Battle Drill #40:

Trust your Training!

Proverbs 30:5-6 (NAS95)

Today, we are going to walk through the four action steps of a soldier’s training routine to learn Battle Drill #40 – “Trust your Training!” You are going to find that this battle drill serves as an effective bookend with Battle Drill #3 – “Trust the Commander!” from Proverbs 3:5-6. These two are intimately yoked as we learn to trust God and the Bible from which He calls us to train ourselves in godliness. This is a critical reality for the church, just as it was for me as a soldier in the military to learn to trust my training.

For example, the United States Army’s Airborne School is unnecessarily long – it is three weeks long but could be consolidated to one week! Honestly, all you must do to earn your wings is successfully complete five jumps, including one night jump. Of course, it is highly encouraged that you can walk off the jump zone each time and stand at graduation. The first week is called ground week and you spend most of the day, every day, learning how to do a parachute landing fall (PLF) in sawdust pits. It is mind-numbing training and besides getting sawdust in every possible place in your body, you are constantly being evaluated for mental and physical toughness before you are allowed to move to the second week, which is called tower week. Tower week is doing countless simulated jumps from a ten-meter tower simulating the procedures you must follow upon leaving the airplane, preparing to hit the ground, and executing a proper PLF at the approximate force of an actual jump. The intensity of training increases in every way for one reason – to prepare you for jump week when you must trust your training because nothing can quite prepare you to jump out of a perfectly good airplane! The third week is jump week and you quickly learn that nothing can quite prepare you to step out of that airplane at 1,250 feet, flying at 130 mph when you step out of it, but by this point you have done more PLFs, simulated leaving an aircraft more times, and followed all airborne procedures so many times that you reflexively, instinctively, and habitually do what you are trained to do when it matters – as you plumet to earth at 13 mph, hitting at the equivalent force of jumping off a nine-to-twelve foot wall. The first two weeks of Airborne school are to ensure the person is mentally, emotionally, and physically capable of trusting their training when it matters.

This is what this battle drill sermons series is all about. We must learn to trust our training so that we execute the Field Manual according to the Commander’s intent when it matters the most. Regardless of how much you know about God or say you love Him, if you don’t learn to trust your training, you will not live on mission. You will be hijacked by your circumstances, driven by your feelings, or engulfed by your nervous system.

To illustrate the importance of learning and applying today’s battle drill in real life, Katie Kinnaird is going to share with us a recent testimony.

Action Step #1) Know the Field Manual.

Action Step #2) Train together as one unit.

Just as an army must trust its field manuals so that every soldier is being trained according to the same doctrine and strategies, the church must be unified in the Bible as infallible in its authority and inerrant in its source. We must trust God’s authority and that He gave us a trustworthy Bible, our Field Manual. As our battle drill states in Proverbs 30:5, “Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.” Psalm 18:30 complements, “As for God, His way is blameless; the word of the Lord is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.” When we trust God, we will walk in His ways, according to the Scriptures.

Paul taught his protégé in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” The Word of God is sufficient to the task for which we were called, so trust it and don’t adlib, as the second half of our battle drill emphasizes in Proverb 30:6, “Do not add to His words or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar.” Don’t hijack the process by trying to fix it yourself. You will only make it worse!

The Commander has given you His battle drills to protect you and provide for you all that you need to fulfill His mission. From Joshua 1:8, the Commander said to one of His first generals, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.” Do you believe this?

In the same way that we learn to trust that God has enlisted us to successfully fulfill His mission according to the Scriptures, we must learn to trust that we aren’t alone in the mission. As fellow members of His body, we need one another. This is God’s will for our lives as Paul emphasized through the body imagery of the church in Romans 12:4-5, “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

We need one another, more than we know, just as we learned from our previous Battle Drill, “Train with a Battle Buddy!” We need to walk in the way of Jesus Christ with one another and carry one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:1-2). A significant component of the training regimen is training as a fellow member of the body of Christ, and not alone, because if we are to do what Jesus, the head of the church, commands us, and please Him, then we must do it in concert with His will for our lives, collectively as the individual members of the one body of Christ. As Paul said in Ephesians 1:22-23, “And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” Ultimately, God is glorified through our unity as Jesus prayed in John 17:22-23:

The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.

This is how we are to train together! Now, let’s turn to the third action item.

Action Step #3) Seek the Commander’s approval.

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.

This teaching applies to every area of our lives because this battle drill gives you the tools to defeat your self-will (the flesh); it is winning the battle for your loyalty so that you can CM on God’s rescue mission! You will trust in God or in yourself, but don’t be deceived – there can be only one in whom you ultimately trust and that is revealed in the moments where the stakes are the highest. Don’t make assumptions – train this trust into your bones! Now is not a time to swim in da Nile (denial)!

