It’s a story of startling generosity.

The apostle Paul had been traveling around what is modern-day Greece and Turkey, visiting the Christian churches there and presenting an opportunity for them to be generous. You see, the Christian churches back in Jerusalem were suffering, and these gifts were being gathered to help them in their physical needs.

The apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Christians in Corinth to encourage them to put their faith into practice and to practice the spiritual gift of giving. He wrote this: “And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us” (2 Corinthians 8:1-5).

How were these Christians able to be so generous, when by all human standards they were so poor?

Well, because they had put their trust in a heavenly Father who promises to provide daily bread. They put their trust in their Savior, Jesus, who promises that when his children seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, that all the things they need will be given to them as well.

So it is true for you and me that we have received generosity from God—startling generosity. God, who is so gracious as to forgive us for our stinginess and greed and selfishness. So we are people who know that we have been set free from these sinful attitudes of our heart. We’ve been set free to be generous to others.

I’ve witnessed this startling generosity in you, our active duty service members and their families, and in our veterans and their families, and in civilians who support ministry to the military.

Years ago when I served a church in Kentucky, I traveled once a month to Evansville, Indiana. I was the closest WELS pastor to a man who was a World War II veteran. Once a month, I brought him the Lord’s Supper and had a devotion and prayer. And every month, he slipped me a $100 bill and said, “Use this to pay for your rental car and for gas.”

I did this once a month for a year and a half. Then God called him home to heaven. About six months later, I received a letter in the mail with a check for several thousand dollars. It was from a church in Wisconsin. This man had officially been a member of this church in Wisconsin, and the letter said, “You probably don’t know this, but the man that you had been serving was very wealthy, and he left quite a substantial amount of money to our church and school. We’re actually going to be able to build a gymnasium for our grade school children. But we wanted to send a portion to you and your church to thank you for your generosity to this man.”

I recently traveled to the East Coast and spent some time with some members of a congregation there that’s full of veterans and active duty service members. Many of them are leaders in the congregation. One of them shared with me that they’ve been blessed with the gift of giving in that congregation—so much so that at the end of the year, they have extra money from offerings. And they don’t keep it for themselves. They look for a need in the churches in their area, and they give it to them. Or they’ve given to our WELS Christian Aid and Relief organization that is assisting with flooding relief efforts in the Carolinas.

Or I heard that the Organization of WELS Lutheran Seniors, or OWLS, has recently given $58,000 to support the European chaplain ministry, through which my counterpart, my brother in the ministry Chaplain Rob Weiss, travels to the military bases in Germany and Italy and Spain, serving our warfighters and their families with God’s Word and sacrament.

It’s through stories like the Lutheran Military Support Group. It was started nine years ago by veterans who saw a need to serve veterans and active duty members and their dependents. And one of the ways they raise funds for this is through their Ammo Can Campaign. If you reach out to them on their website, they’ll ship you an ammo can for free, and they ask that you put it out at Veterans Day weekend or Memorial Day weekend. The funds that they raise through that Ammo Can Campaign are used to host events like a spiritual retreat for Christian warriors and their battle buddies.

They also use that money to support my ministry, so I can travel around the United States and build up our pastors and our congregations as they seek to serve our military members and their families. They use those generous gifts to support the training of Lutheran pastors who serve near military installations.

How has God been generous to you? How might he use you to be generous to others to support their physical needs? And how might he use you to be generous to them so that their spiritual needs might also be met?

My encouragement to you today is this. Spend some time in God’s Word this weekend and read 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9. And through prayer and prayerful consideration, ask God how he might use you to give with startling generosity.

Prayer:
Almighty and ever-living God, you have given exceedingly great and precious promises to those who trust in you. Grant us so firmly to believe in your Son, Jesus, that our faith may never be found wanting.

This coming week, the United States Marine Corps will celebrate its 249th birthday. Lord Jesus, the Marine Corps has served to fight our country’s battles in the air, on land, and sea. Continue to raise up faithful men and women to serve in the Corps, so that we might enjoy the freedoms of our great nation and live our lives in peace and safety.

