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Pastor Mike will be speaking on What More Could God do for You Part 1. He will be reading out of Isaiah 5:1-5.
I have seen this in families after families. God blesses them and he continues to advance them They get promoted at the job and all of a sudden you can’t find them in church anymore When the bank account is full and they’re blessed in immeasurable ways. They don’t have time to seek the Lord Hello, this is pastor Mike Sanders and I’m welcoming you to the hope worth having radio program We believe it’s one of the best out there and we hope you are taking the opportunity to grow in your faith today We’re gonna be in Isaiah chapter 5. We’re just kind of tracking through the book of Isaiah it’s gonna be an incredible journey as we tackle this great book of the Bible and The message today is what more could God do for you? Isaiah chapter 5. Let’s begin our study If You have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in the book of Isaiah Isaiah chapter 5 we’ve been tracking through the book of Isaiah for a few months now and we are finally made it to Isaiah chapter 5 remember that as we go through this book chapter 2 chapter Things are always different and in one chapter the Prophet is speaking about today’s Circumstances meaning the times that he’s living in in dealing with Judah and Israel and Jerusalem and Then he’ll take us to the future of what is to be What is to come to pass and the hope that we have? The Prophet never wants us to be overwhelmed He never wants us to be discouraged But he certainly wants to address the ills of society in the day that he is living and So it is that he keeps bringing us to that Hope that is found in God in the future and what he is to bring about For those who love him for those who live for him We come to Isaiah chapter 5 Isaiah chapter 5 I’ve entitled the message.
What more could God do for you? What more could God do for you? the Apostle Paul appealed to the gifted but troubled Corinthian Church in 2nd Corinthians 6 1 He said we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain What does it mean to receive? The grace of God in vain to answer this question we must understand the doctrine of God’s grace We know that there is saving grace We understand that there is sustaining grace and even speaking grace and serving grace One theologian said this in defining grace That it is God’s determination To do good to people who deserve his wrath Let me explain it. Maybe a little bit more simpler God bestowing his goodness upon us Unfolding his goodness upon us even though we do not deserve it That is what grace is It has the idea of a king or a person of royalty stooping down So it is in God’s wonderful grace He has stooped down and he has pulled us out of that miry clay of sin And he has set our feet on the solid rock of Jesus Christ what a wonderful thought and yet The Apostle taught the Corinthians not to receive the grace of God in vain There are several ways in which God is bestowing his goodness upon even all of humanity It is referred to as common grace I Made a list here of just some things in which God’s common grace is Lavished on to the world we can start with the beautiful sunshine We can continue with the beautiful rain that God gives and refreshes and renews the earth we think about the food that he provides the clothing that he gives We think about shelter family friends health Education and even the written Word of God as a common grace made available to all of humanity It is possible to receive all these common graces in vain if We fail to take advantage of the opportunity of God’s grace being bestowed upon us and yet we choose to follow a life or a lifestyle that Contradicts the Word of God and it refuses to be thankful for God’s goodness and grace upon us In a real way Then we are taking the grace of God in vain and God’s grace that is bestowed upon us even as believers is being wasted Because we rise up we complain We find fault with the day we don’t enjoy the goodness that he bestows upon us and This is exactly what happened to the nation of Israel in Isaiah’s day And this is what he confronts in Isaiah chapter 5 is a people who have been so blessed blessed beyond measure That they have taken the grace of God in vain So Isaiah starts out He starts out with a song. I Song Might empty the house.
Amen We let those who can sing sing and those who can’t to stay seated. Amen, but in this Song, it’s a song About an owner of a vineyard. We’re gonna read about it here in just a second And he’s doing everything that he can to make it possible for this Beautiful vineyard to prosper and to be blessed and to grow and to just continue to do well But what does it yield Worthless grapes It doesn’t yield the sweet fruit of all the goodness and the grace of the owner So it is that God is exposing He’s exposing the many sins of a richly blessed people and He is reminding us that what is the judgment upon those who will not? Acknowledge the goodness and the grace of God.
