Battle Drill #5:  Trust the Commander!

Proverbs 3:1-20 (NAS95)

Today, we are going to walk through the four action steps of a soldier’s training routine to learn the fifth battle drill – Trust the Commander!

Action Step #1) Know the Field Manual.

The battle drill we are going to learn and apply this week is from Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

The fifth battle drill is to trust God, the Commander who enlisted you to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Today’s battle drill comes from a very famous Scripture that many have memorized already. Let’s listen to it from the Field Manual in its entirety, Proverbs 3:1-20:

My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. Honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce; so your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord or loathe His reproof, for whom the Lord loves He reproves, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights. How blessed is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. For her profit is better than the profit of silver and her gain better than fine gold. She is more precious than jewels; and nothing you desire compares with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, and happy are all who hold her fast. The Lord by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding He established the heavens. By His knowledge the deeps were broken up and the skies drip with dew.

A significant part of this battle drill is trusting that God is good and that all He does is good! Listen to additional Scriptures that teaches us this foundational truth about God:

When you know God’s nature, remembering that the fear (respect, reverence, awe) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then you can trust Him in every circumstance of your life. We must train this truth into our lives so that it is instinctive, reflexive, and habitual. As way of example from my own life, 11 years ago, right after Alana was born, Kimberly called me to come back to the hospital because Alana’s heart rate had dropped dangerously, and the doctors rushed her away from Kimberly. Needless to say, I made it to Henry County Hospital in record time and I want you to hear a summary of my prayer as I drove down SR-3:

God, I really want to keep this baby and see her grow up. I love her so very much and I love my wife and we come to You asking You to save her, heal her, and allow us the privilege of raising her. Lord, if that is not Your will, then I trust you and no matter what happens we are going to serve you wholeheartedly. No deals, I’m just asking you to heal her, please Lord. I love you and I trust you no matter what. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

That prayer was my reflexive and instinctive because my habitual prayer life is that of absolute trust in the goodness of God; therefore, even in the worst scenarios I trust Him as the Commander of my soul. Your prayer life is critical to training this battle drill into your bones.

Action Step #2) Train together as one unit.

It is when the battle is at its fiercest and survival is the most precarious, that today’s battle drill is the most critical. If it’s not trained to be reflexive, instinctive, and habitual through a significant investment of time and energy in training, then at the very moment it matters the most, when the momentum of the battle is at stake, the soldier may not trust the Commander in action, no matter how much he or she says they do. For example, many people love to declare the popular promise of God found in Jeremiah 29:11, “‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’” This promise encourages each of us that God is good and has good intent for our lives, but I want you to hear it in its context, Jeremiah 29:4-13:

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, “Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.” For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Do not let your prophets who are in your midst and your diviners deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams which they dream. For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them,” declares the Lord. For thus says the Lord, “When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Within this promise is the essential truth of training yourself to trust the Commander! The Commander has the strategic victory in mind, even if, especially when, it feels like a tactical defeat! This promise reminds us that God’s people would have to endure 70 years of captivity yet set their whole heart to thriving while doing so! God’s people wouldn’t return home for 70 years, so until then they were to raise their families so that their grandchildren would trust God and be ready to return and experience His promised blessing. Let me be clear about this promise so that we can be very clear about today’s battle drill, as if you were hearing this prayer from Jeremiah himself for you in that day: You are commanded to be faithful even unto death, even if you never get to experience the strategic victory that God has for His people – live in such a way that your children and grandchildren trust God habitually, reflexively, and instinctively!

This is the life of faith, just as Hebrews 11:13-16 said about the heroes of faith:

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

There is only way to please God – wholehearted trust in Him! Hebrews 11:6 states, “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”

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

Trusting the Commander requires faith, which, according to Hebrews 11:1, is, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” That is why our battle drill from Proverbs 3:5-6 states, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” It is God who brings all things together according to His will. The Apostle Paul teaches us this in Romans 8:26-28:

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Praying and living according to the will of God requires a wholehearted trust in His goodness and grace in your life. This level of trust must be trained into us throughout our lives, just as Hebrews 12:10b-14 teaches us of the Father’s purposes for His discipline:

[God] disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.

