Pastor Dan Eddy
1 Peter 2:1-10
Soldier Training
5-22-11
Let us pray:
Lord, let the words of my mouth and the
meditations of our hearts bring good training this day to these soldiers of the
Great I AM, in Christ Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Dear friends in
Christ on this Armed Services Sunday.
I.
Introduction – Steve Petersen’s Marine
Training
In the fall of
2005, Steve Petersen was attending classes at Concordia Seminary in
He was to patrol the dangerous streets of
Fullujah. This was a town that the Marines had to retake after Iraqi forces
failed to hold onto it. Petersen would be involved maintaining order in the
city, but first he was being shipped in the opposite direction to
The camp would
consist of a mock city that look and sounded like Fullujah, equipped with Iraqi
citizens brought to the
His training was mentally and physically grueling.
It involved the dropping of live bombs and the use of real ammunition.
At first it seems
that kind of training would be a bit excessive, until you realize the goal of any
Armed Forces training is to have the best military possible in order to serve
bravely and honorably in protecting and serving our nation. It is what makes up
the heart of a true solider.
Marines, along
with the rest of our Armed Forces, often face hostile enemies, unexpected
obstacles, and uncertain conditions in warfare.
This morning’s
text from 1 Peter 2 can be viewed as an outline for soldier training. But we’re
not talking about preparation for armed conflict. Rather, the Apostle Peter is preparing the
Soldiers of the Great I AM to live their lives in a world hostile to the Lord.
Soldier training
for Christ involves (1) being recruited and fed, (2) going through rigorous
instruction, and (3) engaging the battle and seeing the victory. It’s what makes
up the heart of the true solider for Christ.
II.
Being recruited and fed
As any soldier
will tell you training first involves being recruited…being convinced to serve.
And that involves believing that you live in a great country worth serving in
its military.
The nation of the
Church recruited you to be a soldier of Christ. God the Father through His Son
by the power of the Holy Spirit chose you to be His. You were born from the
Word of God given through the waters of baptism. Because Christ is in you – you
are now considered precious and holy…you are His treasured possession, His
recruited soldier. He gave you the heart to serve.
So the Apostle
Peter is saying in verses 1 through 3…you’ve been given the Word which produces
faith so now mature in it for your own benefit.
This means no longer committing sins of thoughts,
words, and deeds. If you have been chosen to be saved, then you are also chosen
to serve. This is not a draft…you can walk away from your baptism, but why
would you? Remember at your physical birth you were not granted mercy. You were born
with original sin and God knew you would actually commit sins. But Christ gave
you His mercy He earned for you at the Cross. You have been saved from everlasting
death. You’ve been given everlasting freedom.
Therefore, it is an honor to be recruited into
Christ’s Nation of the Church to be trained to serve Him by loving others.
But, before any
recruit can be properly trained, he or she must first be fed. Peter is encouraging
believers to drink Christ’s spiritual milk. But this is not milk to drink like
a newborn does, but rather this milk you drink in through your ears and eyes. Peter
wants you to desire that milk like a newborn does from his or her mother. This
milk is the instruction of God’s Word given in the Bible. And you’re never too
young or old to serve as Christ’s soldier.
In verse 3, Peter
quotes Psalm 34:8 ESV: “Oh taste and see
that the Lord is good.” If you notice I will sometimes say that when you
come up here for Holy Communion. It implies that this nutrition is so you can
grow and mature in the faith. If babies don’t eat and drink they don’t grow.
They have health problems. But when something tastes good you want more of it.
Training involves
having the right faith attitude. It starts here in worship and continues in
Bible study and is practiced most every day in prayer and meditation. Our Lord
desires you, His recruits, to feed on Him or we will not be in good shape for
His training. He is shaping the strong heart of the soldier.
III.
Going through rigorous instruction
Marine and other
Armed Forces training involves classroom work, book studying, memorizing, and
physical training…exercises, obstacles course, weight lifting, endurance testing,
and involves simulating combat conditions….live ammo. “Watch out bombs are going off.” You are trained to be tested so
that you know how to act when you encounter challenges on the battlefield out
there.
The Apostle wrote
this Epistle to the early church where believers lived among mostly
unbelievers, and were often oppressed in one way or another for their faith in
Christ.
In military
training you may be expected to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, learn and
do things on your own. But when it comes to training as Christ’s soldiers you
are being transformed by God. You are not expected to do it all on your own. He
is the One alongside empowering you.
And to illustrate
the point…Peter uses the image of a stone. (Pick up rock) Stones are dead.
Rocks don’t move on their own. A living stone seems oxymoronic to our thinking.
Only the Lord could make them alive. Only Christ through the power Holy Spirit
can make you His living stone by equipping you, and training you to be alive
and strong in the faith to carry out His tasks.
The training is
good…because Christ is the living cornerstone. He removed the stone from His
grave on Easter Sunday. Architects will
tell you that in the ancient world cornerstones governed how the building was
constructed. It was the benchmark for how a building was oriented. Christ is
the cornerstone for which all this training stands on. He has a proven track
record of success. Look at how greater things have been done through Him since
He ascended into Heaven; the hundreds of millions that have been saved.
