I felt there was a need for us to make an update to our church newsletter, so I made some changes to our current template… but that also meant I had the opportunity to give our media team the privilege of having this coming Sunday’s newsletter ready for them so early… which meant that I needed to decide on the proper Bible verses to put.
Most times we find the message, and then find the Bible verses to support the theme… This time, it felt more like the other way around; we found the Bible verses first, to establish the message.
Last Sunday I spoke on how we’re in a war of truth – that is, facts are being suppressed and rejected, while falsehood is being propagated and even promoted. This movement is hitting older generations just as much as we perceive it going on against our youth, only in our case the methods and the content are different.
From a wide enough viewpoint we shouldn’t be too surprised that things are turning out this way… especially when we consider who our enemy is; It’s not a political party, nor is it another religion or thought movement, it’s not even those we join the conspiracy theorists call ‘at the top’, not the billionaires or the despots – No, we’re reminded by way of Ephesians 6:10-12 that we wrestle against the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Our fight is not against flesh and blood but against the enemy of our souls, the devil who’s had experience as old as time. And by way of 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 we’re made aware of his tactics, based on the weapons we possess: He bombards us or attempts to fill us with lofty opinions and arguments raised against the knowledge of God, and every thought that would attempt to ‘free’ us to disobedience against Christ.
It’s apparently no coincidence that we’ve been reading through the book of Romans recently, and in my previous post about Romans 10, we’re given the basics the Holy Spirit leads us to regarding our salvation, which, in light of our present discussion, looks like precisely what the devil is acting against:
The enemy attempts to suppress our mouths from confessing that Jesus is Lord, with lofty opinions and arguments against the knowledge of God. He also attempts to instill thoughts into us, that would discourage our hearts from believing that Christ rose from the dead.
Doesn’t it sound familiar? It goes back to the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), where the serpent used arguments against the knowledge of God, first by questioning His exact words (“Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”), and then mellowing the absolute consequence of disobedience (“You will not surely die”), quickly followed by a jab straight to Eve’s heart, removing her attention from obeying God, and having her focused on her own glory: “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. “
Now, it was at this moment that I took advantage of the death anniversary of our Senior Pastor Oscar, and shared one of the last verses he was repeating for us to remember, even up to his final moments with us:
And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
Acts 20:22-24
In today’s conflict of facts and lies, we could join in the fray of pointing out what is real and what is fake… or we can also be pretty spiritual about it, by praying and fasting and worshipping… BUT take note of what we have, which Paul had to the finish: the ministry from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God; This Gospel would have us proclaim that Christ rose from the dead, and is now Lord over all, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ implies, among a whole lot of other eternal implications, that death could not hold Him down, that He died completely for our sins, and His resurrection is a receipt of His (and our) death… but, more importantly, that Christ did not just win the battle for our redemption and reconciliation… He won the war.
We may engage in the skirmishes of fact and fake news, or even in the spiritual struggles of proclaiming the Truth in a world slipping into falsehood and chaos… We may win some and lose some of these battles, but we engage from the Truth that is infinitely superior to all:
Jesus Christ won the war by His resurrection, and is Lord of all.
To our enemy that would do all in his power to encourage disobedience against Christ, we proclaim that Christ’s obedience at the cross reconciled us to God.
To our enemy who tries to shut our mouths to proclaim that Christ is Lord, we say that in His obedience, Christ rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and now bears the name above every other name – He is the Lord of Lords.
And it is from this point of view of Christ’s victory, we dive into our Scripture for this coming Sunday: Psalm 37. I’m sorry I took more time on that intro, I just wanted to put my thoughts together on the matter; I feel it’s pretty close to my heart, considering all that’s going on nowadays.
Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!
For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.
Because we are aware that we won’t be winning every battle, we wouldn’t be so surprised that we lose more and more, with evildoers and wrongdoers winning more and more. But we shall not fret, nor shall we be envious, for indeed, even if we look beyond the flesh and blood of these folks, and to the cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, we see that even THEY shall fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb.
And take note, grass fades much faster than the brush, and green herbs wither a whole lot faster than the trees. In the face of the eternal victory we have in Christ, and all it implies: absolute reconciliation, full freedom from sin and death, overflowing of righteousness and life.
That’s right, even in the face of those who presume to take advantage of us, we act in perfect love that casts out all fear, considering (1) these folks are not who we struggle with, but the powers and forces of evil behind them, (2) all that we may lose, and all that they win shall fade as quickly as they would, and (3) their greatest victories are failures before Christ’s eternal triumph.
And I could hear the naysayers now: ‘Those are all things the loser says.’; Well, whatever you think of me doesn’t take away from the Truth that Christ won – and He is for me, and not against me. In fact, if troubles and evil do persist, even then we wouldn’t have cause to take action based on our own efforts.
In fact, we shouldn’t even be prioritizing our struggles with others, more than we fight for our own peace of mind – philosopher Zeno of Citium says, “Man conquers the world by conquering himself”… and to the Christian, I believe this means that we win our battles with the world by winning the battles we have against ourselves first.
Does this mean that we fight our own minds? Doesn’t that contradict how we’ve been remade into new creations? No, I believe that this is a call for us to repent – that is, to change our minds, understanding that this is not a one-time, but a continuous event; keeping Romans 12:2 in mind, we repent, and are transformed, repent, and transformed, all in our journey of moving from glory to glory.
In other words, friends, we conquer ourselves by meditating on Christ and His finished work, and being transformed in the process. Might we consider the following: We conquer the world by conquering ourselves, and we conquer ourselves by way of repentance – meditating on Christ who has ‘overcome the world’ (John 16:33), and His finished work; His resurrection that is the victory of all victories, even in our defeat.
