The Church and Holy War

If you remain standing, we'll be turning to the book of Acts,

Acts chapter 18, and we'll be beginning with verse 18 and read down to the end

Acts 18 · chapter mention

of the chapter, verse 28.

Acts chapter 18, verse 18. Do listen carefully because this is God's holy and inspired word.

Acts 18:18

After this, Paul stayed many days longer and then took leave of the brothers

and set sail for Syria and with him Priscilla and Aquila.

At Sancre, he had cut his hair, for he was under a vow.

And they came to Ephesus, and he left them there. But he himself went into the

synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.

When they asked him to stay for a longer period, he declined.

But on taking leave of them, he said, I will return to you if God wills.

And he set sail for Ephesus.

When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch.

After spending some time there, he departed and went on from one place to the

next through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

This is the word of the Lord.

You can be seated. Let's pray together. Most Holy God, we ask now in the name

of Jesus that you would send your Holy Spirit to help us all today.

The word that we have read and heard and that we may understand it,

Lord, aright, that we may be challenged by it, that we may be called by it to,

come to Jesus Christ. In whose name we pray, amen.

This morning, we're going to look at a, I don't know if you would call it esoteric

as the word, kind of a strange subject, as it were, the Nazarite vow.

And I think in essence, what we're seeing here is Paul pointing us to Jesus

Christ and to the mission of the church as a holy war.

The mission of the church for Paul was holy war. You'll notice verse 18,

it says, at Sencre, he had cut his hair for he was under a vow.

I think, well, pastor had too much time on his hands this week because he's

looking at this weird little section.

But it strikes us, and it's not only mentioned here, but it's mentioned again

in Acts chapter 21, where there's another emphasis on taking a vow,

Acts 21 · chapter mention

encouraging Paul to go with other men who had taken a vow and go to Jerusalem

to take their hair, as it were, to the temple as a sacrifice.

Paul in this story is reminding us that what he's been doing throughout the

stories and acts and with his missions work, Paul's not just on a short-term

missions trip, okay? Do you know the difference?

When you, when maybe, I mean, our children did. Some of our girls went on short-term

missions trip. They went to Mexico to serve at an orphanage.

Sometimes we know people go to Detroit, you know, that's a cool place because it's so needy.

And these are short-term missions trips, which are valuable, by the way.

But I would want to slightly distinguish, and this is especially true as a former

full-time missionary, what you do as a full-time missionary,

when you're sent by the church, when hands are laid on you and you're called

to go, we call you to become an evangelist in Uganda or Uruguay or Ukraine.

It's very different than a short-term missions trip.

Again, not that I go on them. I think they're very valuable.

I went on one when I was in college. It may have changed my life.

It really pushed me in the direction of foreign missions.

But what Paul's reminding us is that his mission.

His work as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ in going into areas that didn't

know the Lord, that didn't understand anything, like we just saw in Athens,

standing in front of the entire nation of Athens, the Supreme Court of Athens,

and saying, because Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead,

he commands all men everywhere to repent.

This is, again, this is not your average revival sermon at a tent crusade.

This is not your Jesus loves you and has a plan for you. This is a proclamation.

A proclamation. And I think what I want to try to do, and not squeeze it in

because I like it, but I think it's there, is that this proclamation that Paul,

and Barnabas and Silas and Peter and Stephen and all the apostles have been making,

is a declaration of war against the kingdom of Satan. It's a declaration of war.

When Paul goes into this area of Athens, if you recall from last week,

he's saying to the Athenians, all these temples, all these shrines,

all these idols, all these things that you're doing.

Imagine Paul, again, remember from last week, and I know you pay such great

attention, you know everything from last week, but remember from last week,

I mean, Athens was the center of Greek culture.

The Athenians actually believed that they springed from the soil itself.

They were unique original people.

And Paul says, you're nothing, and your idols are nothing, and your shrines

are nothing, your philosophy is nothing, all that you've built,

all these glorious monuments to Athens and to Greece and to Hellenistic culture, they're nothing.

In fact, rid yourselves of them and repent and come to Jesus Christ.

