The Christian Battle

(Philippians 1:29-30)

The Christian walk is one of continual struggles. We are at war in the spiritual realm and are fighting in the physical realm at the same time. This is the Christian battle and it is our lot in Christ as we walk with him.

Today’s scripture is a recognition of the battle that we undertake as Christians.

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict which you saw and now hear to be mine. (Philippians 1:29-30)

The spiritual battle

The first part of the Christian battle we must recognise is that it is t just or always a physical battle. For the most part we are part of an army in Christ that is arrayed against the forces of evil in the spiritual realms.

This is the trickiest part of the battle because we are fighting against an unseen foe; the devil and his demons.

It is important to remember also as a first principle in the Christian battle that these spiritual, satanic forces are the real enemies. We will come up against opposition from people as we walk with Christ, but in most cases the opposition coming from them and through them is at the prompting of the devil.

The devil stirs up the unbelievers, working on their human passions of anger, hate and the like, to oppose Christians as they try to walk right. These demonic forces often use those closest to us to attack us in order to try and tear us down, just as Satan tried to tear Jesus down through Simon Peter, who was one of, if not His closest disciple.

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.” (Matthew 16:21-23)

As Peter tried to rebuke The Lord, Jesus recognised the source of Peter’s rebuke was not from Peter, but from the devil. And Jesus put him in his place by rebuking the devil, not Peter, for trying to tear him down by using Peter in this way.

And we must recognise in the Christian battle that we too may be attacked by those closest to us, so we must be on guard always as the attacks will hit us, especially when we are feeling low or down.

The fleshly battle

As if it were not hard enough fighting the spiritual battle against the devil and his powers, we also have a fleshly battle to contend with.

We are constantly fighting this Christian battle on several fronts, and the fleshly battle is often the hardest.

The battle in the flesh is a struggle because we are fighting against our own human nature. We are fighting against who and what we are as people, and what we have become through living in this world under the power of sin before we came to Christ.

This is an extremely challenging fight because we fight to crush and overcome the passions lusts and desires of the flesh so that we can have the victory over the flesh and live our lives in and for Jesus Christ.

God and the Lord Jesus Christ recognised that this would be the most difficult part of the Christian battle and it was for this very reason that Jesus came and died. He died so that He could establish the way by which we could wage war against our own flesh and be victorious, not that it is we who fight, but He fights by the power of the Holy Spirit within us.

It is necessary that we do overcome the flesh, because it is sin that lives in the flesh of mankind. The passions lusts and desires in man are what lead mankind to sin and sinfulness.

James showed it like this:

What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. (James 4:1-2)

An interesting point in this verse is the way the translators have chosen to translate one of these words. In the first verse, the word “among” is better translated as “in.”

So the first verse would be more accurately rendered as, ”What causes wars, and what causes fightings in you…

It is the fightings and wars within or “in” each of us that is the cause of sin. As James shows here, people have the human passion of covetousness where they desperately and eagerly want what someone else has. Rather than seeking whatever it is for themselves, they go out and sinfully take it from others or even kill for it.

This is an example of the Christian battle in the flesh. It is our human passions, lusts and desires that wage war against leading us to sin.

Think for a moment of all of the crimes of passion in the daily news, where people argue, fight, maim or kill one another. They become envious and jealous and they attack in anger and violence and by so doing they succumb to their sinful passions and commit sin.

This is the Christian battle in the flesh, and we must overcome it if we are to be perfected as is required of us to live with God. Matthew 5:48 says that “You must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”

Overcoming in the Christian battle

We are fortunate, as mentioned earlier, the Jesus came and died to give us the chance to be perfect as God is perfect. Jesus established a way by which we could wage the Christian battle…and win.

We do not battle and win the war by what we do, but by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. But without the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we would not have the slightest hope of salvation and winning the Christian battle.

In the death and resurrection of Jesus, we were given many gifts and blessings. Amongst those were three freedoms and the free gift of righteousness by faith.

This is how it works.

When Jesus died, He died as the perfect sacrifice for sin. He died to take away the sins of the world so that we could have our sins removed and stand before the throne of the Father without sin.

This is important because no person is able to stand in the presence of the Father when they are full of sin. God gave up on man, as we are told three times in Romans chapter 1, because man was a sinner. It is sin that stands between man and God, and it is sin that must be removed before God is willing to help us to overcome sin.

Now that sounds like a bit of a Catch-22, but it isn’t. God established a means by which sin could be removed by faith in Jesus Christ.

When it says the Jesus takes away the sins of the world, He does not take away EVERYONES sin. Every person on this planet is still a sinner UNTIL they come to Christ and are baptised into His death.

When we are baptised into the death of Christ, we must believe that we have died with Him and have been raised with Him also as He was resurrected.

This is the foundation of our faith in Jesus Christ. We go into baptism and believe we have died and been resurrected by taking on and believing with faith that the death of Jesus is our death. When we believe this, God accepts our faith and gives us the free gift of righteousness by faith. And if we are righteous in His eyes, the we can stand before Him in His presence where He is willing to help us overcome the flesh.

This is the first freedom that we receive in Jesus Christ: freedom from sin.

And it is instantaneous when we believe. There is no waiting around, we simply believe and receive His free gift of righteousness as He sets us free from sin.

The second freedom we receive in the death of Christ, also by faith, is freedom from the old covenant laws.

It is essential that we are set free from the law, because it is the law that defines sin and condemns mankind as sinners.

Christ died to set us free from sin, but to KEEP us free from sin He had to remove the law as well. Otherwise, the next time we broke the law we would become sinners once again and be unable to,stand in the presence of God for Him to help us overcome.

The laws of Moses apply to people only while they are alive in this world, as Paul showed in Romans 7:1. So when we die, by faith in our baptism into the death of Christ, and when we take His death upon ourselves as if it were our own death, by faith, and God looks at us as having died, then He pronounces us dead and so the law is removed.

That is basically how freedom from law works.

So now that we are discharged from the law (Romans 7:6), if we do the wrong things avian, they are not held against us as sin. This is where God’s grace comes in because in His love and kindness He overlooks our mistakes, knowing that we are works in progress, and helps us in the ongoing fight against the flesh.

So freedom from law is the second freedom. Like freedom from sin, it is instantaneous when we are baptised and believe in our baptism that we have died and been raised with Christ as new creations.

The third freedom is freedom from the passions of the flesh that lead people to sinfulness and sin, as described so eloquently in the example from James chapter 4, verses 1-2 above.

This is where the work of the Holy Spirit comes into play.

God gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him for the spirit and have hands laid on them to receive the Holy Spirit. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to help us overcome the passions of the flesh.

The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to transform us into the perfect image of Jesus Christ. We receive the gifts of the spirit, especially speaking in tongues, which we use to fight the passions of the flesh as and when they rise up in our bodies and minds to try to overpower us. As we pray and speak in tongues, the Holy Spirit takes control of the passions and crushes them back down so we do not succumb to the flesh, and so we gain the victory. And again, it is the Lord through the spirit that gives us the victory, it is not our doing.

This is the third freedom: freedom from the passions of the flesh.

Unlike the other two freedoms, it is not instantaneous. This is the Christian battle that will take a lifetime to win, and may not even be completed in our lifetimes. It is a daily, ongoing grind to gain control of our heart and mind to obey Christ. But it is a battle that must be fought and won if we are to stand in the presence of God and live in the eternal kingdom of God.

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