Every soldier has had discipline trained into their very DNA! The life of faith, the life of pleasing the One who enlisted you, is a holistic lifestyle. It is not a part-time national guardsman commitment; it is an active-duty commitment that encompasses every arena and aspect of your life. It is wholehearted! Jesus taught this in Matthew 22:37-38, in what is known as the Greatest Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment.” This is not a foreign concept to anyone who has served in the active-duty military. The life of a soldier is a lifestyle, not a job. A lifestyle that is fully submitted to training for and accomplishing the mission.

Action Step #4) Live on mission.

Like we learned from Jesus’ praise of the Centurion (Matthew 8:5-13), the key to being a good soldier is submission to authority and that requires humility. This is why Jesus calls us to learn from Him and to become like Him: “gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). That means we commit ourselves to the life of training “godliness” or becoming like Jesus (1 Timothy 4:7-8)! This is God’s will for your life and when we are wholeheartedly committed to this then God works in and through us for His good pleasure! Humility does not happen by accident, it requires you to trust God and focus on Him, to receive everything, including your faith, from God and for God, as Paul reminds us in Romans 12:3, “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

In conclusion, allow me to admonish you with and pray over you the magnificence of Jesus Christ and His will for your life as taught by Paul in Philippians 2:1-16:

Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.

I was an infantryman in the US Army and our motto is “Follow me!” Jesus asks you to trust Him and to follow Him! Jesus will never ask you to do anything that He Himself has not already done for you. Will you trust Him and train to live on mission today? Make this battle drill a reflexive, instinctive, and habitual part of your Christian life so that you can CM – Continue the Mission! When you trust the Commander, His word will accomplish that which He sent it forth to accomplish in and through you (Isaiah 55:11-13). Therefore, live on mission today and train the battle drill of the week for the glory of God.

You can listen to the message here:

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Battle Drill #4: Walk in the Way!

Proverbs 2:10-22 (NAS95)

Today, we are going to walk through the four action steps of a soldier’s training routine to learn the fourth battle drill – to walk in the way of a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

Action Step #1) Know the Field Manual.

The battle drill we are going to learn and apply this week is from Proverbs 2:20: “So you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous.”

The fourth battle drill is to walk in the way! You may have heard it stated by the Mandalorian, “This is the way,” but Jesus’ authoritatively says to you in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Most tellingly, Paul first called the following of Jesus, the earliest Christianity, as “the Way,” in Acts 24:14-16:

But this I admit to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets; having a hope in God, which these men cherish themselves, that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.

Having some fun with this dual meaning of “the way,” Darrell Bock described Saul’s conversion to being a Christ follower on the road to Damascus in the following way (Bock, Theology, 307; see Acts 9:17, 27): “Saul traveled on the way against the Way, yet he was stopped on the way to join the Way.”^[1]

To be a good soldier of Jesus Christ you must know the way of Jesus and walk in it! As I stated last week, WWJD – What Would Jesus Do – is a helpful reminder when making important life decisions, but it is incomplete. We first need to ask which path (or situation) Jesus would or would not walk down, or enter, in the first place. A close companion to crying out for discernment in the moment of need, is choosing to walk down the right path in the first place – this is the Way! Here are a few examples from everyday life:

The list can go on and be as accurate and relevant as you need it to be. We make choices every day that open or close pathways for either good or evil. Proverbs 2:10-22 demonstrates this truth in timely and relevant ways, to avoid those pathways that will seduce us into compromise:

For wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; discretion will guard you, understanding will watch over you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things; from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness; who delight in doing evil and rejoice in the perversity of evil; Whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways; to deliver you from the strange woman, from the adulteress who flatters with her words; that leaves the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; for her house sinks down to death and her tracks lead to the dead; none who go to her return again, nor do they reach the paths of life. So you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will live in the land and the blameless will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the land and the treacherous will be uprooted from it.

