Our scripture reading tonight is in 1 Corinthians 16. The text that we especially consider is verses 13 and 14 of 1 Corinthians 16. Let's read the whole chapter. Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him and store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And when I come, whomsoever you shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality or generosity unto Jerusalem. And if it be meet or fitting that I go also, they shall go with me. Now I will come unto you when I shall pass through Macedonia, for I do pass through Macedonia. And it may be that I will abide, yea, in winter with you, that ye may bring me on my journey whithersoever I go. For I will not see you now, by the way, but I trust to tarry a while with you, if the Lord permit. But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost, for a great door and effectual is open unto me, and there are many adversaries. Now if Timotheus come, see that he may be with you without fear, for he worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do. Let no man therefore despise him, but conduct him forth in peace, that he may come unto me, for I look for him with the brethren. As touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren, but his will was not at all to come at this time. but he will come when he shall have convenient time. Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong, let all your things be done with charity. I beseech you, brethren, you know the house of Stephanus, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints. that ye submit yourselves unto such and to every one that helpeth with us and laboureth. I am glad of the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achiacus, for that which was lacking on your part they have supplied, for they have refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore, acknowledge ye them that are such. The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord with the church that is in their house. All the brethren greet you, greet ye one another with an holy kiss, the salutation of me, Paul, with mine own hand. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all, in Christ Jesus. Amen. We read that far in God's holy and inspired word. The text is verses 13 and 14. I'll read those verses and then we'll turn to Genesis which has a similar idea. Genesis chapter 2. But 1 Corinthians 16 verses 13 and 14. Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong, and let all your things be done with charity or love. Then we'll turn to Genesis 2. We've read this passage a couple of times already but it includes a concept or idea that we are considering tonight regarding biblical manhood and the calling or commandment to guard or keep. Notice Genesis 2 verse 15. After God had created man out of the ground and planted the garden, this is what we read in verse 15, and the Lord God took the man, it's Adam, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it, that's the idea of working, to work it, and to keep it, to keep it. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, to begin this evening, I review with you some of the lessons that we have been seeing, particularly in a series of sermons on biblical manhood. In the introductory sermon, you remember, on biblical manhood, we saw the calling of men to take responsibility, to take responsibility of their own sin, as well as of the sins of those that they are leading. Take responsibility. That's what a man does. After that, after the introductory sermon, we saw the calling of men to be workers. They were created to work. We saw that in Genesis 2, that chapter that we just read from. To work on this earth as cultivators of this earth, not only, but with a priority of cultivating the hearts of The people that God has given them to lead. And then last Sunday we saw that a man has the calling to be a spiritual leader. They're given God's Word, as Adam was given God's Word, even before Eve was created, and they're to take that Word of God and to lead their wives, their children, and the church. And not only did we see, are the women not supposed to usurp that authority and leadership, but the men are to make sure that they are taking up that work of leading. Today, to help you remember those lessons, as well as to give you illustrations, I point you to three illustrations that we have already come across, but illustrations that help you remember these lessons, men, we're prone to forget. First of all, a man is like a farmer, a farmer. That especially emphasizes the work that a man is supposed to do. He cultivates the earth and cultivates the hearts of his wife, children, and church. The second illustration is of a shepherd. That goes along with last week's sermon. A shepherd leads his sheep, as Christ leads His sheep. A man is to be a spiritual leader. of the sheep, his wife, his children and church. And the third illustration goes with this evening's sermon. Not only is a man a farmer or cultivator, not only is a man a shepherd who leads, but a man is a soldier. He fights. He guards. He protects those under his charge. If you're a true man of God, then you're a man who is not afraid to fight the good fight of faith. If you were to ask someone in the world what a real man is, one of the first words out of their mouth would be, well, a man is strong. And that would be true. There's truth in that. Interestingly, there are three Hebrew words for man. We've seen a couple