinth. He makes a visit, and he refers to this visit in his second letter to the Corinthians that we have in our Bibles, and he calls it his painful visit. Apparently, there were a number of people there who had rejected him, had rejected his teaching, and were close to rejecting the message of the gospel that he brought with him. So he then writes what he calls in 2 Corinthians his severe letter.

4:06It's a letter that apparently is rebuking them for rejecting his ministry and especially the message that he is proclaiming. And then he's wondering how they are going to receive that letter. And so he sends some of his associates to Corinth, and he finds out that most of the church has repented, but there are still a few people in the church that are leading an opposition against him. And that's what spurs him to write what we call 2 Corinthians.

4:35And he writes this letter to defend his apostleship and ministry and message. And it's understandably a very emotional letter because Paul was being questioned and attacked by some of the people that he had loved and served and cared for so faithfully. So before the holidays, we went through chapters 8 and 9, and Paul in those chapters is encouraging the Corinthians to give cheerfully and generously to relieve the suffering and struggling saints back in Jerusalem who were dealing with not just persecution because of their Christian faith, but also the effects of a famine.

5:13And so Paul gets back to the main theme of the letter here in chapter 10, and he begins by addressing the charge that he was tough in his letters, but that he was weak in person. Now, that's a pretty serious charge. I mean, what do you think when you think of those kinds of people who exist today? People who are tough behind the keyboard, but if you confront them face to face about what they've written, they wither right in front of you.

5:48What kinds of words come to mind? Coward, hypocrite, bully? I mean, all of those and others are appropriate for that kind. Of person, and Paul was being accused of being that type of person. Somebody who acted tough when writing letters from hundreds of miles away, but who wasn't tough at all in person. And so, what Paul does is he begins by calling to their remembrance the character of Jesus Christ. How does Jesus describe himself? Take a look at Matthew 11.

6:24He says, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Jesus wasn't afraid to confront religious hypocrites, he wasn't afraid to speak truth to powerful people, he wasn't afraid to walk into the temple and flip tables over. Jesus was not weak, not in the least. But Jesus was gentle and lowly in heart. His default position wasn't move fast and break things, that mantra of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

7:08No, Jesus, his default position was meekness, it was gentleness, it was showing broken people that they could come to him in their brokenness. And I think we see all through scripture that to broken and humble people, Jesus was the most gentle man who ever lived. Humbled sinners always walked away from him, feeling loved and accepted. But to proud, put-together people, Jesus wasn't gentle at all. He openly rebuked religious hypocrites. He openly rebuked proud people who saw no need for him or his gospel.

7:55And what Paul is saying at the outset of this chapter is, guys, I'm not being a hypocrite. I'm following the example of Jesus. Look at what he says in verse 2. He says, I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence. He says, I'm not afraid to come there and flip over some tables, but that's not what I want to do. Paul dealt with them as a good father. And you think about the characteristics of a good father.

8:29What is a good father's ordinary disposition towards his children? It's one of gentleness. It's one of meekness. A dad is there to play, to laugh, to tickle, to have fun, to enjoy the children and allow them to enjoy him. But a good father is also a good disciplinarian, and he can flip the switch in an instant. You said what to your mother? Prepare to die. These new teachers were accusing Paul of walking according to the flesh, not in the sense that he was leading some kind of sinful and worldly lifestyle, but in the sense that they were saying Paul has no supernatural power to his ministry. They were looking at their soaring oratory and their very public use of their spiritual gifts, and they were telling people, This is the evidence that we have God's approval. Where is all of this stuff with Paul? Where is his soaring oratory? How come he doesn't flaunt his spiritual gifts?

9:43But Paul's not having any of that nonsense. And so he writes in verse 3 that they're waging a different war. They're waging a war with different weapons than these new teachers. And these weapons aren't of the flesh. They're not just loaded with human talent and charisma. Their weapons, take a look at verse 4. Their weapons have divine power to destroy strongholds. It's the difference between assault rifles and airsoft guns. My son got a couple of airsoft guns for his birthday this year, and they are really cool. You load up the ammo and magazines, they have rails. On them for sights and scopes. They look and feel real.

10:37But you wouldn't want to bring one of those into combat. And that's because although it looks and feels like the real thing, the ammunition that you're firing isn't going to do any damage to the enemy. Paul's saying that they are firing live bullets, real bullets. Because the weapons that they're using aren't the weapons of the world. They're not the weapons of natural charisma and talent. They're not the weapons of appearance. They're the weapons of prayer and the word of God and holy lives whose witness cannot be contradicted. Those are the spiritual weapons that they're fighting with. Look at verse 5.

