“…to take your stand.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We often imagine spiritual warfare in terms that have generally been set by Hollywood and popular media more broadly. The trouble is, that is almost never what it is really like. As we finish up breaking down the theme verde from camp this week, we’re going to focus on a word that Paul comes back to three times in this section and which gives us a better picture of what our real task is. Let’s talk about standing.

Culture is a river. It is going somewhere. Always somewhere. There are times when it rolls faster than at others, and the direction it is going isn’t always clear, but it’s moving. Sometimes it moves in a path that is sufficiently circuitous as to make Billy’s routes in the occasional Family Circus cartoon panel look like a jet’s contrail stretching across the sky. But it is always moving.

The thing about a river running with a fairly strong current is that as long as you are going with it, you hardly notice. Sure, you can watch the scenery drift by and have a sense of the fact that you are moving, but as long as you’re moving with the current, you don’t feel it. T

hat all changes, though, when you try to stop moving. The difference comes on slowly as you first try to simply slow down. Suddenly, you can feel the current pushing against you. The more you try to move at a different pace than the current, the harder you feel its pushing back. When you put your feet down to stop moving entirely, you feel the full weight of the pressure. Depending on how strong it is, the force may be enough to knock you off your feet. It takes a great deal of strength to stand firm against a current.

We like to imagine that our job in the great spiritual conflict we are facing is to move forward and claim more and more ground for God’s kingdom. This is what the armor Paul described for us in the following verses is for. We are to fight.

Except that’s not what Paul says.

After telling us to put on the armor and to get all ready for what lies ahead, Paul lands here. We are to take our stand. Stand? That’s it? That doesn’t seem like much. What about all the great battles and incredible victories against long odds? How are we supposed to be a part of anything like that if all we do is take a stand? Remember trying to hold still against a swift moving current? When the current is strong enough, simply holding your position can require a display of strength only a few can muster.

Our call and challenge is to stand firm for God’s kingdom against the tide of culture that is rushing against us. If there is any advancement to be done, we are not yet one to do that. God does. After all, it is His kingdom. He is the one with the highest motivation to see it advanced. And advance it He will. And when He does, we move forward into the new land He has claimed. Once we are there, then, we go back to standing firm.

Rest assured: this is more of a challenge than it seems. Refusing to play ball on the culture’s terms is going to result in resistance and pushback. The more firmly we hold our position, the stronger that resistance and pushback will be. When the world insists we support something we know to be untrue, standing firm on the truth is hard. Refusing to live by lies in the midst of a culture awash in them is far from easy. Simply refusing to be unkind to someone the world seems unworthy of kindness is to win a great victory indeed.

With the culture pushing and crashing against us, we will need every piece of armor our God has provided for us. We will need to keep them polished and prepared. But at the end of the day, the battle is not ours to win. The world will come after us, but our job is not to fight back. We stand firm on the foundation of Christ—something Paul tells us to do three times in this passage—and let Him do the real fighting. This is the heart of spiritual warfare. The Spirit does the warring while we stand firm in Him because of our trust in His ability to claim victory. So stand firm fully arrayed in your armor. His victory is near.