of them already, though I may not have given you the exact Hebrew word, but the first is Adam. Adam refers to a man created out of the ground. Adamah is the ground, and Adam is the man who works with that ground. The second word we've seen is the word Ish, which is which goes along with the word or name for a woman, isha. So ish is the word, a Hebrew word for man, where he is supposed to lead the woman, isha. A third word for man that we see especially tonight is the word gibor, gibor. Adam works the ground, ish, leads the woman, and gibor. The third Hebrew word, which means mighty man. Think of the mighty men of David. It means men that are strong, they're fighters, they're warriors and protectors. Those who think that a man is strong are correct. However, it does not mean that a man is ripped. It does not mean that a man has big muscles, is athletic. has the physique of someone like Samson. In fact, scripture often speaks of men like David and Jacob, and you remember the descriptions of these men. Though they are strong, they're usually more slender and not as strong as their counterparts, like Goliath, opposite of David, and Esau, opposite of Jacob. But the strong men of God's Word are the men of God who are spiritually strong, even if they're not physically strong, against the people that they fight. The world and the media and YouTube And all kinds of things on television today emphasize the physical strength of men far too much. And ironically, the really strong men physically in this world who are concentrating on their muscles and their biceps and their abs and so on are often so full of themselves that they are the most unmanly men when you look at what the Bible talks about regarding men. They're so full of themselves, they really are like women looking in the mirror. The scripture, contrary to the world's idea of manhood, describes men as strong on the inside. As we see today, it's a strength that does not turn inward to admire one's body. It's a strength that is not a strength that uses his abilities to take advantage of other people. It's not a strength that he's used selfishly to the detriment of those that are under their charge. But it's a strength that is used for the protection the physical and the spiritual protection of those that God has given them to care for, to keep them, as the Word of God says, to serve them selflessly, to give of themselves even, so that enemies must face the strong man first before They face his wife or his children or his church. That's a true man. With God-given strength, he keeps. I referred to Genesis 2.15 at the beginning. God created man to be a worker, the one who dresses the garden. And verse 15 says to keep it, to keep it. That's very interesting, very significant because you remember the context of Genesis 2. This is before the fall. And before the fall, children, remember, there are no enemies. There's no one that's going to try to infiltrate the Garden of Eden and attack it or sow tares among the beautiful plants of the garden. Not yet. But God knew in His sovereignty and in His wisdom, according to His plan, He knew what was going to take place soon after He had created man. He knew the fall was coming. He knew the serpent. Remember the snake children? He knew that serpent was going to slither into the Garden of Eden to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that serpent was going to come and tempt Eve so that there might be the fall of mankind and so he creates man and he says, you're going to keep it. You're going to guard this garden and guard those under your care within it. That's how he created man. That's what a man is supposed to be. And tonight we turn to 1 Corinthians 16, 13 and 14 especially where God explicitly commands this sort of manliness. Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong and let all things be done with charity. First, we consider the soldier's imperatives. Second, we consider the spiritual manner in which we are to be guarding. And finally, we see the comfort of how the captain is our conqueror, and it's his fight, the captain's fight. Soldier's imperatives, the spiritual manner, and then the captain's fight. Men and people of God, in verses 13 and 14 of 1 Corinthians 16, You should draw a picture in your mind to start this evening. Imagine that you are soldiers and you're all standing in formation. You're all standing in a straight line right now. And especially the men, all the men are in the front. They're all in the front lined up and everyone behind them. Think about that. You're in formation and you are not at ease. You are standing straight, looking ahead, chin is up, shoulders are square, and you are not moving. You know why? Because the captain is walking down the line and he's examining each of you from your head to your toe to make sure that you are ready for battle. Imagine that. And as he walks, he turns and he looks at you. He walks, he turns and he looks at you. Are you ready? And you men especially at the front, are you able soldiers to guard? And then having examined all of you, he turns and the orders of our text tonight, are short clip orders meant to sound like the captain of the army making commands. They're all lined up and he walks and he turns and he says, watch ye. And he marches and he says, stand fast in the faith. He says, quit ye like men. He marches and he says, Be strong. And finally, let everything that you do be done with love. Those