Today’s battle drill flows directly from last week’s “cry out for discernment,” based on the first half of Proverbs 2. Prioritize crying out to God as a habit in your life to help you make right choices so that you abide with Him in the pathway of God’s blessings, described as “the way of good men,” and “the paths of the righteous.” As contrasted in Proverbs 2 with “the ways of darkness,” “whose paths are crooked,” and, again, “her tracks lead to the dead; none who go to her return again, nor do they reach the paths of life.” [read verses 12-15 again]

I ended last week’s sermon with 1 John 2:5-6, “Whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.” John explained that the good fruit of a life of crying out for discernment is found by walking in the way of Jesus Christ. Today’s battle drill is learning how to walk in the way.

Action Step #2) Train together as one unit.

It is in the “easy” yoke of Jesus that we can all walk in the way of Jesus Christ without losing our individuality or unique pathways of life. The Greek word translated “easy” does not mean easy, like one plus one equals 2, that’s easy math. The Greek word chrēstos has a range of meaning from “good” and “kind,” to “useful” and “suitable.” Listen to William Barclay insightfully explain chrēstos to us:

The word easy is in Greek chrēstos, which can mean well-fitting. In Palestine, ox-yokes were made of wood; the ox was brought, and the measurements were taken. The yoke was then roughed out, and the ox was brought back to have the yoke tried on. The yoke was carefully adjusted, so that it would fit well, and not chafe the neck of the patient animal. The yoke was tailor-made to fit the ox. There is a legend that Jesus made the best ox-yokes in all Galilee, and that from all over the country people came to him to buy the best yokes that skill could make. In those days, as now, shops had their signs above the door; and it has been suggested that the sign above the door of the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth may well have been: “My yokes fit well.” It may well be that Jesus is here using a picture from the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth where he had worked throughout the silent years. Jesus says: “My yoke fits well.” What he means is: “The life I give you is not a burden to cause you pain; your task is made to measure to fit you.” Whatever God sends us is made to fit our needs and our abilities exactly.^[2]

When Christ invited His weary and burdened audience to an “easy” yoke, it was understood that Jesus was inviting people to a well-suited, custom-made yoke – a personal relationship that would lead to covenant-faithful living in their own life and situation. Your relationship with God is designed just for you. In fact, that is why Jesus’ “burden is light,” because it’s in direct contrast to the religious expectations of His day, which were not personalized at all, but were like “heavy burdens.” Just as Jesus rebuked the Pharisees in Matthew 23:4 because “they tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.”

Jesus calls you unto Himself, and through Him, to become the best version of you to the glory of God! In his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard explains how people learn to live as Jesus’ disciples, by learning how to walk in the way of Jesus’ whole lifestyle:

The secret of the easy yoke, then, is to learn from Christ how to live our total lives, how to invest all our time and our energies of mind and body as he did. We must learn how to follow his preparations, the disciplines for life in God’s rule that enabled him to receive his Father’s constant and effective support while doing his will. We have to discover how to enter into his disciplines from where we stand today—and no doubt, how to extend and amplify them to suit our needy cases. This attitude, this action is our necessary preparation for taking the yoke of Christ. The secret of the easy yoke is simple, actually. It is the intelligent, informed, yielding resolve to live as Jesus lived in all aspects of his life, not just in the moment of specific choice or action.[3]

If we are living in this way all the time, then our responses in the moment will be internalized and reflexive – entrained like battle drills – a habit of grace!

As we transition to action step #3, it is important to realize that the authentic life of Jesus was lived in community – Jesus did life with His disciples; therefore, learning how to walk in the way of Jesus must be learned in community. Training to walk in the way requires community because it’s only through the Spirit working in and through other people that any of us can become like Jesus.

