How to Stand When Others Fall - Part A

Let's be honest, sermons have become sermon that's the last time I checked sermon that's perfect Christian, we need the real deal.

We need the Bible through spring. Nothing that is constantly striving to challenge and undermine our faith. So how today on connect with Skip Heitzigs, Skip shares how you can keep building your faith in the face of opposition want to tell you about a resource that will include you even more tears but Norm Geisler said about the book tactics, there is no better block to include Christians to think clearly, there Skip I think you need to engage in active spiritual warfare. Joe never fight God's battles for myself, you'll never contend what really matters are just cruise and interlacing boiled have to decide to get out as part of the house and join the fight become a contender for biblical truth for the House ethics message series continued to skip. I think this teaching series on the ring and guard against teaching and our thanks get to connect more people to the truth of God's word and $35 or more today will also send you the book tactics by Gregory couple speak the truth about Christianity with confidence and grace, hundred 92 to get report connectwithskip.com heights extort falling down is a part of life being does it are learning how to walk, but falling down can be dangerous. Get injured you could become disabled, and believe it or not, a good number of people have died just forward. According to the World Health Organization falling is the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths worldwide according to their estimations 684,000 people die every year from falling. That's mostly in low income and mid income countries. Age is a factor on on attended children is another factor, poor working conditions is another one, and lack of regulation safety regulations in place of old age is especially dangerous one out of four elderly people fall down every year and less than half of them ever tell their doctor that they didn't know number of these people become hospitalized. It's estimated that 800,000 people a year are hospitalized from injuries like a hip fracture or a head injury due to a fall several years ago I went to go visit my mom. She was in her 80s at the time I drive up to her house in California get out and walking toward the front door and I hear a voice above me calling from above. I know is not an angel and knows not God as it sounded an awful lot like my mother but I was astonished that I would hear my mom's voice from above, so I look up and on top of the roof is my mom and I said mom on mom. I first about your nurse so you know better. This is not something you should be doing. She was all I know, but something broke with the air conditioner and and I'm thinking what and you are suddenly an air conditioning repair person in your 80s, you become that. I mean how does that work so I see come down and I made a promise me you will never do that again that's dangerous now. Just as certain conditions make falling down easier physically.

I think that there are certain conditions that make falling away spiritually easier and I would even say that the church today is more susceptible than ever before to people falling away and all laid out at the feet of church leadership, pulpits, pastors, I think that there is an enormous amount of biblical ignorance, not just culturally but I mean in the church that there is a biblical illiteracy, even if you were to compare the average sermon today, with the average sermon say 100 years ago, you find it a massive difference if you were to compare a Christian book written today by Christian author Christian pastor leader with a book written 100 years ago, you would see a huge difference for a lot of reasons. If you are to compare a Christian seminar or conference to one that was done essentially go again you would see a marked difference.

What is happened is Bible teaching has been dumbed down and it has been made shallow. It is become oversimplified.

It is been reduced to slogans and why is that well for a number of reasons, and I'm not here to tell you all those reasons, but I think Christian leaders think that people just don't have it in them to understand the depth of doctrine and what the Bible really has to say. So, since they have a short attention span.

Let me disorder pander to that short attention span, or maybe my audience doesn't truly believe they're just not as interested.

So I will dumb it down and then the subject of so many sermons this anemic. It's often about successful living or self esteem or a number of felt needs or cultural fads. In fact, let's be honest, sermons have become sermon that's the last time I checked sermon that's her for Christian Metz. We need the real deal. We need the Bible truth. Rank holding nothing back. But today discernment isn't really important.

Depth really is an important doctrine really is an important.

What's important is to hassle, so sometime ago one of my associate pastors was driving me to the airport by Muir the pastor. Thank you for taking me that it airport so I had to catch a flight to go to Canada to speak and Brian asked me a question goes how many pastors under the age of 40 or he put it this way. Can you name five pastors under the age of 40 who are Bible expositor, I gotta admit, I was flummoxed. I dislike the word I was flummoxed and I did not.

It answer I added to I can wear, and I could name one and then to I said that's that's an interesting question. Why do you ask that as well.

Actually it's a question that was asked by one of our school of ministry students. She said can you name five pastors under the age of 40 scores on the millennial.