are your marching orders, men, as leaders of the church militant. And men, you're called to be men. Real men. That's the first thing we consider tonight in these five imperatives of verse 13 and 14. There are five imperatives, but notice in the five imperatives that you heard, the central one, the middle one, gives you the central idea. Quit ye like men. The King James Version translates it. That does not mean quit being men, obviously not. But the idea is more like this. Quit being something other than men. Stop and be men. That's the point. In the original, it's just one word and it's literally translated be men. The word for man here in the Greek, Different from the Hebrew that we mentioned earlier is the word Andreas, which is where we get the word or the name Andrew. Andrew means man or strong man. You're all supposed to be Andrews, men. We need Andrews. Be Andrews. Be men. That's the point of this text. Although the epistle of 1 Corinthians is written to the whole church, and the whole church is made up of both male and female, it's important to know that most of the books of the Bible, as well as the Ten Commandments, you remember, earlier in this series, are addressed to the heads of the households, to the men. That doesn't mean that no one else has to obey the epistles and the law of God, but it means that the men hear the word of God and they're supposed to lead the women. addressing the heads, the leaders, the ones at the head, the front of the army, as we saw tonight already, he says, be men. Now think about it. The fact that Christ makes such a calling to you means or implies this, men, that there are many males who aren't men. If He has to say, be men, it means that many aren't men yet. So you have to become men. There are many who call themselves men, but we as males are not automatically men just because we have the body parts of a male. We need to put effort. By the power of the Holy Spirit and God's grace in us, there is a conscious, a conscious Decision by the grace of God to seek to be men, to show ourselves men. A sad fact of the matter is, as I implied in the introduction already, is that too many males are childish. And it seems to be becoming worse and worse. There are physically grown men who are acting like boys. who mooch off their parents, play games all the time, and don't grow up spiritually. And even that spirituality, lack of spirituality, then also affects them mentally and emotionally. There needs to be a maturing. That's the point of be men. Stop being children, but be men. Of course, you know, you know the Word of God that there is a good sense of being a child. Jesus speaks of how all of us need to humble ourselves as little children, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. That's also a calling, but that doesn't mean be like children in every way. 1 Corinthians 14, earlier in this book, 1 Corinthians 14, 20 says, brethren, be not children in your understanding. Yes, be children in malice. Malice being wicked intentions and plans. Be children in wicked planning. Children aren't very good at planning wicked things. But don't be children in understanding. In understanding, be men. Grow up in your spiritual minds, that is. Mature as men. The idea is in the present tense, be men or be behaving as men, which also implies then that all of you have room to grow in this. I have room to grow in this. The oldest of men here, the most mature, have room to grow in this. The one who thinks he's all grown up and has no more room to grow as men is probably the one who needs to grow the most. All of us have maturity that needs to take place till the day we die. What does this being men entail? The imperative listed first in our text is wachi, wachi. Central idea is be men, first wachi. When you hear the word watch, Those of you who were in my essentials class recently, it should come to your mind that you are to be watching for the signs of the times. The end times are upon us. Remember, the thousand year period that we're living in is almost to its end. And Jesus has given us in Matthew chapter 24 and in other passages of the Bible, precursory signs that will take place before Jesus returns. Things like pestilences in the world and the creation, things like apostasy in the church, things like the unifying of the nations and even the church world. You're supposed to be watching. You're not supposed to have your head in the sand. You're supposed to be thinking about what's happening in this world and in the church world and then comparing it with the Bible so that you know the approach of your coming Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's what men do. They're watching for the signs of the times and they're not watching to complain. They're not watching to be worried, but they're watching and praying as Jesus told them to. So you're watching for the signs of the times as the sons of Issachar. The sons of Issachar are described in 1 Chronicles 12-32. They had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do. Be sons of Issachar, men. Understanding the times so that you know what the church ought to do. Real men are not oblivious. to what is going on, caught up in their games and seeking to build up some earthly kingdom. But they're looking for Jesus to return by looking for the signs, he says, will come to pass. A part of this watching is not just looking for the signs to take place or be fulfilled, but the watching is the