That was the slogan since May.  Finish the fight, which the home team did in fantastic fashion this week.  (Go Nats!)

As I write this the entire DC region is awash in the euphoria of winning the 2019 World Series!  Allow me to borrow a little from the world of baseball.  Like the Nats, we’re in a fight.  To the finish.  Here’s the way I understand it:

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.  (2 Corinthians 10:4)

The guy who wrote that would comment at the end of his life,

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  (2 Timothy 4:7)

What is the fight?  How do we finish it?  In short, the fight is with the enemy of God.  It is the fight against the dehumanizing agenda, that which seeks to diminish or destroy the image of God in any person.  It is the forces aligned against God’s good creation.  It is the malevolent one who appears in the pages of the Bible, and who is sometimes known as the deceiver, the tempter, the accuser, and a roaring lion.

We fight the fight with the truth of who God is, and the truth of his love for his creation…ALL of his creation.  In the passage above Paul points out that our weapons are “not the weapons of the world.”  Those would be weapons of violence, vengeance, dominance, and destructive thoughts/words/attitudes.  Those are the weapons we’re tempted to reach for.  When we’re threatened.  When we’re fearful.  When we’re confused.

But those weapons won’t demolish the strongholds the Enemy has surrounded us with.  Because those are the raw materials used to build the strongholds in the first place.  No we need different weapons.  We need the weapons of truth. We need the weapons of faith, hope and love.  We need the weapons that are listed in the checklist of Ephesians 6:

• Belt of truth (truth of who God is, and who we are)
• Breastplate of righteousness (the power to make right that which is wrong)
• Shoes of peace (grounded in the gospel [good news] of Jesus mission)
• Shield of faith (wholehearted allegiance to Jesus as king)
• Helmet of salvation (meaning rescued/delivered/redeemed)
• Sword of the Spirit, a.k.a. the Word of God

This is how we’re called to fight.  How’s your armor looking?  When we’re missing part of the armor, the fight doesn’t go well.  That’s when we’re tempted to pick up the “weapons of the world.”  Which always cause grave damage to the victim and the one using the weapon.  This is part of the problem we addressed last Sunday.

It’s time to recognize we’re in a fight.  And to quote someone I’ve long forgotten, “There is an enemy, and it’s not the other person.”

It’s time to finish the fight.

-Pastor Mark

P.S. If you’d like to understand better how to demolish strongholds, check out the next Rooted Experience, where among other things we learn exactly WHAT our strongholds are and HOW to demolish them!