As our nation pauses this week on November 11th to honor our veterans, we thank you for raising up brave men and women who were willing to engage our enemies, who have provided humanitarian aid for those who suffer, who attentively protected our borders.

Bring healing to those veterans who still carry unseen scars of trauma through your lifegiving promises. Use us to show the love of Christ to them when days are difficult. I pray this all in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

How is God testing your patience and your faith today?

You might be saying to yourself, “How isn’t God testing my patience and my faith today?” So much so that you can’t even sleep at night. So much so that at night you cry out, “Answer me when I call to you. . . . Give me relief from my distress; have mercy on me and hear my prayer.” Well, you’re not alone.

These cries for mercy and relief from distress are direct quotes from King David’s Psalm 4. When King David writes, “Give me relief from my distress,” literally he’s saying, “I’m in a tight spot. I’m in a narrow place. It feels like the walls and the ceiling are just slowly coming down and pressing in around me and making me feel that I’m crushed.”

So what is it that’s going on in your life right now? Or in the life of your family or parents or children or battle buddies or our nation? Maybe you’re thinking ahead to November 5th, and all of it makes you feel like the walls and the ceiling are just caving in on you, and you echo the words of King David and say, “Answer me, Lord. Give me relief from my distress. Give them relief from their distress. Have mercy on us and hear our prayer.”

And is there so much going on in your world right now that you look around and you ask, “Who can show us anything that’s good right now?” That’s exactly what people were asking King David in this psalm. In spite of all the distress in his life and in the lives of the people under his care and protection as king, he says this at the end of the psalm: “In peace I will lie down and sleep” (verse 8a).

How in the world could David be so confident? He says, “I will do this. In peace, I will lie down and sleep.” How can I have restful, peaceful sleep with all of this crying out for mercy and relief from distress?

Well, David answers that question by saying this in the psalm: “You alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety” (verse 8b). When we are asking who can show us any good, King David shows us the Lord.

And he tells us who the Lord is. In verse six, King David says he is the one who shines the light of his face on us. This is such a cool picture. In the Bible, when it talks about God shining his face on us or turning his face toward us, it’s a picture that God is showing favor on you. He smiles with approval on you. He keeps you and all the circumstances and situations in which you find yourself before his eyes. He knows about them. He knows about all of it.

And because of that, he is the God who is near to us, not distant. And because he shines the light of his face on us, that means that he blesses us in spite of our hardships and sometimes through our difficulties and hardships.

It means that because he turns his face to us, he not only hears and listens to our prayers but answers all of them according to his will. It means that he has mercy on us when we cry out for mercy. It means that he will give us relief from our distress because we cry out to him for relief from our distress. If not in this life, then in the life to come.

So my challenge to you this week is this: to read Psalm 4 out loud tonight before you go to bed. And not just tonight, but every night this week before you go to bed. And then, lay your head on your pillow in peace, knowing that the Lord is your God. In peace, knowing that the face of the Lord shines on you with all of its brilliant, glorious light. In peace, knowing that God not only listens but answers your prayers according to his mercy, that he does have mercy on you, that he will give you relief from your distress—if not in this life, then in the life to come.

Allow that peace to push out those walls and that ceiling that feel like they are crushing down around you. Let that peace surround you, and have a peaceful sleep tonight in the Lord.

Prayer:
O God, the helper of all who call on you, have mercy on us and give us eyes of faith to see your Son, that we may follow him on the way that leads to eternal life. As we look ahead to the election of our governmental leaders in November, and as we look at all that feels as if it is crushing us, help us to know that peace that surrounds us and protects us, and grant us peaceful sleep. In your name we pray. Amen.

My friends, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord look on you with favor and give you peace. Amen.

Have you seen the shoulder sleeve insignia of the U.S. Special Operations Command? It’s a dagger pointing upward, which represents the unconventional nature of special forces operations. The insignia also contains three lightning bolts. They represent the ability of special forces to strike rapidly by air, land, or sea.

What about the shoulder sleeve insignia of the 65th Medical Brigade? If you’ve seen it, you know that the sword is pointing downward. This indicates a military unit with a non-combatant posture because the Medical Brigade’s mission is to heal and preserve life at all costs.