idea of watching for dangers so that you can be guards. Think of the watchmen on the walls of The city of Jerusalem. You're going about the walls of Jerusalem to look out to see if there are any enemies approaching. Are there temptations that are coming that are going to tempt me and my family? Are there going to be false doctrines that are being taught that are going to tempt me and my church? Men are watchmen. And when they see the approaching enemy, they don't say, eh, it's not a big deal. We'll just go ahead and keep playing. But they blow the trumpet and they warn God's people. Seriously, they warn their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Watch out! We have to guard against this. Fight with me. Watch, Jesus says. Be a keeper on the watch. Men, we like to play video games. We like to be on our screens. There is something that's a temptation for all of us as human beings, male and female, to look at our screens, but there's something very addictive to men in particular. to play games on their screens. And it's not wrong of themselves, of itself, to play a game on the screen, but sometimes we're so caught up in trying to find the battles on the screens, whether it be Halo or Fortnite or some sports game where you're battling each other or building some empire, that we're so distracted, men, from the real war Rather than the war of virtual reality, we should be conscious of the real battle that is going on. We are at battle. There is a war out there. And when we're so distracted by fake wars and fake battles, then we're not watching. We're not watching in the real battle. Then we're sleeping when we're supposed to be fighting the real battle. Then we're distracted. As you're guarding, you are to watch out for apostasy, for sin, for Satan being loosed as we saw this morning. Don't be like Cain. Remember Cain? He was physically strong in contrast to Abel. Cain used his strength to kill his brother, not to defend his brother. And then when God came to him, says, where's your brother? What did he say? Cain says, am I my brother's keeper? The answer of God's word tonight is yes. You are keepers, men. You are supposed to be your brother's keeper. You're supposed to be your sister's keeper. You're supposed to be a keeper of your homes and your church. Use your strength to be keepers. Stand. Stand fast in the faith. That's the third. Be men by watching. Be men by standing fast. Standing fast has the idea of courage and conviction. Courage and conviction. Think of how it's telling us to be courageous. The enemy is coming, soldiers, men. They're attacking. A courageous man stands. A man who's afraid runs away from the battle. So the point of standing fast means he is willing to fight the battle, the enemies that are attacking. We fight. Not a qualification here. It says stand, men. Also because you are not running to the fight either. There are some men that are very eager to fight. They love a debate. They love to strike against another person, to win the battle, the argument, and to prove themselves correct. They love to find a good fight and win it, to prove themselves strong, mentally and spiritually even. That's not what the Bible calls us to do. In fact, 1 Timothy 3, the qualifications of good office bearers warns about a man who's a striker. A man who loves to fight. And there are too many men like that in our churches. Men have been deposed recently in our denomination for being strikers, because they love to fight. They're looking for a fight. And looking for a fight, you're going to start fighting against the people you're supposed to defend, and hurt them instead of defending them. So we're not running to the fight, but neither are we running away from the fight. We're standing and watching for the enemies and then we're willing. We don't like it, but we're willing as men in the church to fight for God's people and for the truth of God's word. Have courage, men, when you see the giants, the Goliaths that are coming, the Goliath sins that are very powerful. Fight with the word of God. Fight with discipline in the home and in the church. It's not pleasant, but you're called to it. When you see the massive complications in difficult marriages and abuse issues, don't run away from it. Know what's going on. Watch and stand in the fight. When you see the power of darkness tempting your church, doctrines of justification by faith alone are being compromised, don't say, we're immune to that. It's not going to happen. No, you stand firm and you fight. We're not immune to dangers and attacks by Satan on the very front line of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Courage, men. Courage involves being willing to fight even when you know that everyone else around you is going to think ill of you. You know the peer pressure, young men. Everyone else is doing it. You should do it too. And to fight means you're going to say no and you're going to try to lead others away from that sin that most people are going to hate you for. You see a false doctrine attacking a church, a denomination. You're willing to stand firm? Well, it's going to happen. Lots of people in the church are going to say, you're just a troublemaker. Are you willing to fight with courage, without the fear of men in particular? Stand. Stand fast in the faith. And the standing includes conviction, conviction. standing upon the Word of God. The opposite is this, Ephesians 4, 14, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine, carried with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but rather speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head even Christ. As you fight the battle of faith, you're going to be tempted to waver. Human wisdom, human psychology may sound pretty good. Convincing people in Christianity are going to say to you, just soften your position on marriage just a little bit. Don't be so picky about forgiveness or justification being only because of Christ and through faith alone. You're getting a little bit too precise with these words. Just let it go. Conviction then. Conviction means you're going to stand. Yes, in love. We'll talk about that in a moment. Love is your manner. But without wavering, by all the cunning craftiness of men that would have you compromise just a little bit and waver to and fro with the world and with the very unstable opinions of Christian men in the church world. Be men, our text says, by watching, guarding, by standing, courage and conviction, and third or fourth, by being strong. Now that seems repetitive. Sounds like Paul is repeating the idea of being men when he says be strong. But the idea here is that you need to become strong. So when you think about being strong or becoming strong, I draw for you the picture of the training ground or the gym. How are you going to perform well on the sports field if you don't go to practice and train? How is a soldier going to do well in the battle if he doesn't pick up a sword and practice his sword fighting with his fellow soldiers. How are you going to fight the enemy if your muscles are not limber? Ready to go. You need to be fit. You need to be lean. You need to be muscular. You need to have endurance. You need to have power. You need to practice. And no, man, you're hearing me right. I'm not talking about going to the literal gym. I'm not talking about working out hard your physical muscles, but I'm talking about your faith. I'm talking about your soul. Four. 1 Timothy 4.8. Bodily exercise profiteth little. Does it profit a little? Yes, it does. Keep exercising. But it profits little. It's of little benefit. And the text goes on, but godliness, that is godly exercise, is profitable unto all things. What's more profitable? Working out at the gym or working out in your prayer room? You know the answer. What's more profitable? Lifting 50 pound weights? Or lifting again and again the hearts of your fellow believers in prayer? What's more profitable? Practicing how to kick a soccer ball? Or practicing how to use the Word of God, which is a sword of the Spirit, so that you know how to wield it properly? Beloved, you know the answer to that. It is much more profitable to be exercising yourself in the reading of God's Word, in prayer, in meditation upon these things. Your workout room, your gym, ought to be your closet. If you're men, then you are becoming strong. You are working out the spiritual muscle that God has given you that is the muscle of your faith. Finally, with love, be men guarding, standing in the fight, becoming strong and let all this be done with charity or love. The idea of manliness in this world is A football player sort of manliness sometimes. It's a bull in the china shop sort of manliness where you're tough with grit, with strength, but without compassion, without care. You're just going to bash your way through and show everyone who's boss. That's not manliness. This text shows us very clearly a true man knows how to love. On the opposite extreme, it's not this football player, brash and rough sort of manliness, but it's neither a manliness of a play actor, gentlemanly and suave and nice on the outside with a swagger and good perfume with romantic antics, all, of course, to get people to like him, to get some. to conquer people for His pleasure. That's not manly. Love. The true self-sacrificial love of Jesus. It's a love that is not a ooshy-gooshy feeling, but it's a selfless It is a sacrificing of oneself for the benefit, especially the spiritual benefit of others. That's true love. True love is not being nice. There's too much niceness in this world. True love is a mental toughness that is willing to make a difficult choice for the good of your family, even if everyone disagrees with you on it. Did it feel good when Jesus went to the cross? Did he have a nice feeling inside of him when he was sacrificing himself so that his hands and his feet were nailed to the cross? Did it feel good? Was that what love was for him when he gave himself for the wrath of God to be poured to his soul to sacrifice himself for us? Does that feel good? Love doesn't feel good all the time. Often, the test of love, true love. No man, you don't know what love is, you who are dating. Not yet until it gets really difficult. The test of love. It's when you're willing to sacrifice everything and it hurts because it's good for your brother, for your sister, for your wife, for your family, for your church, in service of Jesus, even when you receive nothing in return. That's the love of Jesus. Let everything now, all your fighting, be done with love. Without which love, even if you're the greatest spiritual leader, the greatest worker on the job, outwardly you do everything well with battling, fighting, telling people what to do. If you don't have love, you know what 1 Corinthians 13 says? You remember how it begins? You don't have this love? For God and for your