This is what we understand. It’s taking place in Isaiah chapter 5 so let’s begin reading in verse 1 now. Let me sing to my well-beloved a Song of my beloved regarding his vineyard My well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill He dug it up and cleared out its stones and planted it with the choicest vine He built a tower in its midst Also made a winepress in it.
So he expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes And Now Oh inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah judge, please between me and my vineyard What more could have been done to my vineyard? That I have not done in it Why then? When I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth? wild grapes And now please let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard I will take away its hedge and it shall be burned and break down its walls and shall be Trampled down I will lay it waste it shall not be pruned or dug But there shall come up briars and thorns. I Will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and The men of Judah are his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold oppression for righteousness, but behold a cry for help as We begin to analyze this chapter this morning.
I want you to first see God’s Gracious or his lavish grace upon the people and this startling question that is presented to us What more could God do for you? What more could he have done to make this vineyard such a success and yet it was not a success Isaiah Wants to relay a message through this song to the people He wants to remind the people of Jerusalem and Judah directly that What is it that God could do more in your life? What is it that God could do more to bring you to a point where you would bring glory to his name and you would? Praise his name and give thanks to God every day of your life that he has blessed you with in this effort to help the people to become self-aware of Their lack of response to the goodness and the grace of God He proposes for them to consider who’s right and who is wrong go back to verse 3 in the song of Isaiah chapter 5 and he says and now Oh inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah judge, please Between me and my vineyard Discern Tell me who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s not that God doesn’t know It’s not that even the Prophet doesn’t know but this is the point trying to drive home to the people for them to come To the conclusion on their own for the understanding to hit to their minds and their hearts What God is saying to them? Directly So in this beautiful song He’s speaking to us Particularly he begins speaking to Jerusalem to Israel to the men of Judah He’s speaking to them and saying what is it that God did that somehow would cause you to respond? with no fruit towards the Lord and The truth is nothing Has not God done all that he could do to bring us to true salvation Has not God shown the path for us to find the blessing and the fruitfulness that is found in a relationship with him and Yet what has been our response? What has been our response? God is calling us to evaluate and to discern in our own hearts and We think about our nation as a country we think about America has God not been good to America Has he not blessed this nation beyond measure? People like to be hard on America But I tell you no nation has been blessed like America in the sense of all of its wealth and resources a nation that has always Shown up to other nations tragedies and provided finances and materials and people to help to resolve their Challenges if a hurricane hits another country America is there right How is it that America could do that? Does she has so much wealth She has so much resources as God Not provided for America in such a beautiful way That our response should be one of gratefulness and thankfulness Has he not shed his grace on this land in profound ways? certainly I Want you to look in verses 8 through 23 We see the six clusters of bad grapes that manifested themselves in Israel as well as in Judah and I want you to first see because what he pronounces are the six woes We’re gonna go through these we won’t be able to dive down deep on each of these because we’d never make it in all the Things that we need to cover in Isaiah. We just would never get to the end of it But I hope that always my sermons prompt you to study more to research more and to search the scriptures more But let’s look at these woes if you’re taking notes.
First of all, the first woe is Aggressive greed verses 8 through 10. Let’s read that together in chapter 5 He says woe to those who join house-to-house They add field to fill till there is no place where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land in my Hearing the Lord of hosts said truly many houses shall be desolate great and beautiful ones without Inhabitants for 10 acres of vineyards shall yield one bath and the homer of seed shall yield one ephah What he is trying to show us here is that the people have become so greedy That they’re constantly just adding and adding and adding and it’s not that God is against wealth or that somehow God is against you Prospering the Bible teaches us in 1st Timothy 6 that God gives us all things that we might richly enjoy them God blesses you with material things tangible things and these are wonderful and I don’t want you to misunderstand the scriptures I want you to know that God Provides his blessings and he shows his goodness to us not only spiritually but he shows it to us physically and he shows it to us in many different ways and he calls on us to richly enjoy them, but We must recognize Where do they come from? Where do these blessings come from? Whatever God has given you you must give him thanks and glory and the second thing that I think is what’s happened to the folks here in Israel is they Were allowing these things that they were being blessed with To be more important to them than their relationship with God Almighty And this is what the prophet is pointing out that they have accumulated houses and lands, but they have compromised Their relationship with God Almighty. Yes, they have become wealthy And yes, they have a lot of stuff and they have financial success which we see in verses 8 through 10 But they have put God on The back burner and how many times as a pastor that I have seen this in families after families God blesses them and he continues to advance them.