I want you to think about those insignias as you read the words from the author to the Hebrews in chapter 4. As you do, ask yourself which one of these shoulder insignias represents the sword of God.

The author to the Hebrews writes, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12,13).

Well, that’s a frightening picture the author paints! The Word of God, or the sword of God, pierces to the very depths of our soul, doesn’t it? And it’s not just any sword—it’s a double-edged sword, which means that as you drive it into the cavity of another human being, it penetrates down to the deepest part of their insides.

This is the sword of God. It penetrates deep inside our souls, and it opens up our insides and reveals all things. And there are some pretty dark places in there, aren’t there? I know, because I have those too. Those dark places that you wouldn’t want anybody to know about—the thoughts and desires of your heart. The things that you don’t talk to anybody else about, the stuff that nobody knows about, those impure desires that you might have for somebody else, especially of the opposite sex.

Maybe those thoughts and desires that you have are against other people. Maybe they are selfish desires and selfish thoughts. And God’s Word is clear. He demands pure thoughts and desires from us all the time, toward everybody and about all things.

So then we read about the same sword of God, this Word of God, in the same letter to the Hebrews. The author says in chapter 9, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (verse 14).

What the author says here is that Christ offered himself unblemished to God. And that means is if you were to take the sword of God and penetrate Christ and open him up for all to see and peer into the very depths of his soul, you would find purity and blamelessness and righteousness in all his thoughts toward everyone and in all his desires, even to those of the opposite sex. You would find purity even in his thoughts toward his enemies, even in his thoughts toward his family and friends who disappointed him so many times.

And by those pure thoughts and righteous desires, he cleanses our consciences. Your impure thoughts and desires are completely purified and washed and made righteous down to the very depths of your conscience. Now, that sounds like that non-combatant sword of the medical brigade, doesn’t it? A sword that heals and makes whole and gives life.

So we go back to that original question: Which shoulder insignia is represented in our Hebrews passages? The answer is yes—both of them. Because the sword of God functions in both ways and for good reason. It cuts us to our very core and cuts us to the heart, so we repent and then turn and feel the healing touch of that good news about Christ for us. So we then, as the writer says, may go and serve the living God with renewed desires and renewed thoughts and renewed hearts all because of the sword of God.

Prayer:
O Holy Spirit, draw your sword and pierce our hearts so that our sins might be revealed and that we might repent. Draw your sword and pierce our hearts so that we might be healed by the cleansing blood of Jesus.

This week on October 13th, our U.S. Navy celebrates its 249th birthday. Since 1775, the United States Navy has protected America at sea, and so we pray, Lord, that you keep our sailors safe and faithful in their vocation as they defend freedom, preserve economic prosperity, and keep the seas open and free. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I had a college classmate who dropped out of college to join the Navy SEALs. He served as a Tier 1 operator on the teams. One day I got the news that he had died, and it wasn’t in combat—he died stateside.

A pastor friend of mine happened to be serving his spiritual needs and providing spiritual care for him, and he was asked to conduct the funeral service. That pastor friend shared with me that he had never felt more safe than at that funeral service because this dead man’s brothers-in-arms, other Navy SEAL operators, lined the inside perimeter of that church. As I watched the livestream of the service I couldn’t see them, but you knew that they were there.

This is a picture of our special operations teams. They work in the shadows. They go behind enemy lines. We don’t always know where they are or what they’re doing, but we know that they are there, protecting us and our allies from real threats and dangers.

As Christians, we face an enemy who operates in the shadows. In Revelation 12:7-12 we witness this celestial battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. The apostle John describes this cosmic battle where Michael, the archangel, the general of the armies of angels—the special forces of heaven—battle with Satan, the dragon, and his army of demons.

This picture that John paints for us in Revelation 12, this spiritual warfare, is not just a picture of what happened in the past. It’s also a picture of what is happening every single day.

The devil works in the shadows to afflict pain in your body so that you despair and no longer trust in God.

The devil works in the shadows to afflict pain in your mind so that you despair and no longer trust in your God.

The devil works in the shadows to afflict pain in your soul by accusing you of all the things that you have failed to do as a single person, as a husband or a wife, as a parent, as a service member in our nation’s military. And the devil does a really good job working in these shadows because he knows exactly how to target our weaknesses and point out our failures and attack our doubts and our fears, but we are not alone in this fight.

