The Real Insurgency, Pt. 1

the evil that is hidden away inside their own ranks. Perhaps you saw on the news a few weeks ago the testimony of a child in South Jersey against her foster mother who, with her husband, had systematically starved him and his siblings, all the while quoting Bible verses and being model church members. We Christians cheat and steal, we gossip and hate. We live private lives that are inconsistent with what we profess on Sunday mornings. And all of this is the face of evil and it is the battleground of spiritual warfare.

In the midst of his defense of his own ministry, Paul launches into a discussion of the way that we are to engage a defeated enemy who is waging a campaign of insurgency.
He understands that evil is indeed present in this world and it is a force that Christians must understand and deal with every day.
I’ve divided this passage into three points. They are:
1-3 We live and we fight in the world
4-5 We live and we fight with powerful weapons
6-8 We live and we fight as those under authority

This morning we are only going to deal with the first three verses and my first point. The next two points will be left for the next sermon or two. First: We live and we fight in the world

Despite the fact that this passage turns pointed and even threatening, Paul begins with a gentle hand. By the meekness and gentleness of Christ… I beg you… He is deeply concerned for this church. And although he is defending himself here against a minority who were challenging his authority, he is clearly concerned that this cancer not spread to the entire church.

That is the nature of churches… what sometimes starts as an isolated pocket of unbiblical teaching or inappropriate gossip or a lack of submission to authority often infects the entire body. And Paul wants to be sure that these detractors are checked as quickly as possible. He wants the entire church to hear his defense, not because they were all involved in the criticism, but because they soon could be.

I think this is the first reference to spiritual warfare. Even the church can be a battleground. We live in enemy territory. This is not something to be ignored or made light of. There is a great difference between waging war on your own ground and waging war in enemy territory. Even in this sanctuary it is possible that we are engaged in spiritual warfare. The enemy likes to infiltrate the command centers!

The NIV uses the word “world” three times in verses 2-3. But this word literally means, “flesh”. Most other translations render this “walking according to the flesh” and “waging war according to the flesh.”

What is the flesh? It is essentially inherited selfishness. It is what is basically wrong with human nature. It is the flaw in our nature which we all inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve. It is a sinful nature, a nature that pervades everything we are and everything we do. It is not taught or caught – it is a fundamental reality in the lives of human beings.

It is not very long before it is quite apparent that we are fundamentally selfish. You do not have to teach a baby to be selfish. You do not have to teach him to disobey his parents. This nature crops up in any individual no matter what kind of a background, exposure, or environment he is subjected to; it is in the bloodstream of humanity.

This is the unpleasant