Battle Drill #14:

Plan Your Route!

Proverbs 7:1-27 (NAS95)

Today, we are going to walk through the four action steps of a soldier’s training routine to learn the next battle drill – “Plan Your Route!” I have some stories to help illustrate today’s lesson:

1) Learning land navigation in the military is a significant investment of time, energy, and resources for infantry soldiers. We spent a lot of time working on the skills necessary to do this during the day and in the night. My body has the marks to show how hard it can be, especially at night, just like our souls bear the scars of how hard it can be to plan our routes properly in life, especially in the valleys of the shadow.

2) Ranger school taught me the need to know my location when on mission. At any time, you may need to pivot in place due to attack or unexpected changes. You need to learn to know where you are on the map by looking at the terrain around you (providence).

3) On a road trip you can’t blindly trust your GPS, or you may end up a dead end or in a place you never intended. You need to know how to use a map to double check your route.

Let’s learn how we can train this battle drill so that you can live on mission today.

Action Step #1) Know the Field Manual.

The battle drill we are going to learn and apply this week is from Proverbs 7:1-3:

My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.

To better understand how I am applying this Scripture to learning how to plan your route, you need to hear the rest of this passage so I will continue reading from Proverbs 7 with verses 4-27:

Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your intimate friend; that they may keep you from an adulteress, from the foreigner who flatters with her words. For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice, and I saw among the naive, and discerned among the youths A young man lacking sense, passing through the street near her corner; and he takes the way to her house, in the twilight, in the evening, in the middle of the night and in the darkness. And behold, a woman comes to meet him, dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart. She is boisterous and rebellious, her feet do not remain at home; she is now in the streets, now in the squares, and lurks by every corner. So she seizes him and kisses him and with a brazen face she says to him: “I was due to offer peace offerings; today I have paid my vows. Therefore I have come out to meet you, to seek your presence earnestly, and I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, with colored linens of Egypt. I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. Come, let us drink our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with caresses. For my husband is not at home, he has gone on a long journey; he has taken a bag of money with him, at the full moon he will come home.” With her many persuasions she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool, until an arrow pierces through his liver; as a bird hastens to the snare, so he does not know that it will cost him his life. Now therefore, my sons, listen to me, and pay attention to the words of my mouth. Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways, do not stray into her paths. For many are the victims she has cast down, and numerous are all her slain. Her house is the way to Sheol, Descending to the chambers of death.

We know what the Field Manual says, let’s now take the second action step to learn how to apply today’s battle drill to our everyday lives as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

Action Step #2) Train together as one unit.

1) Reading a map, to include plotting points and use terrain association skills along the route.

2) Using a compass to include setting an azimuth (the direction of travel between two points).

3) Learning your pace count (the ability to track distance traveled in a specific direction).

Here is how the two connect so that we can see how we are training them together as the church:

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

There is an expression that I used earlier and that I now want to explain to you so that you can learn how to seek God’s approval in your life before all else and in doing so plan your route: “Jesus is our true north.” Allow me to explain this to you by sharing from a research article:

The expression true north is based on a fact that navigators and surveyors must deal with every day: a magnetic compass is not a terribly reliable instrument. A magnetic compass points toward the magnetic north pole, which is not the same as true north, or the geographic (or geodetic) north pole. The difference between magnetic north and true north is currently a matter of several hundred miles—but it changes, due to the fact that the magnetic north pole drifts several miles a year. The earth produces a magnetic field. The places where the lines of magnetic induction converge are called the magnetic poles. The location of the magnetic north pole changes over time. In contrast, true north is a fixed spot on the globe: the true north pole is found at the conjunction of the lines of longitude, the point at which the earth’s axis exits the globe. Magnetic north varies position from year to year; true north is unchanging. Because the needle of a magnetic compass points toward the magnetic north pole, not the geographic north pole, it is not entirely accurate. It may give a general idea of where north is, especially in the middle latitudes, but it can be wildly unreliable in the regions closer to the poles, varying by 20 to 60 degrees. The difference between magnetic north and true north is called declination, and it varies according to where one is located on the globe. To compensate for declination and find true north, we must perform some mathematical calculations using an up-to-date chart or calibrate our compasses. Adding to the confusion is magnetic deviation, caused when nearby metallic objects or electrical equipment influence the compass needle. Deviation is especially a problem inside ships and airplanes and in areas containing a lot of metal ore. Like declination, deviation must be overcome, usually by means of auxiliary magnets, in order to find true north.[1]

Therefore, when you hear it said that “Jesus is our truth north” you know now that means that Jesus is the constant, unchanging source of truth and life. As Hebrews 13:8-9a states, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings…” Jesus concludes His sermon on the mount with these critical words of how we are to apply His teachings to our lives and in how we are to plan our routes, from Matthew 7:24-27:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.