All of the gods of Athens, and these gods, by the way, are nothing more than demons.

Another way of looking at it, he's declaring all the demons of the world,

all the false idols of the world are nothing.

All men everywhere must come to Jesus Christ. When he was there,

he was, as we can see now, had taken a vow to.

A vow that set him on holy warfare. Okay, it wasn't an ordinary vow.

Paul was in at holy war. Now, before we start, because especially us,

we young guys and men in general, like, yeah, holy war. Yes,

especially against them liberals in Washington, D.C., holy war.

Well, it's a different kind of holy war.

It's not jihad, right? We need to distinguish right away because Islam has in

its body of doctrine, holy war, jihad. Everyone should be willing to go on jihad,

holy war against the infidels.

For the Islamic faith, it's literal physical violence.

It's killing people, and it's lying to people in order to kill people,

in order to go at war, in order to conquer. So jihad is not what I'm talking

about. We're not talking about physical warfare.

Even last week, if you'll recall, again, I know you do, that the curse language

that Paul used was not, I'm going to kill everyone or slaughter.

It was curse language that they They were coming under the judgment of God,

and they weren't physically to go out and curse people.

They were asking God in his righteous vengeance to change people,

to cause them to repent, and to cause them to come to Christ or to stop them.

Again, if you think back on what we've been saying about this is holy war.

Again, not jihad, not radical, violent holy war like the Muslims.

We all, many of us, I vividly remember what it looked like seeing airplanes

flying into the World Trade Center. That's holy war Islamic style.

That's not at all what we're talking about. But the one thing about the Islamic

faith that should challenge us is that they do see the world and their religion

and everything as undivided.

Everything belongs to Allah. Everything is under Allah. Everything is to be

in, the word Islam means submission to the will of Allah.

They have a goal of worldwide conquest and they're willing to kill for it and

they're willing to die for it.

Paul and the scriptures are teaching us, we also have a mission of holy war

and worldwide conquest,

but under a very different means, the means of the preaching and teaching of

the word of God, the word and sacraments that we're experiencing this morning.

We are, when we worship right now today, we are involved in holy war.

We're asking God to come down and be with us. Show yourself to us,

teach us in your word, reveal your spirit to us that we may see Jesus Christ and follow him.

And he seals that in a meal that we're going to have at the end where he says,

now be fed, be strengthened and go out and make disciples of the nation.

Worldwide conquest.

When we go out, when we leave from here, I just want to encourage you in this.

We are at war. We're at war now.

We often don't think about it, but there's something wonderfully mysterious

about worship when we call down God's special favor.

Sometimes in scriptures, it describes it as we look to God and we ask him to come down.

And as it were, the heavens, the clouds of heaven open up and the angels join

us and the angels defend us and the angels watch over us. And we announce what

we believe to the angels and to the world.

That Nicene Creed we announce is more than just a, yeah, this is what I believe, I'm a Christian.

It's a, this is the body of truth that belongs to us and to our God and the

whole world should believe it.

But this is the truth. And it's really sort of part of the whole announcement

of holy, that means that anyone who doesn't believe it is under the curse of God.

And anyone that defies it will defy God himself.

There are so many elements of our worship that we forget about that are filled

with this idea of holy war. We're at war with the kingdom of Satan.

And at Athens, remember, Paul told the Athenians, God had brought every nation,

to where it was, how it got there, the way its history was formed,

its language, its culture, its tribal customs, all of it was designed sovereignly

by God that they'd be there, and now they all need to repent.

Worldwide conquests. Again, a radical difference is that when Paul describes

holy war in Ephesians chapter six, this is how he will describe it. I'll read through it.

I know this is one of you, if you grew up in the church at Sunday school or

some sermon along the way, you've had to have heard this.

But it's interesting in this context. He says, finally, my brethren,

be strong in the Lord and in the might of his power.

Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

Now, I know off and on I've been, shall we say, not always polite to our Pentecostal

brothers from time to time, but Paul's reminding us that they're onto something.

There is a devil, you know, there are spirits. It's a spiritual world.

And Paul says, be ready, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood,

but against principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this

age, the kingdom of Satan.

