God’s blitz

II Cor 10: 1 – 11

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 16 Mar, 2008

TRANSNATIONALS, NATIONS, Institutions, Corporations, Partnerships and individuals: all are fallen away from God; all need redemption, all must be restored to God’s control.

Are you aware of the scope of redemption? Even many long—term Christians have too small a conception of what is included in God‘s vision for the world. If you don’t know what God intends, then you will have too small a conception of what is included in God’s vision for your own life.

Today we see that God does have a plan — an absolutely radical plan. Then, in this overview, we will look more closely at the cross and at the Holy Spirit and, to finish off, we will look at final things.

So today it is God’s radical plan.

In 2004, nearly four years ago, I preached a sermon like this one. I was thinking then about Iraq, and the many US soldiers and hostages killed there since Bush declared that the war was over. Well, the war is even more over now than it was then, and even more people have died — for what purpose?

You know, Hitler had a theory of Blitzkrieg, of lightning war. It was based on exactly the same theory of shock and awe that the Coalition of the Willing used in the attacks on Iraq.

 Hitler developed the theory, tested it out, and gave it an exciting name. He struck hard with modern weaponry. His aim was to limit casualties, but to shock the people into full capitulation. He said that they would be overawed by the force and speed of the attack and would give in.

Hitler tried shock and awe in Poland and Czechoslovakia, and it worked. It worked because neither country had strong defences. It worked because the governments were weak. It worked because the world abandoned these two countries. And it worked because many people in both countries saw the Germans as liberators.

When the Germans tried to blitz England, they struck reality. Blitzkrieg only stiffened resistance. The harder they struck England, the more the British turned against them.

If the Nazis had broken through, the English were ready to fight them on the beaches and in the streets.

Shock and awe is a great theory, if it works.

Someone once pushed me out of doing something I really wanted to do. I protested, and the person said, “I wasn’t holding a gun to your head!”

If someone does hold a gun to your head, it’s easy. You know exactly what the terms and conditions are, and you can decide what level of risk you will face. It’s the same with shock and awe. You can see the terms and conditions and you decide the risks you will take.

Our world is fallen and rebellious, and God will definitely regain control. But he doesn’t use shock and awe or Blitzkrieg. Not the way we think of them. Shock and awe are no solution.

Even on the Day of Judgment, he will not use shock and awe or Blitzkrieg or whatever other fancy name you give it. God will use absolute justice. God will be surgically precise. Nothing will be done en masse. You and I will each bear our own responsibility.

When Jesus arrived in Galilee proclaiming the Kingdom of God, he was so far away from the tactics of shock and awe that people just couldn’t believe him. When he announced that God’s kingdom age had begun and that God was beginning to regather the scattered from the ends of the earth, people scoffed. “Where is his army? What mighty deeds will he do? How will he drive out the Romans and give the land back to God’s people?” These were the questions they asked.

When they saw that he had no army, when they saw that his mighty deeds were deeds of compassion, not of vengeance; when they saw that he raised no rebellion against the Romans, they abandoned him.

Judas may have carried out the betrayal, but he acted on behalf of the nation which rejected their Messiah.

The people of Jesus’ day were just like us, They saw the world’s problems. They demanded action. “God!” they cried, “Where are you? Why don’t you wage war? Fight the way the world does, use with the weapons we use, only more powerful. Send the ultimate Blitzkrieg!” They had no place for Jesus, with his claims to be the Messiah, if he was not going to destroy their enemies.

It’s the same today. People didn’t believe Ghandi, who peacefully resisted evil. They did believe George W Bush, who takes the name of the Messiah and uses the tactics of the Assyrians.

Do you remember what Paul wrote to the Ephesians (1:8ff)?

...[God] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, ¹⁰ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment — to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

God plans to reunite everything in heaven and on earth under a single rulership. He plans to bring everything into unity under Jesus as the head of all of creation. But not by force.

In today’s passage we saw,

...we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

God’s plan includes the mind of every creature. He aims to bring every thought under Jesus’ control.

But you don’t do that by Blitzkrieg; you don’t achieve it through tactics of shock and awe.

You’ve glimpsed God’s plan to restore his universal rule through Jesus his appointed Messiah. Today we look at the method or strategy of God’s plan.

It’s breathtaking in its simplicity. God’s age–old plan has been well tried out. It works in all weathers. And it is almost undetectable while it works. It’s the stealth bomber of heaven.

We could have read some of Jesus’ Kingdom parables, but in Paul’s controversy with the Corinthians, we see Paul putting the same Kingdom strategy into place.

You see, whether it is a multi–national corporation or an individual, the aim and the process is the same.

The same God who, at the beginning, created us humans for fellowship with himself, is the God whose plan works — individual by individual — behind the scenes.

He works by bringing every thought into obedient captivity to Christ.

Are you like the people of Jesus’ day? Do you think that shock and awe is the way to go?

Think about it. If I were to determine to win two people to Christ and, within a year, disciple each of them to win two and disciple them, then, by the end five years, I have built a group of 63 people, and, at the end of 10 years, it’s 1055. Without any of us ever doing more than winning those two people, one person has built a good little church.

Multiply that by our 15 regulars, and we have a church of over 900 people in five years, or over 16 000 in ten years.

900 determined and disciplined people can dramatically impact a community. The core of Al Qaeda is smaller than that!