They get promoted at the job They have new opportunities that open up and all of a sudden you can’t find them in church anymore Because the things of this world are more important than the things of God They don’t have time to read their bible like they used to when they were poor and desolate They could barely rub two nickels together and find a way to pay the bills at the end of the month They were praying to God seeking God to help them But all of a sudden now when the bank account is full and they’re blessed in immeasurable ways They don’t have time to seek the lord anymore. It stands as a warning to all of us The second woe that we see in this text in verse 11 and 12 is the sinful excessiveness Of the people we pick up in verse 11. The bible says woe to those who rise early in the morning That they may follow intoxicating drink who continue until night till wine inflames them the harp and the strings the Tambourines the flute and the wine are in their feasts, but they do Not regard the work of the lord Nor consider the operation of his hands What the prophet is pointing out is the people are living for all the pleasures of this world rather than Dedicating their life to god They’re so passionate and so dedicated In pursuing the things of this world and the pleasures of this world They even get up early so that they can have another drink so that they can enjoy All that they have in the pleasures of this world.
They run after drinks And they call For the new tunes and the new harps and the new songs They want all of this so that they can enjoy the pleasures of life, but they would never rise up early to Seek god They would never rise up early to pray They would never rise up early to give glory to god or to give thanks to god Their life instead of being filled with the spirit Is filled with intoxicating drink Meaning you remember the scriptures teach us To not be drunk with wine in contrast to be filled with the spirit rather than letting the Substances of these things to control our thoughts and our minds We should let the spirit of god fill our hearts and minds and we should be so passionate to be led of the spirit to Walk in the spirit that that’s what we desire To guide our decisions and our choices and rather than pursuing the things of this world and the pleasures of this world Our passion as believers should be to pursue our savior Jesus taught us Blessed are those who hunger and thirst After god meaning they thirst after the righteousness of god. They shall be fill My friends your feeling is always In connection to your passion of pursuing the righteousness of god And the question is what is your priority today? Nothing wrong with these things that are out there and I want you to enjoy the blessings of god But the question is is your pursuit of god more important is the glory of god more important? What has god done For you to bless you in so many ways That you could not even take the time to worship him to dedicate your heart to him The third woe we look in verse 18 and 19 we jump down to this third woe he is what we call the self deceived enslavement and the mocking of god Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity a sin as if with a cart rope That say let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it and let the counsel of the holy one of israel Draw near and come that we may know it. What he is saying is that they have deceived themselves.
They have become slaves to sin As if they were beasts of burdens who are slaves to the master And in this case, they are mocking god. They are not pursuing god, but they are mocking god They are questioning god. They are challenging god.
