The Secret Weapon

Informal sermon preached a Solihull 6th Scout Group Camp at Broadwater Scout Campsite, Meriden, Warwickshire on Sunday 14th September, 1.30pm.

Camp theme of “Army”.

Reading: Ephesians 6: 10-17


Very often in Christianity we are taking about love and peace and joy. So it might seem surprising that Christianity has anything to say about army camps, weapons, battles and wars. But in fact Christianity has quite a lot to say about weapons and wars, and that’s because one way of thinking about the spiritual life is thinking of it as a war.
Certainly the spiritual life can be like a war. On the one side we have God and Christ and all the angles and saints and all the hosts of heaven, and even us too, to the extent that we are managing to live in our saintly selves, following God and rejecting evil. On the other side we have the Devil and his demons and all the powers of hell, and perhaps even us too if we are rejecting God and his ways.
And what is the war between these two armies about? Well it is a war that is fought at every level. First of all it is about you and me. Are we choosing God or are we choosing the Devil? Are we choosing heaven or hell? Are we trying to become what God created us to be, or are we rejecting God and going our own way? And then it is about our families. Are they following God, or going away from God? And it is about our communities, our nation and our world. At every level this great war rages, and we need to do our part to be a good soldier of God.
Now let’s hear our reading: Ephesians 6: 10-17
So did you manage to follow that? Did you hear St Paul talking about the struggle against the spiritual forces of evil? Paul tells us to take up the whole armour of God, in order to stand firm in this great battle. He tells us to use the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith which protects us from all the arrows of the enemy. Paul tells us to take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, the word of God. And with all these weapons and all this protection we can fight well in the army of God.
But as Christians we have another weapon, a secret weapon, more powerful and more extraordinary that all the rest. This is the cross of Christ. Today, 14th September is a special day, Holy Cross Day, when we think about the cross of Christ and how it helps us in the great battle against the Devil.
When we fight in this battle, when we try to do good, when we try to love other people, when we try to walk in God’s ways and follow in his paths, we find very often that things go wrong. Very often things do not turn out as we had hoped. We find that we fail to do good. We find that we are let down by faults in us and by faults in other people. We encounter sufferings. We suffer disappointments and we can easily get discouraged. And this is exactly what happened to Jesus. Jesus spent his whole life doing good and preaching good and helping other people, and yet many people disliked him and in the end they arrested him and killed him on the cross. And at that point it looked like his life had been a complete failure. His friends had run away. He had been killed in a most horrible way. It looked like the war had been lost. It looked like the complete triumph of evil.
But on the third day God raised him from the dead. God is the source of life. Jesus is God and has life within himself. Death cannot hold Jesus. Even the very worst things that can happen, even disasters, even death, cannot keep Jesus down. He comes back with new life, new wisdom to share, new hope and with a great healing of all our broken relationships. And through the cross of Jesus we too can share in the destiny of Jesus. If we walk in the ways of Jesus we know that whatever goes wrong, what ever disasters befall, whatever deaths we die, we will continue to have life in Christ. Love is from God, and when we live in love, we live in God and death cannot hold on to us. So we can fight in the battle against evil with enormous confidence. We do not need to fear, because our secret weapon means that whatever goes wrong, whatever disasters befall, we will be alright in the end. If we follow in the way of Christ then, by his cross, we cannot lose the battle. The suffering and death of the cross make us invincible!
So let’s take courage! Let’s play our part in the great spiritual battle. Let’s struggle always for good, for the love of others. Let’s walk in the ways of God and reject evil. And when things go wrong let’s trust in the cross of Jesus, the secret weapon that wins the victory.