Do you remember the second half of our battle drill that I touched upon earlier? Proverbs 30:6 warns us, “Do not add to His words or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar.” In other words, don’t adlib or else! When you add to or modify His words, you demonstrate your lack of faith in God as infallible and your inherent mistrust in His Word as inerrant. Remember, the higher the stakes, the more we must trust our training; that God is our shield and refuge!

Allow me an anecdotal story from my days as a paratrooper. There is a major mistake paratroopers make when they are about to hit the ground – they reach for the ground with their feet. This is so natural to do that you must train yourself to not do it! Otherwise, you end up with a major injury like a twisted knee, broken leg, smashed ankles, or worse. You must absorb the ground upon impact by keeping your knees and ankles flexed, but it takes an incredible amount of discipline to trust your training, especially in night jumps when you can’t see the quickly approaching ground. It’s this same survival instinct that causes so many broken wrists when people fall. It is natural to reach out to stop yourself from falling, but those who have been trained how to fall know not to – often what you feel is the right thing to do is not!

Allow me to give you a word of grace: If anyone tells you that at any point in your Christian life you won’t struggle with your humanity and the effects of living in this tent (2 Corinthians 5:1-9), then they are placing a burden on you that Christ has not. Holiness is Christ in you, not your ability to perfectly master the flesh. The righteousness you have is imputed upon you through Christ’s victory, not one earned by a life of perfect thought life, perfect emotional stability, and perfect mastery of your body. Training this battle drill is about trusting the Holy Spirit to do in and through you what God promises! The life we live is a life submitted to Jesus Christ, just as Paul commented about himself in Galatians 2:19-21:

For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.

This is our victory – our faith (1 John 5:4)! That leads us into our final action step.

Action Step #4) Live on mission.

On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.

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Battle Drill #39:

Communicate the Mission!

Proverbs 29:18 (NAS95)

This month, I am finishing our 2022 sermon series, “Train to Live on Mission Today: The Battle Drills of a Christian Soldier.” After laying a firm foundation from 2 Timothy 2:1-4 so we can properly understand how the Bible uses the soldier imagery as a metaphor for the Christian life, we have then taken a year-long journey through the book of Proverbs.

Today, we are going to walk through the four action steps of a soldier’s training routine to learn the next battle drill – “Communicate the Mission!” It is standard military practice to ensure that all soldiers know the mission so that even if they are the last soldier remaining, they can seek to accomplish their unit’s objectives. In fact, leaders communicate the mission of the next two levels of command so that soldiers, when necessary, can take on an even great responsibility to ensure the mission is accomplished. A common military example of this is when a higher-level commander knows that the ultimate purpose of his unit is to gain control of a specific bridge to ensure the army can successfully get across a river. He communicates this mission so that a soldier doesn’t think guarding an intersection on the way to the bridge is the only thing that needs to be done to accomplish the mission. While guarding an intersection is important, and it needs to be done without distraction, it serves the larger purpose of helping the unit seize the bridge so that the general can move his forces into position for what comes next. Every task must work toward the accomplishment of the larger mission! That same is true for the church!

For us to CM, continue the mission, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, we must train ourselves to communicate the mission so that we know how what each of us is called to do fits into the larger purposes of God. So, whether you greet people, help collect the offering, hold babies, teach children, work with youth, teach a class, prepare and deliver foods, send cards, help others with practical assistance, provide counseling, make videos, do visitations, care for the facilities, cut grass, fill potholes, keep the books, manage a webpage, send emails, or run a sound board may all that you do be to the glory of God, as Paul said in Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men.” Let’s turn to the Field Manual and take the first step of a soldier’s training regimen.

Action Step #1) Know the Field Manual.

Action Step #2) Train together as one unit.