Against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places,

everywhere, all around us.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.

And having done all to stand, stand therefore. This is military language.

You look at it in the Greek, Paul's using the Roman stance of planting your

back foot, being prepared for an attack with your shield.

Stand firm, therefore, having girded your waist with the truth,

having put on the breastplate of righteousness,

having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace,

and above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench

or to defend against the fiery darts of the wicked one,

and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

And you'll notice, and remember from my sermon on prayer, praying, right?

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit,

being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

And for me, isn't that interesting? Paul's reminding them and us what Paul was

doing on his mission's work and preaching and proclaiming the gospel.

For me, that the utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly

to make known the mystery of the gospel. That is the tip of the spear, the gospel.

The word of the good news that Jesus Christ came, died and rose again, and he reigns.

Paul said, I need your prayers.

I'm involved in preaching. Preaching is part of the spiritual warfare as well.

When a preacher and minister proclaims the word of God truly and effectively,

he is proclaiming warfare against the kingdom of Satan.

If you believe the gospel, as many of you have, or if you will,

it means that Satan is robbed of a member of his kingdom.

And that's what we want. We want to destroy the kingdom of Satan through the

preaching of the gospel.

And Paul himself, we're reminded, was a holy warrior pleading for the church

to be aware of our spiritual conflict and the war that we're in.

As his goal was to establish the church of Jesus Christ with elders and deacons

and ministers, that they should worship and preach, administer the sacraments,

exercise discipline, etc.,

that this church, the church of Jesus Christ, would be setting up a light,

remember, a banner of truth, proclaiming to the whole world that it belongs to Jesus Christ.

I'm even reminded of that sometimes when I go to ordination services.

I think now, in my mind, I think a couple of different things.

First thing is like, oh, everybody loves to see the young man come up and take

ordination. It's so, it's beautiful. It's emotional. It's powerful.

He's young. He's excited.

Maybe he's newly married. Maybe whatever. He's just ready to go out in the gospel mission.

On the one hand, I'm thinking, yes, way to go. We need more young men.

We need this. On the other hand, I'm thinking he has no idea.

He has no idea what he's facing. How could he?

And what he's facing is fierce warfare against the enemy, especially if he does

a good job, especially if he's faithful, especially if he preaches the word with power.

He's a target of the enemy. The enemy hates that.

So when he says in some of the vows, it says, do you promise to be zealous and

faithful in maintaining the truths of the gospel, the purity and peace and unity

of the church, whatever persecution or opposition may arise?

He says, I do. And again, I'm thinking, yes. And I'm thinking, he has no idea yet.

Any persecution and any opposition which will arise, and it will.

It must, because we're at war.

We're against the enemy. You promise to be faithful and diligent in the exercise

of all your private and personal duties, which becomes you as a Christian and

a minister of the gospel,

et cetera, et cetera, and adorning your profession with your life,

walking with exemplary piety over which the God.

It's just an amazing thing when you think about that, and the man standing here

or wherever he stands, basically standing there, we're all excited.

We're getting a new pastor. And there's a target.

Satanic target on that guy's back. Pray for him. That's what Paul is saying.

I need your prayers. If I'm going to do this, I need your prayers.

By the way, that wasn't me just begging for your prayers, although I beg you for your prayers.

Ministers, elders, we need that because we're at war.

What was Paul doing here?

To get back to what Paul's vows, it looks like very clearly,

I didn't find anyone who disagreed in the literature, but very clearly at Sancre,

Paul shaved his head because he had a vow, it says.

And shaving the head marked the completion of the Nazarite vow.

The head was to be removed. In number six, it looked like it should be done

at the temple entrance, but it was apparently done before that because Paul

shaved his head and was taking his hair to Jerusalem for the sacrifice.

The shaved off hair was to be taken to the temple and burned on the altar after

a series of other sacrifices.

This happens again in Acts 21.

Where it says, do therefore what we tell you. So this is Paul getting advice from fellow apostles.

It says, we have four men who are under a vow, the Nazarite vow.

Take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, which were quite a lot.

