Soldiers Fit For a King

Steve Camp made a comment in yesterday's sermon that I started thinking about and dug into deeper. He used 2 Timothy 2:4: "No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him." Mr. Camp said about this verse, and this is a paraphrase, A solidier on the battle field does not worry himself about the issues of the civilian. The Christian life is a war and we eat, sleep, live, and fight on the battle field. When we wake up, we must prepare for battle because we are in enemy territory.

Imagine soldiers in a forgeign field. Although they are on the battlefield, there are many distractions placed here by the enemy. There are many pleasures to indulge in here and are very tempting. At first, the soldiers are focused and resist temptation. They fight the enemy daily. Over time however, the soldiers gave in to the temptations. Pretty soon, they forgot about fighting and emersed themselves in the pleasures all around them. Of course, the enemy took them over.

As Christians, we are on a foreign battle field. The world is our battle field. We are citizens of heaven. There are pleasures all around us that the enemy uses to distract us from our focus. Praise God that He is with us!

When Paul speaks of suffering for the cause of Christ and language of being sober, ready, focused, etc.. while we are on this earth does not sound fun or pleasureable. It is not appealing to the flesh. We must get beyond our flesh! Because of Christ, we are above our flesh.

Back to the picture of a solider, when he is in the field, his motivation to do a good job is his longing for home. He knows that if he does his job and does it well, he will get to go home. During this time however, he has to make sacrifices. He necessarily does not like what he has to do, but he does it out of obedience of his commander in chief, the love his country, and his own survival.

As Christians, we necessarily do not enjoy some of the sacrifices we have to make, but we do so out of obedience to the most high God, the love for Christ, for our survival, and the promise of going home. Unlike many soldiers today, we were drafted into our Lord's army. It is a high honor to serve in the Lord's army. It is a serious and sobering thing to be a servant of the Lord.

Our handbook has been written by the King himself. We must hold fast to His Word in order to remain in communication with Him. We must take into account what He tells us, and then act upon it in order to live worthy of being His soldier.

So when we read what Paul tells us about suffering and being sober, let us be quick to listen and act. Let us run the race with perseverance, fight the good fight, and put our hands to the plow of life without looking back. If God be for us, who can be against us!