Action Step #4) Live on mission by keeping Jesus Christ as the true north of your life.

Is your life off course? Do you feel lost? Do you need a course correction or an altogether new route for your life? “Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life… “ (John 14:6)!

You Can Listen to this message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] https://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-true-north.html (accessed May 13, 2022).

Iron Sharpens Iron: Biblical Friendship

Today is a cool day for a lot of reasons- it was 20 years ago, in May 2002, that I accepted the job as the youth pastor here at FBC, moved to NC, and started out as a young person in her first full-time ministry role. Also it was 18 years ago today, May 8 2004 that I married Daniel who I met at this church. I’m really thankful for the way FBC has been supporting Daniel and me in ministry for years, and I’m so grateful to be able to live out God’s calling on my life in ministry while still being firmly rooted here in our local church- that’s a blessing! Thank you for supporting and encouraging us to keep following God’s leading.

Today I am not going to talk about motherhood or Mother’s Day, but I do want to say a couple things about Mother’s Day before I get started. First off, I will say that being a mom is incredibly rewarding even when it’s also really hard. To the moms in the room, I know what you had to do to get your people and all their stuff together just to arrive here today, and you younger moms who are pretty tired from this week, but you still got your kids up and going today and probably took care of the gifts for your own mom and mother-in-laws, way to go, you are absolute champs. To all of you in the room that are moms, I want to say thank you for all the work you do and have done to keep the humans in your house alive- you’ve done a great job. To the moms, stepmoms and grandmothers, spiritual moms, single moms, all of you in this room who are helping to raise or who have raised kids, thank you for what you do- you are amazing and you make the world keep running. I also want to acknowledge that Mother’s Day is a painful day for some of us in this room, and if that’s true for you, I want you to know that you are seen and you belong today just as much as those who are celebrating. Mother’s Day can be hard for

those of us who miss our moms, or whose moms hurt us. It also might be a hard day for those of us who have lost a child, or whose kids have caused us heartache and motherhood has not been like we wish it was. And I know some of us have desperately wanted to be moms and it just hasn’t happened. You are seen and you belong in this room and we honor you as well.  Scripture says that we are to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.  And so if you’re celebrating today, then happy Mother’s Day- your mom life is something to be proud of! And if you’re hurting today, we love you and we care about you. However you showed up today, you belong here and we are in this together. So I’d like to pray in that spirit.

I want to invite you to get out your bible and expect to open it and actually read it today. If you don’t have one, use your phone and I would suggest you look it up in the New Living Translation because that’s what I read and then my words will match what you’re looking at.

Today we are going to talk about friendship, biblical friendship. We have been going through the book of Proverbs, and today I picked Proverbs 27:17 as our key verse. And since it is only 10 words long, we’re going to look at several other passages and see what the Bible has to say about being a good friend and having good friends, the way Jesus intended for those who follow him. So let’s look at Proverbs 27:17 as our jumping off point today- it’s so short it’ll take way longer for you to find it than to read it but I still think it’s a good practice to actually read the words for yourself so please turn there with me.

PROVERBS 27:17  

TURN to a person near you and share, what do you think that means? in your own words, what does this proverb talking about?