Now...

Imagine if each of us follows the same pattern throughout each of those five years, instead of giving up after winning two people.

Think of it in round figures. In 10 years, 15 people can win 34 ?840 people if we all pitch in.

That’s how God’s plan works: exponential growth. Of course we are human, we have different gifts, we are successful to varying degrees.

But the same Kingdom principle applies: a very few people can win a very large number in a very short time. And the more we win, the more people become winnable. If I change, the person next to me can’t stay the same.

Don’t forget that principle. It applies in just about every area of life: if I change, the person next to me can’t stay the same.

This fits exactly with the other Kingdom principle, that a very few people can have a very large influence.

The world uses force to make people comply. It creates the big crowd scenes. The world uses bombs, riots, firing squads. And people comply whilever the gun is pointed at their head. But a mere 120 people on the Day of Pentecost put Christianity on the map forever.

Back in the early ‘90s, the State Government was closing hospitals. Eversleigh at Petersham was in the cross–hairs.

Together, our church and the May Murray Neighbourhood Centre organised opposition.

The high–ups from the Department of Health came out to Petersham Town Hall. They just planned to tell us all what was going to happen, and then send us all home.

We surprised them. We had questions worked out. For about an hour, Greek grannies and Lebanese labourers and Baptist believers tossed question after pointed question at the panel. We got them on the run. They decided to close the discussion, and I managed to get the final question.

I came to the microphone. “In light of the discussion tonight, I move a motion of no confidence in the community group this Government has appointed. It is unrepresentative, it is unelected, and it isn’t committed to the community’s wishes.”

There was uproar! This was what the crowd wanted. Voices everywhere seconded the motion. It was put, and carried without dissent.

It stirred up a hornets’ nest. The Glebe Newspaper quoted me. A Liberal backbencher phoned me and tried to bully me into publicly retracting my objections.

In the end, we didn’t win. The Government was already committed to wiping out Eversleigh. But we learnt about changing the world. And it certainly put our church on the map!

Tony Campolo did even better with the help of 10 sociology students.

They did a field placement in Santo Domingo, and were horrified at the plight of the peasants. When the peasants mainly grew coffee and sugar for Gulf+Western, they were unable to provide food for themselves.

As Christians, they talked over what 11 people could do to change one of the world’s largest companies. Even then, Gulf+Western had an economy bigger than Belgium’s.

Campolo and the students bought 11 shares. This gave each of them 5 minutes to speak at the Gulf+Western Annual General Meeting.

For 55 minutes, they described what they had seen. They showed how Gulf+Western’s policies directly contributed to poverty, malnutrition, endemic disease and lack of education. And they called on Gulf+Western to repent.

They could have had an army picket the AGM, and no one would have listened. But they heard what 11 of their own shareholders said, and they acted.

Gulf+Western’s AGM directed the Board to look into what had been said. The Board talked to Campolo and the students, and not only decided to change their policies so as to treat their workers fairly. They also resolved to undo some of the damage they had done. And they took out a full page ad in several US newspapers outlining what they had done wrong, what they were going to do right, and apologising to the people of Santo Domingo. They even declared that the Company was repenting of what it had been doing.

A recent film suggests that, if most corporations were human beings, they would be diagnosed as psychopaths. Is it is because they have no conscience?

The mobs on the streets, protesting at the corporations’ misdeeds, have a conscience. But the only working conscience is the one within, and companies don’t think in terms of having a conscience.

What Campolo and his students achieved, what we tried to do here about hospital closures, both illustrate God’s principles at work. The biggest and most lasting changes are brought about when even one person brings God’s plans into the midst of a group and builds the relationships that God wants built.

It’s an incarnational principle. Jesus came into the world, not as an overwhelmingly powerful Word of God, accompanied by the armies of heaven, but as a man, building relationships for the sake of his heavenly father’s rule.

God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.

And that began the process of change.

The Kingdom of God is in our midst. The Kingdom of God is transforming society as a little piece of yeast transforms a barrel of flour.

Jesus was the one who first brought God’s Kingdom into our world. He was the Kingdom of God in our midst.

He says,

In the same way as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.

God’s Blitzkrieg is not about shock and awe. It is not about overwhelming and outgunning us. It is about the totally unexpected arrival of the promised Messiah. It is about a process of transformation through changing individuals. It is about using those changed individuals all the way up the chain until everything is fixed.

As Paul said

^{2COR 10:1} By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you — I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” when away! ² I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. ³ For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴ The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. ⁵ We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

We do not wage war as the world does. We do not use the weapons of the world, because our master is meek and gentle. He brings every thought into obedience to himself though the power of sacrificial love.

The founder of the Quakers, George Fox, used to call on people to “...sit down under Christ your teacher, and learn from him.”

Jesus wants a relationship with us. He wants to be heard and to be able to hear us.

Turn to him — you’ll find life!

Here’s my challenge this morning. If you believe in your inner being that Jesus is the Lord and died for you, but if you haven’t yet declared that faith in baptism and other ways, you will always be like a defacto leading a conference on marriage. You will not be fully part of God’s plan of transforming everything, starting with one person.

I want to start baptising again. It is time. I call on you to declare your readiness to follow Jesus in this way, and we will all, by God’s grace., work together to transform Marrickville.

Let’s do it!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2007. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)