11:23He says, their weapons destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. See, their weapons take down all of the theological and moral and philosophical and scientific objections to the Christian faith. They make war against every ungodly idea and they take it as a prisoner of war for Jesus Christ. They're ready to do bad. Battle in the spirit for the souls of men and women and children. Unlike these false teachers, they're not confident in any kind of human weaponry. Their faith is in Christ and in the spiritual weapons that he equips us with through the spirit.

12:19Now, if you take a look at the paragraph starting in verse 7, this makes me really sad to read because it shows how far some have fallen in the Corinthian church, how far away they've moved from Paul, who planted their church and taught them. With seemingly no gratitude for his sacrifice, his tireless labor among them, the fact that he planted their church, they've moved on from him and they're listening to these new teachers. So Paul tells them in verse 7: you guys need to stop judging by mere outward appearance. Look at the evidence, look at the fruit in our lives. If these people who are now among you are believers, great, but so are we. Don't forget, we're the ones who brought the gospel to you to begin with.

13:08So he says, listen, if I drop the name of my friend and my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to defend my ministry, I'm not going to apologize for that. I'm not ashamed of the gospel or of my commission to preach it. But look what he says. He says in verse 8, my authority. Isn't for destroying you. It's not for tearing you down. So he says in verse 9, I don't want to appear to be frightening you with my letters.

13:43Here's their specific charge: verse 10. For they say, his letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech is of no account. We have to keep in mind that the Greeks, what they admired was physical beauty, it was a life of leisure that was afforded by wealth. They highly valued elite speaking ability. And so Paul comes along, this Jewish guy who may not have been super handsome to begin with, but over the last several years, he's been stoned and nearly beaten to death multiple times. This guy was certainly not attractive. He shows up with his tent-making gear in tow, and he says, You guys don't have to pay me a dime. I will work with my hands and support myself while I'm here.

14:45He gets up to speak, and it's nothing fancy. He's not necessarily a bad preacher, but he's not a great Greek orator. And they take a look at this guy, and they're like, Who is this? Get this ugly blue color. Babbler out of here. They say, listen, this guy isn't anything to look at. He's not anything to listen to. And so the only thing he can do is write tough-sounding letters from hundreds of miles away. That's it.

15:16So look at Paul's response, verse 11. Listen to this language. Let such a person understand. This is like the holy volcano that's about to erupt. Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present. He says, we're the same person wherever we are. We're not hypocrites that are putting on a show in front of you and somebody else when we're not with you in the flesh. Verse 12, not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves, but when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.

16:09Paul is fired up here because they're accusing him essentially of being a hypocrite. And he says, listen, we desire to build you up. That's what our authority is for. That's why I'm gentle and meek when I'm around you because that's how I want to be all the time. But when you guys have people in your church, Who are rejecting us and our authority, and by doing that, are essentially rejecting the gospel message that we are bringing. I can't be meek and gentle. I'm not trying to scare you guys, but you need a wake-up call.

16:47These guys that you've led into the church and led into your hearts and your heads, they're leading you astray. They're the ones that are tearing you down, not us. But he also says that the difference here between Paul and his team and these new teachers who have shown up is that they're not playing the comparison game. That's what they want to do. They want to measure themselves by one another, they want to compare themselves with each other. And friends, you see the same thing today: pastors and ministry leaders in competition with each other, seeing whose church has the biggest attendance, who's got the most followers on social media, who's got the most downloads or YouTube views or whatever.

17:42And Paul says, Look, when that kind of stuff is going on, when you've got leaders comparing themselves with each other and trying to one-up each other, they are without understanding. They're playing some kind of comparison game. And when we are playing a comparison game with other brothers and sisters in Christ, we've Already lost. Nobody wins that game. And here's the funny thing. He gets into this in verses 13 through 18. He says that these latecomers have shown up and they're boasting like they've done something.

18:20Like they're the ones that got off the boat years ago and preached the gospel and established this church from nothing. and who have been praying for and shepherding and writing to and visiting the Corinthians for all of these years. He's like, come on, man. Even if these guys were faithful, godly teachers, which they aren't, it would still be crazy for them to come in and act like they owe nothing to Paul and to his team, to act like they deserve credit for everything that's happened in the Corinthian church and in the city of Corinth.

19:01Friends, here's the difference between Paul and these false teachers. Paul used his ministry to build up the church. These false teachers used the church to build up their own ministries. That happens all the time. Many leaders do not see churches as the holy body of Christ, as sheep. That they are called to lead and feed and sacrifice for. They just see churches as stepping stones to advance their own careers, to promote their own little brand. But not Paul. He wanted to see the gospel spread. That's what he cared about. And so look what he says in verse 15, right in the middle.

19:53He says, But our hope is that as your faith increases, our area of influence among you may be greatly enlarged so that we may preach the gospel in lands beyond you without boasting of work already done in another's area of influence. Paul cared about preserving and proclaiming the gospel. He cared about making disciples of all nations for the glory of God. He did not care about becoming famous. He did not care about building his brand. He did not care about boasting in his accomplishments, whatever they were.