brother, sisters, selflessly, then you're nothing. You're just a loud noise, a tinkling cymbal, a bunch of male muscle. That's it. And getting to the spiritual manner now, that's what love is describing. There are many who think they know how to fight. They know how to piece together their arguments, convince others that they're right. They think they know how to use the Word of God and apply it really well. So they pick up the Word of God like a sword and they're ready to go at it without love, true selfless love. The sharpest sword that you will wield is the Word of God, not any other physical sword, which makes this Word of God dangerous. It is possible for you to take this Word of God and spiritually wound and hurt the people you're supposed to protect. It is possible. There are those abusers who take the Word of God and use it to attack their The people they're supposed to love with the Word of God. You're supposed to take this Word of God, train with it, study it, read good books about how to use it, so that when you pick it up and you fight with it, you are wielding it in a proper manner. Not to bash and dash, but for the piercing of the soul. even for the good of the enemy that you fight. And the skill, the skill of swordsmanship of every swordsman is love, the love of Jesus Christ. You can't just wield truth. You must wield the truth in love. Spiritual manner is love. Spiritual manner includes knowing the real enemy. Knowing the real enemy. It's in connection with love. We wrestle, Ephesians 6, 12, not against flesh and blood. You know that. It's not first of all human beings that you're fighting. That's why when you take the word of God and you try to conquer people, you're aiming at the wrong enemy. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. When we're arguing with our wife about the silliest, the smallest things, we're attacking the wrong enemy. When we attack our children verbally, because they've done something wrong, but we lose it against them. We're attacking the wrong enemy. When we hold grudges in the church and we gossip about people in the church, we're attacking the wrong enemy. Who's the enemy? It's Satan. And it's your own sinful nature. If you want to be men, You want to be men and discipline yourselves to know the right enemy. And that enemy is, first of all, right here. Right here. That old man. If you don't watch and guard yourself against this old man and its attacks against your own heart, and it's different facets of selfishness, then you can't fight any other enemy. Proverbs 4.23, we just studied this in Bible study, keep thine own heart with all diligence or guard thine own heart for out of it are the issues of life. Children, if a soldier went out to battle without any armor on, If he wasn't guarding his own heart with a breastplate, how long is he going to stand? Not very long. Guard your own heart so that you can guard the hearts of those under your care. Fight here first. Your personal sin, your besetting sin, by the grace of God, put on the whole armor of God. and fight there first. That doesn't mean to the exclusion of the other battles but fight there first and then fight in this manner not only knowing the enemy especially the sinful nature but fight against false doctrine. That's often minimized in our day and age where the church is very concerned mainly about moral issues. mainly about temptations to sin against God's law of the 7th commandment and the 6th commandment. Of course we're supposed to defend and fight against that too. My beloved, the church world is not, they're not concerned as we should be about fighting false doctrine. The text itself says stand fast in the, Faith, and the faith there with that article, the, before it, refers to what you confessed tonight in the Apostles' Creed, doctrine. Stand fast in the faith, in the doctrines of God's Word which all point to Jesus Christ and the true God. If you don't have the true doctrines of the true Jesus Christ, then what is there to defend? You're no different than the world. Stand fast in the faith. Jude 1 verse 3 says the same thing. Earnestly contend for what? For the faith. Referring to the doctrines once delivered unto the saints. Say no. Say no. And fight against the doctrine of evolution and theistic evolution. Say no. Against the doctrine of common grace. Fight against the doctrines that attack the church on every front. And let us train our children to be concerned about sound doctrine and not only about the moral issues of today. And then men, as you defend, it is mainly a defensive battle, but it is also offensive. I called you to do that before, I do it again tonight. A soldier is not only going to defend, he's not going to neglect the defending of the church and of his family, but he's also going to go on the offensive. And you know what the offensive is? Missions and evangelism for the gathering of others into the church. Never neglecting the defense and protection of those already gathered, we realize that our offense can be the best defense as we train our children to be evangelists, as we mobilize in the wielding of the sword of the Spirit together. The manner includes this, we fight together, together. Notice in our text, Paul is not writing as a lone minister in Corinth and saying, I will fight. But all of the verbs here are in the plural. All of the verbs here are all of you men. All of you be men. All of you be watching. All of you stand fast in the