And if all this is lost on you (as I could imagine it could rattle me even at my best of times), first of all I apologize, but second, it’s fortunate that we have a more straight to the point guide, in the verses that follow.
How do we conquer the world? How do we conquer ourselves? How do we meditate on Christ? How do we repent and be transformed? Maybe it’d be easier for us to follow the Psalmist on the matter:
Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
In our plotting and practicing everything from immediate reactions to high-level strategizing, before, during, and after any encounter, our ace in the body of Christ is that in these moments, we can trust in the Lord, and in our trusting WHO is good, we do WHAT is good.
This is so close to my heart here and now, personally, because for a man dealing with real estate issues, ‘dwell in the land’ sounds a whole lot more pleasurable than usual.
Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
In moments of discomfort, we can delight in the Lord. May I note here that all of us LOVE to focus on the ‘desires of your heart’ that follows.. and there’s nothing wrong with our entrusting the Creator of the universe to first know all that’s in our hearts before giving us what it desires.
All I’m saying is that just as trusting in the Lord comes BEFORE doing good, so delighting in the Lord takes priority over the desires of our heart – frankly, because delighting in the Lord most probably IS the desire of our heart.
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
We’ve spoken a good deal so far this year about trusting in the Lord, and we will continue to do so – in fact, the more that the world screams at us to release our trust in Him, or to place our trust in anything else, the more the Holy Spirit reminds us of the good that He has done for us, and, oftentimes surprisingly, how we can trust Him all the more.
Also, it does bring us, more often than not, to enjoy He whom we have placed our trust in, again, in the hard times. We delight in the Lord, because that is actually the desire of our heart.
As such I believe it is also just as natural for us to reciprocate, not merely by delighting in Him, but also by way of intentionally committing to Him.
Take a moment and realize just how much He is committed to us – He stepped away from eternal glory to be born within the boundaries of creation. By His birth He was subject to time and space beneath eternity and infinity, and more importantly, He was born into a reality just so corrupted back then as it is now, by sin and death.
And although He remained Representative of eternal wisdom and infinite power, He wholeheartedly, willingly lay down His life, presenting Himself as a sacrifice – becoming our sin in order for us to be His righteousness, that by His righteousness, we who were once separated by sin and therefore doomed to oblivion would be reconciled to God to call Him our Father…
…and we think the commitment ends there, but it doesn’t – for, see, Christ didn’t just commit Himself and all that He is one time, but FOREVER – For we live only because He lives.
The Son of God committed all of Himself to us, one time, and forever.
And the more we allow this Truth to renew our minds, the more we realize just how committed He is to all of us (‘all’ meaning every single one of us, and ‘all’ meaning our entire beings), the more the Spirit causes us to commit our way to Him; That is, to trust Him, to involve Him, to seek Him… ‘and He will act’;
That is, werecognize His presence, and to see Him working in the mundane just as much as He moves in all that intimidates and overwhelms us.
We find comfort in the truth brought upon us by the Holy Spirit; That is, in our expecting Him to act, the truth is that He has ALREADY acted in a way that impacts our past, present, and future – see, by His death and resurrection, He has ALREADY brought forth our righteousness as the light, and our justice as the noonday.
And to sum it all up, as we continue down our way, our path, and our life in this reality with the Holy Spirit, we recognize that as He has already proclaimed us righteous, we see righteousness being brought forth into our situations, and as, through Him, true justice has already been served, we are assured of seeing justice made clear as the noon day.
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!
Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.
In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.
Psalm 37:1-11
The Holy Spirit brings us to trust Him, reminds us to delight in Him, and commits to us as we commit more and more to Him… and do not be surprised, even in this chaotic reality, that we are also brought to be still, and to peace as we wait on Him.
Even as the rest of the world seems to have the upper hand, we shall not fret, nor shall we be anxious over the enemy with all his experience, strategies, and weapons.
We shall not fret, nor shall we be so committed to anger, to the point that we take the option of wrath – For (1) again, the enemy will probably win a couple of battles here and there, but it is all in vain, as Christ reigns forever and they shall be cut off and no more; and (2) in His time, we shall inherit the land, and delight in the Lord, the Source of our abundant peace.
I’ve called on ClaudeAI to help me wrap this up and conclude all that has been written here:
In the midst of the war on truth and the increasing spread of falsehood and wickedness in the world, we must remember that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil. However, we can take heart in the assurance that Christ has already won the ultimate victory through His death and resurrection. While the battles may rage on, and the enemy may seem to prosper for a season, we know that his triumphs are fleeting, and he will ultimately be cut off.
As believers, our calling is not to fret or be envious of the evildoers, but to trust in the Lord, commit our ways to Him, and delight in His presence. In doing so, we conquer ourselves through the transformative power of repentance and meditation on Christ’s finished work. We find our peace and rest in the knowledge that our righteousness and justice have already been secured through Christ’s sacrifice, and we can confidently wait for the Lord, knowing that the meek shall inherit the land and delight in abundant peace.
The war on peace may rage, but we have the assurance of peace in Christ, our eternal victor. Let us fix our eyes on Him, the author and perfecter of our faith, and find our strength and courage in His unwavering love and sovereign reign. For in the end, the wicked shall be no more, but those who wait upon the Lord shall inherit the everlasting kingdom of our Savior, who has conquered sin, death, and every evil once and for all.
Wonderful, indeed. Thank God for His awesome revelations.
Until the next post, God bless us all.
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