20:37Instead, take a look at verse 17. He writes, Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. Paul did not need the praise of man. That's not what he was after. He was after God's approval. He lived his life with the anticipation of hearing at the end, well done, good and faithful servant. That is what Paul cared about.

21:23Friends, you can commend yourself all day long. You can tell yourself that you're doing great and that you're leading a great life and you've got nothing to be ashamed of. But it does not matter at all what you think about your life. You can post things on social media. You can have 200 people tell you how great you are, how wonderful you are, how they want to be like you and emulate you and you're beautiful and you're the best. And you know what? It doesn't matter at all what other people think about your life.

21:58The only thing that matters is what Jesus thinks about your life. The only assessment that matters is Jesus' assessment of your life. Remember what Paul said back in verse 12? Take a look there again. But when they measure themselves by one another, just think about the social media world right now. When they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding. Friends, let's not be like those who are without understanding.

22:36Like those who believe that what really matters is what we think of ourselves or what other people think about us. Because the only approval that really matters is God's. Brothers and sisters, we are in the middle of a spiritual war. And one of Satan's greatest strategies is to make us forget that truth. It's to distract us, to make us think that the real war is for self-esteem. The real war is for the praise of men or for who gets credit for something.

23:16But it's not. The real war is a battle for hearts and minds and souls that are eternal. That's the real battle. And some of us have lost sight of that. We have laid down the spiritual weapons of prayer and the word of God. And we have picked up the air-soft guns of self-help and self-medication. All that glitters isn't gold. Just because somebody has a big church, a big ministry, a big platform, Just because they have a book deal and a lot of followers, just because they're wealthy or handsome or can say things well, does not mean that they're telling us the truth. And it doesn't mean that they have God's approval.

24:14So let's make sure that we don't get sucked in. Let's do our best to make sure that we don't allow each other to get sucked into believing the lie that just because something is wrapped up in pretty packaging, it's good and true and has the approval of God. If you have come today to learn more about Christianity, you have come on a great day. Because in our day and age, it is hard to find any place, any person that will tell you that you're actually not okay.

24:57Even though there are real spiritual beings who want to do everything that they can to convince you that you are okay. You see, there is a war going on for your very soul, a battle that is both invisible and real. Satan rebelled against God long ago. He convinced our first parents, Adam and Eve, to do the same. And he has been working, along with every other Other demonic power ever since then to get you and I to do the same.

25:38Our rebellion against God, our rebellion against God is sinful. But the things that you and I do, excuse me, the things that we do that are wrong, the things that we do that are against the moral code, those kinds of things are not the biggest problem. They are a problem. Every time we disobey, every time we sin, that is a problem. But friends, our greatest problem is the fact that we have rebelled against God's good authority in our lives. Our biggest problem is that we have taken the worship that we owe to God and we have given it to other things, to created things.

26:24That is our biggest problem. And we can't solve that problem on our own. That's why God had to send his Son Jesus. He didn't send him because we needed an example, primarily. He didn't send Jesus because we needed teaching primarily. He sent him because we needed a Savior. We needed someone to live the life of obedience that we were called to live. We needed someone who could defeat sin and death. Someone who could defeat the spiritual powers of wickedness that you and I cannot defeat on our own. And Jesus did that by going to the cross, by dying in our place for our sin, and by rising victorious from the grave.

27:19Jesus did that for us. And so, friends, my prayer and the prayer of every believer here today is that you would receive the good news of Jesus' life and death and resurrection on your behalf through faith. Our prayer is that you would lay down your weapons of rebellion against God and you would take up the weapons of resistance against Satan along with us because we are in a spiritual war. And the only way to win this spiritual war is with God's weapons.

28:01Let's pray. Our Holy Father, we thank you for revealing the truth to us through your word. We thank you for showing us through your word the things that we cannot see with our eyes, the things that we cannot hope to understand simply with our own mental resources. God, I pray that we would become aware or freshly aware that we are in the midst of a spiritual war, that there are indeed spiritual beings who are alive and opposed to you and to us, who are created in your image and likeness.

29:40God, I pray that we would pick back up the weapons that you have given to us, the weapons that you say are powerful to destroy strongholds. May we be a people of prayer. May we be a people of your word. May we not think that we can fight and win a spiritual war with the methods and the weapons of this world. And Father, we pray that you would break through the hardness of heart that exists in every one of us before you give us a new heart through faith.

30:23We pray that men and women and children who are here today or who are watching this online, we pray that you would break through and that you would deliver them from bondage to sin and its consequences, and that you would set them free through the person and work of Jesus. God, we thank you for your word and we thank you for your powerful Holy Spirit. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.