He was training
the Disciples in our Gospel lesson for this morning from John 14:1-14. He was
testing His Disciples on Maundy Thursday after three years of training to see
if they knew who He was, and they weren’t ready yet. They didn’t know who Jesus
was. And if they didn’t know who He is…how well were they going to serve as His
Soldiers.
We have the benefit of 20-20 hindsight training. We can learn from their
mistakes.
But Christ will
often simulate combat conditions right here in His church, right here in this
congregation to see how good we are living our faith in Christ: “Watch out live ammo.”
How does He test
us to see if we are battle ready? It could be as simple and as innocuous as
stain glass windows. No, I am not kidding. I know of one congregation where a
stain glass window in the Chancel area caused a rift as wide and deep as a
crater caused by a bomb.
You see putting
up or not putting up stain glass windows is not an issue of right and wrong;
it’s how people approach the subject and the conflict it creates that reveals
malady or virtue.
The people who
liked the stain glass windows didn’t care what the people who didn’t like it
thought. And the people who didn’t like the stain glass windows felt they could
say anything to express their displeasure. Thoughts and words were aimed at
each other like guns. “Watch out live ammo.”
And tests aren’t
just restricted to stain glass windows but congregational financial struggles,
how a congregation handles mistakes made by pastors, employees or members…even
how we conduct ourselves during a yard sale. I heard of a conflict between
members at a yard sale done from one done here several years ago.
And if we, as a
congregation, can’t handle the battles in basic training how can we expect the
Lord to give us more soldiers, more resources to train for other tasks like
reaching the un-churched in our community.
The Lord is
transforming you here, in this in a setting, where you are accepted by Jesus Christ
so you can go out there and live where you are being rejected by unbelievers.
We are being
transformed as His Holy chosen nation of the Church, so that His building of
faith leads to victorious actions that glorify Him. Good works done in faith
are what is acceptable in His sight.
Taste and see
that the Lord is good. Have the true heart of a soldier for Christ.
IV.
Engaging the battle and seeing the
victories
Steve Petersen
eventually made it to
“We get into firefights often,” Petersen explained. “We do a lot raids where we go in and get the bad guys at night. We
search homes and cars to locate and confiscate weapons, caches and explosives.”
One day Petersen
was on a rooftop and taking gunfire from three directions, then he saw a fresh bullet
hole in the wall where he was standing only moments before.
“Every day is pretty dangerous.
There have been a number of close calls, but I believe I am being protected,” He said, adding, “The Lord watches over those who love him and know His
name. Psalm 91 is one of my biggest comforts when I'm in the middle of
something and get scared. Bits and
pieces of comforting verses run through my head, and I have peace again.”
As we engage the
battles, we often face hostile enemies, who reject our faith in Christ,
unexpected obstacles that tempt us to live a life of sin, and uncertain
conditions where we wonder if God is really watching out for us.
For example, the
rocks that were thrown at Stephen that killed him in our First Reading may have
appeared to be one of shame for him that day, but today Stephen is viewed as
the first martyr in the Church. He died as a brave, honored soldier proclaiming
the truth and forgiveness of Christ.
And the people
who if left to their un-repentance, who see Christ as a worthless stone, will
ironically be tripped up by Him through the rock of sins that will entrap them
into eternal destruction and shame.
Stephen’s death
in serving Christ and the Church reminds me of the bravery and sacrifice that
soldiers like Michael Kelley and thousand of others gave for our country. Their
honorable service and death reflects what Christ ultimately did for all us with
His honorable death and sacrifice from the Cross. (Point to the cross) That
soldier is alive in the flesh to return on the Last Day, and is also in your
heart today fighting along side of you.
And that should
motivate us to honorably go out and serve Jesus. Christ is using you to choose
people to be here for next week’s Friendship Sunday. That’s why we included
again the postcard in this week’s bulletin. That’s why we put together the free
budgeting seminar to help you and others battle the tough economy. That’s why
at our new Bible study we are training you to help others grieve in more
healthy ways.
The victories for
us soldiers are when more souls are saved, and even more are strengthened, and
Christ is glorified in the process.
Peter is emphatic…those
who are soldiers of Christ will by no means ever be put to shame. The Lord is
training you to go into the dark world and bring people here to His marvelous
light…to do as verse 9 says to “proclaim
the excellencies of Him.” We are honored to serve Him.
As His recruits…the
more we are fed, the better we accept rigorous instruction, the better we
engage in battle, the more we see the victories of soldiering for Christ just
like Steve Petersen did as a US Marine. By the way his troops captured over
1400 terrorists in the 7 months he served in Fullujah.
God’s blessings
as we receive ongoing solider training chosen to serve in His royal, holy
precious Church to win as many to Christ for the everlasting victory and doing
it with the true heart of a solider. Amen.