They are defying god They are demanding that god carry out what they want and when they want it Very disappointing To see people defining god the way they want it to be Rather than saying I want to see the revealed god in his word and in his truth And worship him for who he is not what I want him to be That he’s just a god who is to be a genie in my life And he just responds to my demands and wishes and he immediately accomplishes what I want him to do in my time Rather than recognizing him as being transcendent and sovereign And all powerful and omniscient That we are his servants He is the source of all that is good in our life. And who are we to demand from god? Who are we to dictate to god what kind of a timetable he is to operate by? We see the fourth woe Remember what I told you how many woes were there? six Hang in there church. I have good news for you at the end I know it’s hard Just be glad you weren’t the one that had to study and put this sermon together Look at verse 20 We’re very familiar with this one Woe to those who call evil good And good evil Who put darkness for light and light? for Darkness who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter If there’s ever been a passage of scripture that defined our culture and our society, I think it’s isaiah chapter 5 and verse 20 And I could stand up here and rant and I could rave about the different things that are Destroying the fabric of this nation and this society and this culture and you would all agree with me And I know it to be true And I don’t deny any of that But I want you to know it all starts in our own hearts And it’s easy for us To scream at the darkness and to yell at the wicked But what really isaiah is calling us to do is to look at our own hearts Are there moments and times in our life where we are compromising our own integrity? And we are calling what is wrong right? Are we in our own hearts failing to love god and make him a priority? Are we sending the wrong message to our families to our children and to our grandchildren? When we choose to do what we want rather than honoring the lord jesus christ in our life god Is using the prophet To not only call out a nation and rightly so church But he is also using this prophet to call out the people directly in their own hearts Yes, we live in a post-modern world a world where They believe everything is relative that there is no absolute truth That whatever you say is true is true to you.
And whatever I say is true is true to me You and I know that they are constantly trying to redefine What is truth? We know the scriptures teach us that jesus is truth Amen, jesus said I am the truth the life and the way and no man comes unto the father But by me, we know that christ and his word is truth. That is the measurement. That is the standard and so we see That even what used to be common sense Among a general society in america has been flipped on its head And now we’re trying to figure out You know what’s going on I was down in baltimore area friday night being a part of a renewal vow service And as I was coming back that night I was listening to the radio.
I heard a news report about a young girl just outside of st. Louis Missouri they were all in up arms because she went to school and she took a test and on the test She had failed this test and the parents were all upset because one of the questions was how many genders are there? And the little girl having common sense said there’s two and she Failed the test. It’s crazy And I saw the other day that in pennsylvania, you could have 50 different options for your gender in your license You know and I mean maybe somehow we could come up with You know Don’t worry.
Don’t worry about me church. Okay. I’m a two-gender guy But maybe somehow we could dream up two or three or four or five six I don’t know.
But how do you come up with 50 plus genders? I mean, that’s just a heavy lift seems to me And so here we are in crazy times where children are mutilated And The government sponsors all this and if a parent steps in and tries to say I don’t want my child to be mutilated And they’re not old enough to make this kind of a decision that all of a sudden you’re put in prison for this That if you stand up and you say i’m pro-life and I want to stand for what’s right and I would just like to go across the street of the abortion clinic and just pray for those moms and those children who are being aborted that you would be a threat and thrown into jail Do you think there’s no way this is happening? Is happening all the time I’m, not making it up church. Like i’m not coming up here just swinging from the hip and hoping something sticks to the wall I’m actually telling you things that are happening and they’re not in other countries They’re in america You The book of isaiah in chapter 5 opens with a song It’s a love song and isaiah is using this song about a vineyard to relay the lord’s message to his people And reminding them what else could god do for he has already done so much and he certainly Lavished his grace on us and extended his grace so that we could have eternal life So what else are we looking for? Sometimes we are like the old saying what have you done for me lately? And we have to be careful that we don’t fall into that trap as believers But that we’re always grateful full of joy and excited about what god has already accomplished on the cross for us And that we are experiencing his redemption through his great work of the cross and the resurrection I want to encourage you to check us out on hopeworthhaving.com There we have some newsletters we put out some newsletters and you can kind of keep up with our ministry what’s going on How things are happening? And if you have questions Feel free to go to the website and just hit that contact button and you’ll be able to find out more about our ministry This is pastor mike sanders reminding you that in christ. There is hope worth having
The post What More Could God do for You Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on God is in Control Part 2. He will be reading out of Isaiah 4:2-6.