When I was a senior in college, just a few months before I graduated and moved here actually, that spring my grandpa died. It was my first grandparent to pass away, and really the first person close to me at all to die. I went to school in Anderson, and I drove home from school to be here for a few days. The hardest part for sure was seeing my own dad grieve- and it just rocked my world a little, like it does when you lose a grandparent. I missed a couple days of classes, and was here in town for a few days, and I remember very distinctly something that happened the day of the calling. My senior year, I lived in a house with 6 other girls that had been close friends all through college. And I hadn’t been there all week of course, and I was really looking forward to seeing my friends because it had been a hard week. And that night, at the calling for my grandpa, not a single one of my roommates showed up. Thankfully, my closest friend from childhood and high school actually came, and I remember how thankful I was when Tiffany walked in the door. It meant even more to me because others hadn’t come. That same friend was the first person to arrive at the hospital the day my son Caleb’s heart stopped and she was the first person to come to the hospital the day he finally got word that he was going to receive a new heart. When a friend shows up for you and loves you like that, you never forget. But not only do you not forget it, it impacts you deeply. Being loved by a true friend shapes who we are as people. Being loved like that increases our own capacity to love and care for others- love produces more love. A good friend produces more good friends.

Having true friends and being a true friend is possibly the most important part of our human lives and yet it’s something that so many of us struggle with. We want to have great friendships and we want to be terrific friends but so often that’s not how it goes. And the thing is, God actually cares a whole lot about the quality of our friendships. In fact, our relationships with each other are so incredibly important that the Bible is full of instruction on how we are to treat each other- In John 17, Jesus went so far as to say that for Christians, the way we love and treat each other will show the world what God is like. So friendship is a big deal and its an area of our lives that we need to be intentional about.

1. I want to look back at the early church and see how the first Christians did friendship and community.
2. I want to address how different friendship and community are in our own current culture. and
3. I want to see how we can actually obey God’s design for us and have the kind of friendships He intended for his people to have.

Temple together, then ate meals in each others’ homes. They shared their needs and helped each other. They prayed and worshiped together. They experienced amazing fellowship with each other and had sincere unity.

Acts 2:42-47, Acts 4:32-36, Acts 5:12-16

The Church grew and grew and grew until there were thousands of Christians. But their mountaintop experience didn’t last forever. In Acts 8, we see that persecution began, and Christians were being arrested and even killed, so they fled Jerusalem and were scattered all throughout the region. But God was at work in this! Acts 8:4 says “the believers who were scattered preached the Good news about Jesus wherever they went”. Christianity spread and new, smaller Churches were popping up. We read letters Paul wrote to these believers, and the Churches that were eventually formed because of their scattering, and one of the most common themes was Paul urging the Christians to stick together and continue to help and love each other well.  You can’t read the NT without seeing the overwhelming message that Christians are supposed to function as one unit, just as Jerry preaches each week! We train together, we learn together, we obey Jesus TOGETHER. This is a team sport, guys!

When we read the first few chapters of Acts, it’s not hard to see how the church has changed. And I’m not talking about the logistics of how worship services were conducted- I’m talking about how the early Christians oriented their life around the life of their community, their church. They didn’t have church buildings, that’s not what they were about- they were about each other. They were together and they went through life together as a family.

• we treat church as a once a week activity that is mostly about what happens on the stage, while we sit and view the program.
• people like to be anonymous, or now more than ever “watch” church online. That’s like going to the fieldhouse and watching a basketball game and saying you played basketball! Let’s be honest- we want church to be like this because it costs us so little. It’s low-energy, low-time, low-investment of ourselves.
• we are individualistic to our core. Life is about me and what’s best for me and what I prefer and what makes me happy.
• we are proud and independent- I don’t want to need people. I depend on myself and that way I won’t be let down. And heaven forbid I let people see what needs I really have in my life, that would be humiliating.
• we are BUSY and disconnected

So how can we obey Jesus and have the kind of friendships he intended his people to have?

• HEBREWS 10:24-25   — Be here and make it a priority: we have to be present, in the life of the church and in each other’s personal lives. Be there! Be here!
• MARK 5:24-34 Ñ> Take a risk and allow yourself to be known: we have to be vulnerable
• Make an effort to connect with people: we have to initiate
• Evaluate yourself and your life and see your stumbling blocks: we have to be honest with ourselves.  Are you afraid and trying to be self-protective?  Are you too busy and really need to re-think your commitments and how you spend your time?  Are you spending time with the wrong people?  Are you convinced that you’re introverted or a homebody and you just don’t need much from other people?

You can listen to this message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.