Can you name five pastors under the age of 40 who are Bible expositor's and she had written out on her Facebook page and she wrote this were kind of done with glamour rock liturgy and preaching for pizzazz that masks the lack of biblical preaching. We want our souls fed, not our emotions tickle.

I thought bravo for her, that such a great sentiment to say what what she is saying is we don't want to show we want to know there's things we want to know about teach us that well, that takes us to the book of Jude and in verse 20.

Jude says that you beloved, building yourselves up on the most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, and on some have compassion, making it distinction, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire he hating even the garment defiled by the flesh, you will note how verse 20 begins begins with the shift. He's been talking about them about these people those guys those spots in your love fees.

Those waterless clouds those false teachers those apostates. The whole book. This short little book is been filled with Jude's description of them.

But in verse 20 he pivots and he says, but you, beloved, so he turns away from them and he turns to us.

They may be falling. You should be standing and so what he does in these short verses in Jude was a master at using the economy of words to give us up bulwark of strong principles. We have some ingredients of how to stand when others are falling when you see people falling from the faith, falling around you. How do you stand while there are a few ingredients I want to draw your attention to them first is keep building your faith, keep building your faith.

If people are destroying the faith of others. The people are falling from the faith, then the solution for us is to be building up our own fate. That's what the beginning of verse 20 is all about.

But you, beloved, building your selves up on your most holy faith about Jude begins his letter, he sat down in the monitor writer sweet little note of encouragement.

He said I wanted to write you about our common salvation, but I found it necessary to exhort you to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints contend means put up a good fight for the faith because it got faith and that term is not referring to your personal faith is not your believing subjectively. It's the faith. Objectively, it's the bulk of Christian doctrine, Christian belief, it's what's called and asked 242.

The apostles doctrine so the faith are all those basic principles that we hold as truth that's in the faith. So with that in mind, he says, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, that faith is become your personal faith and that is because so many people were abandoning the faith they were leaving the faith we told you how Paul wrote to Timothy and said the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines taught by demons.

So people are leaving the faith and you should be loving the faith. If people are deserting the faith and you should be determined in your faith. If people are going to be forsaking the faith in you and I need to be fortifying our faith.

In other words, if they're gonna tear theirs down. We need to be building ours up. That's the antidote to the following notes are like there's anything left to itself. Just goes to ruin. It's like part of life. It's the second law of thermodynamics.

Things tended toward disintegration deterioration. Take your house, for instance, you buy house. Oh goodie yellow goodie, but you can have to patch the roof eventually. Or put a new one on.

Eventually you can have to address stucco deterioration on the outside. Eventually you can have to deal with that heater or air conditioning eventually right.

There's a number of things that take regular maintenance. So too with our spiritual life or spiritual life requires maintenance. Any life left to itself will fall apart so we need to be building it out, building it up building it up.

There's a parallel passage to this found in the book of Peter second Peter affects second Peter and Jude.

Some of the wording of both of those letters is almost identical but even more works not identical.

Some of the principles are the same. In this idea building up your faith is part of second Peter second Peter chapter 1 appearances are also for this very reason, giving all diligence listen add to your faith add to your faith virtue and virtue, knowledge, and the knowledge, self-control, and the self-control, perseverance, and to perseverance godliness and the godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love, and he says if these things are yours and abound you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that's an interesting way of putting it, giving all diligence means exerting your self. Do you realize that Christian growth is not automatic. It has to be intentional.

If you think you can fall back on that little saying that says sounds so good but it happens to be poor advice. Let go and let God. It's not worth you don't let go. You build up you add to your faith exerting all effort add to your faith virtue, etc. the Chinese checkers church established saying very very simple but profound saying in the saying was this no Bible, no breakfast.

What no Bible, no breakfast, we mean, you read your Bible than you breakfast no Bible number of dragons that that's interesting.

I think what they're doing is summing up what Job said in his book were Josette Augustine, the words of his mouth more than my necessary food but I read that no Bible, no breakfast, and I thought what you know if we followed that in America, how many of us would go hungry or at least lose a lot of weight so the question is this. Are you growing up are you growing strong or are you just growing old, because spiritual growth is not always proportional to physical age. I wish I could say was I wish I could say that a person once their attrition they just sort of give it enough time to become mature. But you know that you can be an old baby Charles Spurgeon said in the Church of God.