But isn’t that every good father’s desire – to watch their children fulfill the purpose of their lives? John said in 3 John 4, “I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.” My brothers and sisters, John wasn’t talking about his spiritual children – the Church, and that is the whole purpose that I as your pastor must train all of us as a congregation to keep communicating the mission to one another and to our youth and our children. Because we will have no greater joy that to hear of one another, our youth, and our children walking in the truth. Yes, that includes you as parents teaching your children in the Way of Jesus because you are the primary disciple-makers of your children. You bear the responsibility, but we, your church family, are your partners in accomplishing this mission. The mission of God that we all must know, not just missionaries and pastors, was given to us by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20:

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

This is the mission we must keep communicating! We hear Jesus proclaim His great rescue mission in Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Then again in Acts 1:7-8 when Jesus spoke of the coming Pentecost:

“He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

Our battle drill for today comes from Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keeps the law.” Allow me to show you something that is going to bring today’s teaching together for you – the word “vision” is actually best translated, “revelation.” It is not talking about our plans, but God’s Word! Listen to this short explanation of Proverbs 29:18:

The familiar KJV “where there is no vision” is misleading. The word “vision” is the revelation (ḥāzôn) a prophet receives. Also the KJV translation “the people perish” does not refer to unsaved people dying in sin. The verb pāra‘ means to cast off restraint. So the verse is stating that without God’s Word people abandon themselves to their own sinful ways. On the other hand keeping (obeying) God’s Law (cf. 28:4, 7) brings happiness.^[1]

Or said more plainly, Tony Evans taught it this way:

Without the wisdom God’s Word gives, people are prone to throw off all restraint. This, in fact, is a description of our culture today: people are running into walls and down blind alleys for lack of truth. The remedy to the problem is found in hearing and receiving biblical instruction.^[2]

Interestingly, the Greek word for “truth” in 3 John 4 is used right before today’s proverb in Proverbs 29:14, “If a king judges the poor with truth, his throne will be established forever.” Talk about a strong position for a king to be in to win the game, better than castling to protect your King in the game of chess is for a king to judge the poor with truth, to stay on mission according to God’s Word. Why is this important? Because if the people don’t know the truth, then they will go astray, throw of restraint, live outside of God’s purposes for their lives and miss out on the many blessings of knowing His Word and living according to it!

We have a lot to learn about ministry in the church from the game of chess. If we are going to communicate the mission through our lives, then we need to know not only the ultimate goal – the King, but we also need to know what we are to do as one the unique pieces on the table, whether a pawn or bishop, a knight or rook, and how we each fit into the strategy of God’s plan. That brings us to the third action step of a good soldier of Jesus.

Action Step #3) Seek the Commander’s approval.

“Where there is no vision” (v. 18) refers to the absence of an open revelation of the word and will of God. It does not necessarily mean that if there are no plans being made, the people will perish. Rather, it calls for prayer, preaching, and consecration, so that God’s plan for life may be known.^[3]

This is exactly how I see my calling. I am going to share with you two Scriptures that undergird my ministry philosophy – how I answer my pastoral calling. The first is from Acts 6:4, which captures the collective voice of “the Twelve” when they were calling forth the deacons of the Church (Greek for “servants”) to do the work of ministry, “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” I am convinced that I am, through the Word and prayer, and the ongoing work of the Spirit to consecrate the congregation, that I am not to lead you in trusting our plans or initiatives, but in trusting God’s Word and Spirit to lead us in the mission of God. Therefore I pray, “Lord, please don’t bless our plans, but bless us to be a part of your plans, and to know the difference.” I put no hope in the integrity of my (our) ways, but in the infallibility of God and the inerrancy of His Word – His vision for His people will never perish!

Second, Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:11-16 shape my calling as your pastor because they show me how we, each of us, fit into God’s mission purposes for sending Jesus Christ from Heaven to Earth to show us the way to salvation:

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

It is a revelation (“vision”) from the Lord which keeps a person and a people in the way. Outside of the way, we perish, we fall, we stumble. What is it we are to bring to one another, to encourage one another, to lift one another up, to equip one another? Is it our own strategic plans filled with mission and vision statements, goals and ambitions, marketing schemes and church growth strategies? No, there can be no worldly or humanistic approach to doing church. Rather, our scripture lesson is clear that it is the vision of God, given to us through the revelation of God, His Son Jesus Christ, as Paul taught us in Colossians 1:13-20:

For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

You were blessed to be a blessing! That is what I’m trying to communicate to you and that is what I want your life to communicate to all who know you – you are to communicate the rescue mission! This leads us to the final action step of our soldier’s training regimen.

Action Step #4) Live on mission.

But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.

We communicate the mission because that is how the mission is accomplished, as revealed to us at the end of all things in Revelation 12:10-11:

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. (emphasis added)

We CM when we keep the vision of God, His Word, in our hearts and on our tongues, when we meditate day and night on His Word, when we are like trees planted by streams of water, when we are like fruit-bearing branches abiding in the Vine – the One who is the source of the vision, when we find rest for our souls in the easy yoke of Jesus, the Fulfiller of the Law. We have been blessed to a blessing! We have been enlisted to communicate the mission of God!

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 968.

[2] Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Study Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible, 2019), 743.