Historically speaking, it seems that most Nazarites were people who were gung-ho

to go in holy war, and they didn't have a lot of money.

So a lot of times wealthy people who couldn't go on the same mission would finance

them, and that included the expense of their vows. So it says,

pay for their expenses so that they may shave their heads.

Thus all will know that there's nothing in what we have told you about,

but that you yourself also live in observance to the law.

So part of the reason Paul's doing this is to show his zeal for the continuation

of those Jewish codes and law codes for being at war with his Jewish brethren.

And with the intent that he might be all things to all men.

This actually made me a bit uncomfortable this week because I'm thinking,

Paul in Galatians says, don't go back to the law, you crazy people.

Well, don't go to observe.

And then he goes and observes the law, which included, I was hoping when I reread

it, because in my mind, I thought, well, it just includes hair.

No, it includes actually a sacrificial work for atonement, a burnt offering for sin.

And you might say, well, how can Paul be saying to the Galatians,

don't go back, don't go to do this, when he's at the same time sacrificing at the temple?

Whatever we may think about the tension, the Lord through the apostles encouraged

him to do this in order to win the Jews.

And we know for sure that whatever Paul did can never be done again.

There is no temple. The Lord himself destroyed it.

So Paul is willing, according to this council, to observe the Old Testament

laws, the Nazarite vows, in order.

To show to the Jews that he's faithful, but also in order to remind us,

I think here, that he was on a holy mission in a holy war.

And what he was doing as a minister, as an apostle, as a preacher, was warfare.

It's clear we're supposed to see that. Paul didn't see this as a short-term

missions trip to Ephesus.

I went to Ephesus, but I just went to see the ancient city. It was pretty cool.

I didn't go there on a warfare mission. Paul went into these cities.

You have to understand, as we've said, he's going into cities where on every

street corner there are monuments and statues and temples.

And in Athens it looks like above him was the Parthenon This glorious,

columned, splendid architectural work Standing there above him And he's proclaiming

that all of it's rubbish That's why we see, and we're going to continue to see

What happens to Paul Everybody loves him.

Everybody starts hating him. They riot against him. They try to stone him.

They try to kill him, et cetera, because he's on a holy war.

Well, what is this Nazarite vow?

I was thinking about it. Only really two people came to mind.

There are others, but Samson and John the Baptist came to mind.

Those are the two big ones. Samuel, it looks like, was also under a Nazarite

vow and a few others, but those are the big ones. And when you look at Samuel,

like I have, and Judges, like 13 to 16 tells the story of Samuel,

I always shake my head at Samuel. What a dope.

I mean, Samuel just frustrates me the whole way through his ministry.

He took the Nazarite vow, his parents did, so he was a Nazarite for life.

So was Samuel, so was John the Baptist.

What Paul did was a temporary Nazarite vow, but what Samson did,

you didn't cut your hair, you didn't touch dead corpses and you didn't eat anything

to do with wine, grapes, or anything to the vineyard.

And Samson, you know, we already know the story, most of you,

right? Samson had this long hair and kept, Samson's had this supernatural strength

that would come upon him. And almost every time it was because he got ticked off, right?

You took my girl, I'm going to burn all your fields. And you're like,

yeah, I go, wait a minute.

Really? You should be burning people's field because they took your girl.

And then, you know, you make me mad. So rip the gates of the city down,

Try to grab me So he takes a jawbone And kills him I mean it just seems to be

Sort of a crazy mix Of superhero stuff You know Where he just goes And does

things And that is the way it is At first.

When we see towards the end, we'll see that he isn't just a legendary superhero, biblical superhero.

He will become a type of Jesus Christ himself, as was the whole Nazarite vow in the first place.

But this Nazarite vow, when it was done temporarily, and we read it in Numbers

Numbers 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, I won't read the whole thing, but he's to be separated.

He's not allowed to touch anything dead. Now, you say, well,

neither will the Israelites. Well, they were temporarily.

So if you had to bury your family member, you could do so. You would be unclean.

But you could then come back and do the ritual purity and become clean again.

The Nazarite was not to touch anything dead, ever.