faith. All of you become strong. All of you have all your things done in love. The point is, we're doing it together. We're not saying the officers go do it themselves, but we're doing it together. We're not here fighting one battle while the other people are fighting a different battle. We're joining each other, helping each other. Philippians 127, stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together, together. Not against each other, but striving with each other for the faith of the gospel. And finally, the banner without stopping. All of the imperatives in our text are in the present tense. A continuing action. Be watching. Be standing. All of you, be continuing to be men. Growing up to be men. Becoming strong. Letting all things be done in love. Some stop because they're tired. And God says, no, endure hardness as a good soldier. 2 Timothy 2 verse 3. Some stop because they would rather have a life of ease and fun and games. And the Word of God tonight says, come back to reality. You're already in a war. Fight the good fight of faith. Some stop because they are proud. They think, I'm immune to any dangers in this world and so is my family and church. Take heed lest ye fall. Continue to be a good soldier. Remembering this exhortation from God's Word, we also and especially have to remember who is that captain that is walking in front of us? Who is that captain that's giving these commands? Who is that captain who strengthens us in this battle? The captain, you know, is our Lord Jesus Christ. The captain issues those commands. In remembering the captain, it prevents us from despair as well as dereliction in duty. Looking to Jesus, our captain, we are prevented from despair because we know that the captain has already given us the victory. The captain has already won. The captain has already risen and ascended to heaven. And we saw this morning, he's not coming back to humble himself. He's already ruling, and he's going to rule forever and ever. And he's going to take us there, too, for sure. It's certain. Our hope is certain. We can be confident in that. In all these things, Romans 8, verse 37, Jesus says, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. We're not only conquerors already. We are that. But we're more than conquerors. Everything that is done is for our good, for our victory. Christ has fought. When he went to the cross, he conquered Satan. The battle, the war, is as good as won. And he will protect us all the way to the end. There is no need to despair. We don't fight because we have to win the battle for our salvation. He already did it. We don't either fight, parents. Don't forget this, parents, office bearers. We don't fight because we have to earn the salvation of the people under our care. As though somehow, even though we are elect people and Jesus has died for us, that somehow Satan might be able to steal one of us away. No. Away with that fear. Don't despair. Jesus Christ has won the victory for all of his people. The fear mentality is often what brings about despair not only but a frantic wild rash fighting or what we call a petrification. We're so afraid we don't do anything or we quit. The most formidable enemy against Satan is a soldier who knows that he doesn't have to be afraid of losing. He's already won. And now he fights without fear of being cut up and destroyed in hell. But he fights out of thankfulness welling within him, out of love for his savior. Satan can't stand that. Though this world with devils filled, you know Martin Luther's hymn, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed his truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure. His doom is sure. One little word shall fell him. The victory is sure. The battle's not done though. It's as good as done. But the commander, the captain of our army who has already won the victory says to you and me, fight. Fight the good fight of faith. He directs us to it. Watch it. Stand fast in the faith. Quit you like men. Be strong. Let all your things be done with love, with charity. Out of thankfulness for what I have done. And He who commands you with His Word also empowers you as part of His saving work. Heavenly graces from our ascended head flow into us, His members, so that we who do not have the strength of ourselves are given his power. Let us be men and fight the good fight of faith so that at the end of our life we may say with Paul, I have fought a good fight. Not perfect. But I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, not to me only, but unto all them also that love and look forward to His appearing. Amen. Let's pray. Oh, sovereign God, who has already given us the victory and does promise to defend us all the way to the end. Be with us, oh God, cause us to know thy presence. Give our hearts, eyes of faith to see Jesus, our ascended Lord, as our conqueror. Pour heavenly graces from him to us and make us confident in the fight and diligent in the battle. Use the preaching of the word to stir us up as a church militant and especially stir up the men so that they are those who are watchmen on the walls of Zion, leading in the fight, standing fast in the faith, growing up, becoming mature men, training, being strong and in everything with love, a selfless love. Strengthen us both in the defensive as well as in the offensive battle for the glory of the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, in whose name we pray these things. Amen.