The special forces of heaven—even though we cannot see them—are operating on our behalf, and their job is to protect us and fight for us so we know we are not alone in the fight.

Not only do you have the special forces operating in the shadows, but you know the victory has already been won. In Revelation the apostle John saw the victory: “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb” (12:11). The blood of your commander-in-chief, Jesus Christ, was shed on the cross, and that’s what caused Satan’s defeat. He may try to accuse you just like a prosecutor in court, but his accusations against you fall to the floor of that courtroom. They are stricken from the court record because the blood of Christ covers over all your faults, all your failures, all your weaknesses. You have already triumphed over Satan through the blood of Christ Jesus.

And as this battle between good and evil continues to rage on, go into combat confident knowing that the victory is already yours in Christ Jesus. You are more than conquerors in Christ. And know that you are not alone in this fight. The special forces team of Michael and his angels continues to fight in the shadows to protect you. And in the end, they will act as spiritual pallbearers and escort our souls home to heaven to be with Jesus, where there will be no more battle, no more war—only peace.

So go in confidence and conviction today. For God’s mighty angel armies go with you. They fight for you, and they fight with you.

Prayer:
Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of both angels and mortals. Mercifully grant that as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your direction they may help and defend us here on earth. We pray this through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

If you are in a leadership position, one of the required readings for you may be The Art of War by Sun Tzu. One of the principles that this ancient Chinese military strategist suggests is this: “If you know your enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Even though Sun Tzu wrote in the 5th century B.C., these principles still apply today. Know your enemy. Know how your enemy plans. How he thinks. How he operates. And if you do, you are more likely to succeed as you plan and implement your missions against your enemy.

But Sun Tzu isn’t the only one who said this. God talked about knowing your enemy.

Sadly, for many Americans, the enemy often takes the form of a government that is “over there.” Or maybe it even takes the form of our government or the other political party or the moral degradation of our society.

But God is clear about identifying our true enemy. In Ephesians chapter 6, the apostle Paul writes this: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (verse 12). The devil, that fallen evil angel, has combined forces with the powers of sin and death and the sinful world. These are your enemy combatants. And as they plan their missions, they have you and me in mind. And what they want to do is to shake our trust in Jesus, so we do not trust him anymore and are separated from our God forever.

Know your enemy. But also know yourself. Any attempt to fight in this battle by relying on anyone or anything other than Christ—you will succumb in every battle. So know yourself. Know that you need Jesus and know that you need his power. And know and trust that he supplies it.

Paul uses military language here and uses the picture of an ancient Roman infantryman in his armor as a picture of the armor that Jesus supplies for you. Here is what Paul wrote: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (verses 13-17).

Paul shows us that not only is it necessary to know our enemy and to know ourselves, but first and foremost, to know the truth. That belt of truth that’s buckled around your waist? Those are the truths of God’s Word for you. When we know that truth, we will stand against the devil’s lies.

When he accuses you of sin and guilt, know that you have the breastplate of righteousness covering you, that Kevlar body armor, which is Christ’s righteousness. That protects us against all sin and all guilt. It reminds us of the truth that we are righteous in God’s sight, for Christ’s righteousness covers us in our baptism.

And that shield of faith that Paul talks about? Faith’s object is always Christ, and that always stops the arrows of the enemy.

And finally, our head is guarded by the knowledge that we are saved by Christ and Christ alone.

Know your enemy, know yourself, know your God, and know that he will prepare you for war. For in him and through him, we win.

Prayer:
Almighty God, you see that we have no power to defend ourselves. Guard and keep us both outwardly and inwardly from all adversities that may happen to the body and all evil that may assault and hurt the soul.

This week on September 18th, the Air Force and the Air National Guard celebrate their birthdays. Lord, I thank you for the men and women whose mission it is to fly, fight, and win. For those who take to the skies and those who support them, I ask you to guide them. Grant them wisdom and knowledge as they plan and carry out their missions and training. Send your holy angels to be with those who dare the eagle’s flight. In your name I pray. Amen.