How will you escape if you neglect this great salvation? If you say no to Jesus this morning and you walk away and refuse to believe, how will you escape the judgment of God? You will not, my friends, escape. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church. I want to welcome you to the Hope Worth Having radio program.
Thank you for joining us today. We’re going to be back in the book of Isaiah. We’re in chapter four.
We’re learning that God is in control. So join me as we begin this study. He will destroy the kingdoms of this world.
Daniel tells us all about that. You can read about it in Daniel 2 and Daniel 4 and Daniel 7, and you can see it in Daniel 12. But the point being is I want you to understand that this will be a beautiful day.
It’ll be a time where Jesus is not only vindicated, but it’ll be a time where we will rejoice, and we will give glory to God, and we will give praise to God. Hebrews 1. I want you to just go to Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3, real quickly. Go ahead, get your Bible out.
Come to church with your Bible because this will help you to be a student of the Word of God. You’re already scrolling on your Facebook page. You’re already scrolling on what Amazon deals are out there.
Forget all that, and recognize you’re in the presence of God. It’s a holy presence of God, and open the holy Word of God, and look at verse 3 of chapter 1 of the book of Hebrews, and referring to Jesus Christ, that who being in the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person. That’s the phrase I wanted you to see, that in that day Christ will be exalted in glory and honor.
He already is exalted, and he is glorified in the presence at the right hand of the Father, but the day is coming, my friends, where the brightness and the glory of Jesus Christ will sit in the seat of David and will reign in the city of Jerusalem. You say, why do you say that, Mike? Because the Bible says it. That’s why I say at church, and you could come up with all of your different eschatological philosophies that you want, but friends, I’m just sticking with the Bible.
In that day, Christ will be glorified. He will be beautiful and glorious. In that day, all of his enemies will be humiliated and destroyed, and they will eat the dust of this earth.
You say, what do you mean? First Corinthians chapter 15 verse 25 says, referring to Jesus, he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. Jesus will reign, my friends. He will come as a lion, and he will rule and reign.
All the agony and the suffering and the slander and the false accusations will be nullified in the glorious way when Christ, the great prince, is praised in that day because he is beautiful and he is glorious. Now, as Christians, as we live in this day, not that day that is to come, we look forward to it. I recognize that many times in Christians, we have seasons in our life where we feel that we are never going to be able to escape sin.
The Bible tells us that we wrestle with sin. We wrestle with it, that this body is still dealing with the temptations of sin. When you came to Jesus Christ and received him as your Lord and Savior, you were delivered from the penalty of sin.
The penalty of sin, that is that Jesus took that penalty on the cross. The wrath of God, the holiness of God that had to punish sin was taken care of in the cross. That’s why we glory in the cross, church.
That’s why we rejoice that our Savior died for us. But I also want you to know that as we are growing in our faith, as we’re plugged into Bible studies, as we’re plugged into mentoring relationships, as we’re plugged into the worship service, as we are under the teaching and the feeding of the Word of God, we can obtain power over sin. The power of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Word of God that helps us to be able to say no to sin and yes to Jesus Christ.
That’s why it’s so important. But yet the presence of sin is still here, and we will not be delivered until that day. In that day, you and I will eventually be delivered from the presence of sin, and we will live in a place where there is no sin, there is no sadness, there is no sorrow, there is no curse of sin upon this planet.
We will live in a day where not only all of creation is groaning for, and even that the people of God are groaning for, and even the Spirit of God is groaning for, that day when the presence of sin is absent in our life, and we can live in this utopia society where God is honored and Christ is glorified every day. Won’t that be beautiful, church? That is the hope that Isaiah wants you to have. We’ve seen the period of that day and the praise of that day.
Let’s see the prosperity in that day. I’m still in verse 2. In that day, the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious. That branch is Jesus.
You say, Mike, why do you keep saying it? Because half of you have been sleeping, and I’m trying to wake you up. But look at this, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing. It shall be excellent and appealing when Jesus Christ is honored, when righteousness is exalted and embraced.
