Foot Soldiers of the King
by Rev. Kirby Williams
Learning to walk, live and fight as the "righteousness of God in Christ"!
Text: 2Cor 5:21
Date: 03/29/2026, the Combined service.
Series: "Your Word is Truth"
Occasion: Palm Sunday
Description:
As we celebrate the Triumphal Entry on this Palm Sunday, we will also bring this mini-series of who we are as a church to a close. We will return to Paul's second letter to the Corinthians and his powerful statement of the sacrificial substitutionary atonement of Christ. We will pick up the decidedly military language and symbolism in both Luke's Gospel and Zechariah's prophecy and realize that Jesus was heading into a representative battle field to "seek and save the lost" with His message of reconciliation and peace. Against this backdrop, we will look carefully at the words of our text and recognize that Jesus has provided His church with both a calling to follow Him into this battle, and a "secret weapon" that will literally change the spiritual landscape of the world. That "weapon" of course, is the Gospel, but in a very specific sense, it is the "righteousness of God in Christ" that allows a reprobate to be reconciled to a holy God. Ultimately we will learn how profoundly this defines who we are as a church, and what an integral part we play in God's battle plan of redemption-- as the foot soldiers of the King.
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I. Introduction
A. The Triumphal Entry from Luke's Gospel, Luke 19:28-48.
B. The Triumphal Entry from Zechariah's prophecy, Zech. 9:8-10,14-17; Isa. 52:14, 53:3,4; Jer. 31:33; Luke 23:28; John 1:11.
II. Exposition of the text, 2Cor. 5:21.
A. Context
1. Recalling our distinctives.
a. Lessons from Luke.
i. We are the Children of the Resurrection.
b. Lessons from Second Corinthians.
i. We are driven by the love of Christ.
ii. We have intimate fellowship "in Christ".
iii. We are New Creations in Christ.
iv. We are the Reconciled, John 1:2-3.
v. We are Ambassadors of Reconciliation.
2. The embedded battle plan, 2Cor. 5:19.
B. The foot soldiers of the Kingdom.
1. The battle ground.
a. A "tragic" entry, Luke 9:22, 19:43-44, 23:28-30.
b. A darkened world, John 3:19-20; Zech. 9:11; Psa. 68:18.
c. A world like ours, Matt. 5:14.
2. The "secret weapon".
a. The mission of peace.
b. Identifying the enemy, Rev. 12:9; Psa. 33:16-17.
c. The parable of the wedding clothes.
i. The judgment concerning rejection, Matt. 22:5-7.
ii. The judgment concerning righteousness, Matt. 22:11-13.
3. The message of reconciliation, vs. 21.
a. Looking at the words.
i. The blemish-less sacrifice, Matt. 22:13; Heb. 4:15.
ii. The beneficiaries of Christ's Crosswork.
iii. Made by God to be sin.
iv. The righteousness of God.
v. In Christ, John 14:6.
b. Putting the words together.
i. Necessary as a substitutionary sacrifice, Heb. 5:3.
ii. Necessary for our righteousness.
4. The foot soldiers of the King.
III. Application
A. We fight for our King and for His Glory, Phil. 1:21; Rom. 14:8; Luke 9:23; Gal. 2:20; Matt. 5:13.
B. We fight according to His battle plan, Matt. 28:19.
C. We fight with His weapons and not our own, Eph. 6:13-17; Col. 1:18.
IV. Conclusion