It was a vow of complete and holy, H-O-L-Y, as well as W-H-O-L-L-Y,

holy separation, nothing, no touching the dead, no drinking of anything related to wine.

And then you'll notice it goes back from wine, which is the ultimate symbol,

down even to the grapes, the skins, and the seeds, nothing related to wine.

Completely dedicated. And of course, no shaving or cutting of the hair So what

does this have to do with alcohol, grapes and alcohol or death?

Both of these were dedications of holiness and purity to the Lord.

The first is obvious, right? Death. Death is uncleanness. It doesn't need much

explanation. You shouldn't be involved.

If you're completely and holy, H-O-L-Y, to the Lord, you'll never touch anything dead or unclean.

But what about the grapes or the wine that struck me as interesting?

Why can't the poor guy ever have to... I mean, he goes out and kills a thousand Philistines.

You can't go home and have a glass of wine and relax? No. there's no wine whatsoever

for Samson, for Samuel, for John the Baptist.

The Nazarite prohibition against consuming anything from the grapevine down

to the seeds was a strict adherence to the idea of this Nazarite,

while he is on his mission, while he is at holy war, may partake of no rest.

No comfort, and no blessings of the covenant.

And even though some of our teetotaling friends may not be willing to understand

it, wine As we'll celebrate in our communion Wine was the central symbol of such blessings,

Wine everywhere in the Bible is considered a symbol of the ultimate blessings of the Lord.

The Lord will bless you. Psalm 104, it says, God blesses you and he has given

you wine to gladden the heart of man and oil to make his face shine and bread

to strengthen a man's heart. It was a central symbol when Israel went into the promised land.

One of the things that they noticed and God drew their attention to is he said, guess what, guys?

You're going to have vineyards that you can begin to drink wine from and you

didn't even plant them. It's such a blessing.

So the Lord is so good to give them rest and comfort in the land.

It's like wine for everyone that they didn't even have to do anything to prepare.

It seems that when the Nazarite took their vow, they were not able to rest in the normal sense.

And they couldn't enjoy the fruit of the vineyard in any way.

They were not allowed to partake of it. This was also true, by the way,

of the priest when they were doing their duties.

No priest could partake of wine when he was doing his duties. Why?

Because it was a continual duty before the Lord that had to be uninterrupted.

There was no rest. I remember in seminary, one of my professors says,

you know what, they didn't have anything in the temple. Do you know what there wasn't?

What, no. So there were no chairs, no seats in the temple. The priests were

never allowed to sit down and find any rest when they were doing their work.

Why? Because their work was an endless labor because their work of atonement

and the forgiveness of sins.

So while at the work of the priesthood There was to be no wine,

no rest, no joy, no comfort for the priests Because it was an endless grinding

work From which they could find no rest,

And the same was true of the Nazarite The expected rest of the future And we're

about to celebrate I'm so happy

that our church is exclusively wine And the reason I'm happy is because we're

willing to say This is the symbol of the Lord's blessings And grape juice,

by the way, doesn't have that symbol,

Grape juice is neutered of its symbolic value in providing for you a merry heart and blessings.

Wine is a central symbol for that, and the Nazarites were not allowed to partake

of it. It appears that Paul...

In this sense, had taken such a vow, a Nazarite vow, and had stopped cutting

his hair and had stopped drinking wine, and it was dedicated completely to the holy mission.

This is the reason in Numbers where it says a man can take this temporarily

for a holy mission, which is exactly what you see in the history of Israel when

the Israelites were attacked or when the Israelites were conquering certain, doing certain things.

And David's men, for instance, took a vow, A Nazarite vowed to be holy unto

the Lord And therefore they were set apart for the mission.

And they didn't cut their hair, by the way, because the head,

as we mentioned this maybe a few weeks ago, the head is a symbol of the authority of mankind.

It's the place, a symbolic place that represents the whole of the human being.

That's why the husband is the head of the wife.

That's why the symbol of cursens after the fall. Remember we said,

by the sweat of your brow, the sweat of your forehead, you will be cursed and so forth.

So this idea, and that's why in 1 Corinthians, Paul will even say,

I want you to know that the head of man is Christ, and the head of every woman

is man, and the head of Christ is God.