There are children who are 70 years old.

Yes, little children, displaying all the infirmities of declining years.

One would not like to save a man of 80 that he is scarcely cut his wisdom teeth and yet there are such on the other hand, are fathers in the church, wise, stable, instructed who are comparatively young men. The Lord can cause his people to grow rapidly and far outstrip their so, build yourselves up. Don't settle for junkfood don't allow yourself to be starved to death, spiritual, and I'm just gonna recommend this to you but I'm in a recommend that you start coming to our Wednesday night Bible study meets Greg to come to the Sunday morning or Saturday or whatever but on Wednesday night were able to go through every verse of every chapter of every book of the Bible. Now, eventually, are not won't happen all at once. Obviously Bartel we we do that will go to a chapter or two. We have a longer time and we can go deeper we go longer and give a person what Paul called the whole counsel of God, not just a snippet of a Bible verse here and there, but the whole counsel of God. So keep that in mind, but that's the first ingredient keep building your faith. The second ingredient is keep praying with fervor. Keep praying with fervor back to verse 20 but your beloved, building yourselves up on the most holy faith, your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit praying in the Holy Spirit, you probably by now know that the word of God. Reading the word building yourselves up in the mostly faith and prayer go together because it completes the cycle of communication in this relationship we have with God.

When you read the Bible that is God speaking to you when you pray that as you speaking to God and you need both to balance out your spiritual life. So if all I do is read and not pray all have a lot of light but no heat. If all I do is pray, but not read all have a lot to keep but no light. So to get both white and heat. I need to read the word and pray now, to bring up the question because it's not often ask. But these are questions I have asked why pray God Artie knows my needs.

Anyway, in advance, he knows everything I need. I believe he does and he's a good father. Why has he set this relationship with him where it requires prayer.

It's almost like he's got a whitener going I haven't heard prayer area. So what's up with that what what why why prayer why is it so important, why make a big deal out of it give you one word answer that question. Dependence God likes dependence. God loves dependence. God loves trust God loves to be asked.

In fact, I'll go a step further. God is attracted to need to go step further. God is attracted to weakness who I feel so weak God's attracted to that you have the Bible says God's chosen the foolish things of this world. He's chosen the weak things of this world and then Paul the apostle when he asked God to heal them of something you said, I pray three times and the Lord said, my grace is enough for you, but then he said my strength is made perfect in your weakness. God is attracted to weakness I remember hearing a story from an old play that became states by the became a movie this and it was called the barracks of Wemple Street. I don't ever expect you to remember that or even know what that is but there it's up it's about Robert Browning, the author and his wife in the relationship they had and she was growing weaker over time, and she felt so embarrassed by that and finally the husband said to the wife sweetheart. Don't you realize that my strength needs your weakness just as much is your weakness needs my strength and I thought boy that captures the heart of God when it comes to prayer.

God loves our dependence he loves our need. He loves and is attracted to our weakness and choices. Ask, ask, pray, by the way, I need to say that God is not attracted to self-sufficiency. He is not attracted to know I can do this. God is not attracted the pride.

In fact, you know, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. So, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray, read the word hear from God and talk to God. You verbally talk over the years about Billy Sunday. He was an evangelist. In fact he was a revivalist in the classic sense of the word. He was also before that a professional baseball player in America. He had became a believer in one of his early mentors. A friend said to him, William. That's what he called Billy Sunday William R there are three simple rules that you should practice. If you do, no one will ever be able to write the word backslider after your name.

He said take 15 minutes a day to let God talk to you take 15 minutes for you to talk to him and spend 15 minutes a day telling others about the Savior that if you do that you will never be a backslider Billy Sunday made that the practice of his life every day. He's in I hear from God. Every days in the talk to God in prayer every day he would tell somebody about the Savior became a selectable evangelist. With that in mind that Skip the message from the series fight for the house to Skip to share how you can keep this broadcast going strong connecting you and many others to the gospel. Did you know that Christianity is all about redemption, God redeemed us.

He brought us out of slavery. He took us from our sins, and he sent Jesus to pay for those sins on the cross.

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