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

Very interestingly, the Greek word δεῦτε that was used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint (LXX), from which Matthew took his Old Testament quotes, is a translation of the important Hebrew word הלך (hālakh). This is very important as Douglas Mandum explains its rich Old Testament usage: “It has a common metaphorical sense that pertains to one’s manner of living. To walk (hālak) in a certain lifestyle or custom is to habitually practice [italics added] it (e.g., 1 Kgs 16:19; Isa 33:15; Pss 1:1; 81:13).”^[4]

For example, Isaiah used hālakh twice in Isaiah 2:5, “Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” It is translated both, “Come” and “walk.” Now, listen to Jeremiah 6:16, the very passage that Jesus was quoting in Matthew 11:29 when He promised, “rest for your souls”: “Thus says the Lord, ‘Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’’” It is used twice again, both times as “walk in it” with the it being the way!

Jeremiah 6:16 concludes with a devastating, heart-breaking choice by God’s people, “But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” This word choice directly informs why Jesus used the “yoke” imagery – to experience rest for one’s soul, once again a quote from Jeremiah 6:16, a person must get in the yoke of Jesus and learn from Him how to walk in the way of covenant faithfulness – the good way, the ancient paths!

Leaving no room for misunderstanding, Jesus focused “the ancient paths” and “the good way” of God from Jeremiah 6:16 on Himself – we are to walk with Him – hālakh with Him – take His habitual lifestyle on ourselves, covenant with Him by taking on His easy yoke! In coming to Jesus, a person was graciously invited to walk in the ancient paths of covenant faithfulness and avoid the wrath of God that is upon all who do not walk in the ancient paths, as Jesus proclaimed over the apostate Jewish cities in Matthew 11:20-24, the context of His gracious invitation of the easy yoke:

Then [Jesus] began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. “Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. “And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. “Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.”

Jesus declared in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Jesus declared in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Repeatedly, Jesus invited people to Himself so that we could walk in the way because Jesus is the One who enlists us, and it is only in seeking to please Him that we can fulfill the mission because becoming like Him to the glory of the Father is His mission. When you learn to walk in the way you are becoming like Jesus, which is the best version of you to the glory of God!

Action Step #4) Live on mission.

This is the battle drill that I am inviting you to train yourself according to every day of the week, you are invited to trust the Holy Spirit, who will direct your steps as you learn how to live in Jesus’ easy yoke. The Spirit will direct your steps along the Way, the ancient paths of God – the life of the Spirit, the New Covenant of God! Paul explained this in Galatians 5:16-25:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

Entrust your life to God and take on Jesus’ easy yoke so that the Holy Spirit can direct your way into the fullness of life already prepared for you. Allow the Spirit to set your agenda and prioritize your resources by taking on Jesus’ easy yoke and learning from Him how to become like Him, as He described Himself to be, “gentle and humble in heart,” which means to be submissive to the Father’s will in every aspect of your life – thy will be done! This is the mission – to become like Him and entrust to others who can faithfully pass on to others that which you have become – a yokefellow of Jesus, a Spirit-filled born-again believer who walks in the Way!

I conclude with these words from a 20^th century martyr of the church, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who famously wrote in The Cost of Discipleship,

Only the man who follows the command of Jesus single-mindedly, and unresistingly lets his yoke rest upon him, finds his burdens easy, and under its gentle pressure receives the power to persevere in the right way. The command of Jesus is hard, unutterably hard, for those who try to resist it. But for those who willingly submit, the yoke is easy and the burden is light. Jesus asks nothing of us without giving us the strength to perform it. His commandment never seeks to destroy life, but to foster, strengthen and heal it.[5]

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Tomas Bokedal, “Way, the,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

[2] William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Third Ed., The New Daily Study Bible (Edinburgh, Scotland: Saint Andrew Press, 2001), 20.

[3] Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1988), 9-10.

[4] Joshua Hebert, “Travel,” ed. Douglas Mangum et al., Lexham Theological Wordbook, Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

[5] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York, NY: Touchstone, 1959), 37-38.