And then it goes on to talk about praying or prophesying with your head covered or uncovered.

That was during the times when women would prophesy. We don't live in those

times, but if it were so, if a woman had a vision, she would come up and have

a head covering of some sort. Why?

Because the head represents the authority, and she was to be under authority.

So that's why, And even in Israel, if you remember, there's sort of weird little wonky laws.

Like if a man went out to war and he got a wife from one of the captive enemies,

the first thing she had to do was shave her hair.

So that now as the hair grows out, the hair would be represented that she's

under a new authority. All the hair that she had grown under the false gods

and a false bad authority would

now be regrown under God and under the leadership of this new husband.

It's also shown, it's interesting, and you wouldn't want to see this,

by the way, If you're a Philistine or you're a Canaanite person and you see

a whole bunch of Israelites coming up on horseback and they all have long hair, you better get out.

You better get out because it means they're on a holy mission.

In fact, the song of Deborah is interesting. I read it. It says in Judges 5-2,

it says, when the leaders, this is the common translation, when the leaders

lead in Israel, when the people willingly offer themselves, bless the Lord.

A more literal translation could be read like this. When long locks of hair

hung loose in Israel, when the people volunteered, praise the Lord.

It's like a bunch of long-haired Israelites is a dangerous sign for the enemies of God.

These guys ride up with their long hair. That's what Deborah was saying.

Blessed be God when these long-haired men ride up on horses and go to war.

It means God's at war. It means they're dedicated to this holy mission.

It's exactly why we find that when David and his men who were dedicated with

this Nazarite vow were on a mission, they were able to partake of the bread of the tabernacle.

It's a story we read about. It's kind of funny. Jesus talks about that as well.

He says, these guys, don't you read that David and his men partook of the bread

that was dedicated to the priest?

How could they do that? Well, because temporarily they were warrior priests,

as it were, dedicated to the mission of God.

And so they went and they ate, and the priest gave them the bread,

recognizing that the Nazarite was under that particular mission.

So the Nazarites were wholly dedicated to waging war against the enemies of

God, and Samson waged actual war as a warrior extraordinaire.

And Paul also then takes these vows and goes on a, dare I say, crusade.

Not a physical crusade, but a crusade against the enemies of Christ with the

church as central to that.

So the church is central to the holy warfare of which we're a part. Are we together?

See, heads nodding down. I've lost you. You liked the whole long hair thing,

but you're not liking this whole stuff. So are you with me?

I'll get there. We'll get to the conclusion. And the conclusion really is this.

Paul's work as a holy Nazarite, as a holy warrior, is pointing us extraordinarily

to the work of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the ultimate Nazarite. Just like all the other positions and

institutions of the Old Testament were driving us to Jesus Christ,

the priesthood, the prophets, the kings, the judges, everything,

they're all pointing us to Jesus Christ.

And they point us to his mission. And here's a question for you.

Do you think of your life as holy warfare?

You think of it like that. Now, I know it's easy. Like, for instance,

When young men hear this, they're like, yeah, I'm going to go out,

I'm going to work, I'm going to make money, I'm going to build a business, I'm going to do this.

But it's actually a bit more difficult, man. The holy warfare that we're involved

in goes back to what we've been looking at in Sunday school,

where the primary function of the holy warrior in the home is to love his wife.

And to raise his children in the fear and love of the Lord. The holy mission

of the woman of God is to subject herself to her husband as unto the Lord,

and to love her children, to raise children.

You also have a holy part in this

mission, right? You are to obey your parents in the Lord. This is fit.

This is what you're made for in your mission.

When Paul gets to chapter 6 and talks about the armor of God,

he's already outlined for us some of the roles that we need to play.

Husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, children, employers, employees.

It's not just about roaring out with a mission, storming the gates,

you know, as we see in our stories and movies, but it's about faithfulness to Jesus Christ.

That's our mission. That's our holy war.

Paul says, though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling

down strongholds, casting down arguments, and everything that exalts itself

against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

like a holy warrior would do. Does this characterize your life?

That passion, that zeal, that awareness, like this is warfare,

man. This is war. We are at war. I need to purify my mind.

I need to watch out for what I look at, what I see, what I read,

what I think, how I love my wife,

how I raise my children, how I run my business, how I work, everything.

As warfare for God. And sometimes, you know, it's interesting,

sometimes those of us, and that's most of you here, actually,

it's most of you here growing up in the church, you're covenant children,

you've been in the church a long time.

It's always fun sometimes, isn't it, when a new convert comes along, right?

It's always great to have this new guy. He's like, what aren't we doing more, right?

Don't you love Jesus? I love Jesus so much. I just got saved,

hallelujah. And he's all excited, and like, oh boy, calm down.

Part of that is that he has that zeal and that passion that we always need to

renew within ourselves when we're aware that we're at war and we've been saved.

We've been rescued from the kingdom of darkness. That's how Paul describes it.

You and I have been rescued from Satan and his kingdom, dark kingdom,

a torturous kingdom, an evil kingdom.

And we need to rejoice and we need to be awake and we need to be at war.

That's why Paul will say, you are at war. You better be ready to put on the

armor of God and to live just as our champion Jesus did.

When you look back, for instance, at Samson's life and all the judges,

for that matter, you ever read through the book of Judges?

Yay, yay, yay, man. Gideon, way to go. He falls. Next guy, hey.

Samson, man, Samson, miserable.

You're almost like, when is this guy ever going to get it right?

Well, he did at the end, didn't he?

Because this cycle in the judges is this difficult, lugubrious,

is that the word? I love that word, lugubrious. It's just a downer cycle that's

going on, this judge come.

And that cycle is there to push us to the one who would come as our judge, but who wouldn't fail.

The one who would come to do it, none of the judges were able to do.

The one who would come to do it, none of the priests were able to do.

The one, in fact, who eats, who tells us to drink wine and celebrate what he's done.

The one who's not only triumphant, but guess what? Jesus Christ in heaven,

over and over we're reminded, is seated.

He is at rest. He is at rule from his throne in heaven. And that puts all of

us under the same sort of Nazarite mission that Paul was under.

That Jesus Christ has done what no Nazarite could ever do.

And what in the end, Samson's mission, finally at the very end,

after his eyes are gouged out, he's put between the two pillars, right, at the end.

That's when you see Samson's shadowy forecast of what Jesus Christ will do.

More Philistines were slaughtered when Samson sacrificed himself between the

pillars than anything he had done all his life.

That's driving us to Jesus Christ, our great Nazarite, our champion, Jesus Christ.

Who now, as we're about to close, encourages us to go out into this war celebrating in Him.

Because we are in Christ, we now have victory in him.

We now have a mission in him. We now have hope in him.

It's why, again, drink the wine this morning that you're about to be served

with celebratory joy and thanksgiving that you're not just sent out in a mission

to die, you're sent out in a mission that has already been won,

already been won by Jesus Christ.

No Nazarite warrior was ever supposed to enjoy the wine because he constantly was busy with holy war.

We're about to enjoy the wine of our great Nazarite warrior,

Jesus Christ, and celebrate his victory and joy in him. Amen. Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are seated now and ruling over all the nations,

which provides us, O Lord, the hope and the confidence, the comfort and the

assurance in our own holy war, because it is ongoing.

We know that we need to be strong in the Lord. Lord, we know that we don't wrestle

against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers,

rulers of darkness in this age, Lord, against spiritual foes of wickedness.

And without Christ, were we not in you, were we not having union with our Nazarite

champion, we would be defeated.

In fact, we would still be under the forces of that dark kingdom.

We thank you, O Lord, for rescuing us. Literally, Paul says,

for transliterating us from darkness into light.

And we ask now by the power of your spirit That we all, O Lord,

would be reminded of our holy mission As husbands,

as wives, as fathers, as mothers, as children As grandparents,

as employers, as employees Help us, Lord, send us out,

on this holy mission The mission that Paul was on And the mission that you,

O Lord, are on through us even now Bless us as we come to your table Feed us

and strengthen us, we pray in Jesus' name Amen the men.