It will impact this land and the prosperity of this land. It will bear fruit. Even broccoli will taste good.
Amen? Yes, broccoli needs salt and cheese to make it taste good. But the fruit of the land will be wonderful. It’ll be beautiful.
It’ll taste good. You and I, we watch a world that thinks they’re prospering. A world that’s so upside down.
A world that has said that right is wrong and wrong is right. A world that thinks it can just spend its way out of any problem that they have. A world that is in trillions of debt and will never be paid back.
You’re kidding yourself. And any politician who promises you is only lying to you. The prosperity of the world is only poverty.
It’s only poverty. And certainly it is most of all spiritual poverty. But in that day, the true prosperity of God will be upon the land as the curse of sin is gone.
And God will ultimately restore this beautiful place as we live in this millennial kingdom. And everything will be so glorious and wonderful in the reign of Jesus Christ. We won’t be hyped up about who’s against who and who’s against what.
But we will just enjoy that we are blessed and there’ll be so much prosperity. Doesn’t mean that you’ll have everything that you want. It just simply means that the blessings of God will be upon this place in the millennial kingdom.
You will be given assignments and responsibilities. You’ll have a job to do. You’ll wake up every day not groaning that you have to go to work, but you’ll be rejoicing.
Because you will be working in accordance to your giftedness, your passion, your abilities that God has equipped you with. You won’t be in a dead-end job. You’ll have an assignment from the Lord and it will be beautiful and it’ll be wonderful and you’ll enjoy every moment.
Why? Because the Bible teaches us that we’ll have the energy of the Lord. We wake up and we’re tired. We wake up and our bones are cracking.
We wake up and we’re looking for our wheelchair. But you know there’s coming a day when our age won’t matter and our bodies will be renewed. And Isaiah will talk about that later in that we will be like young people again and we’ll have the energy of the Lord and the strength of God.
But the day is coming where God is going to restore our youthfulness. It’s going to be beautiful church. It’s why there’ll be so much prosperity.
But I also want you to see the people of that day. The people of that day. I’m still in chapter 4 and verse 2. In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped or been delivered.
Some translations put it like that. They have been escaped or delivered. This speaks of those who will truly experience this glorious time.
Those who have been saved. Those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ. Again remember what are they escaping or what are they being delivered from? They’re being delivered from this particular tribulation time period.
Jacob’s trouble the prophets would call it. Jacob’s trouble. A seven-year period that they are being delivered from.
You come to Matthew chapter 25. In Matthew 25. I know we like to see it as something that’s applicable for today and certainly it can be.
It doesn’t go against the Word of God. But honestly what it’s teaching us in Matthew 25 is about the tribulation period. And you remember it says that Jesus would say I was hungry and you fed me.
I was in jail and you visited me. I was without clothes and you clothed me. And we believe that this is our mandate to meet the social ills of the world and certainly we should do everything we can as a church and as a believer.
But I’m telling you that the true context of Matthew 25 is about the tribulation period where those who refuse to take the mark of the beast and those in the nation of Israel who are coming to Christ. Because there’ll be 144,000 evangelists who are raised up during the tribulation period. They’ll be preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and they will be invincible until their purpose is accomplished.
And many will come to Jesus Christ but there will be great persecution. We know in Revelation 6 that there is around the throne of God a group of martyrs who are crying out to the father asking him when will he bring vengeance upon the earth for their blood. Because those who believe in Jesus Christ during the tribulation period will be under intense persecution and intense suffering.
Who are these people? Look at verse 2 again. For those of Israel who have escaped are those who have been delivered. They are the people who are delivered from the tribulation period who come to Jesus Christ more particularly.
But we have a reminder to all of us this morning. The words of Hebrews 2 3. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? How will you escape the tribulation period? How will you escape the judgment of God? How will you escape to be cast into the eternal lake of fire? Only if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. How will you escape if you neglect this great salvation? If you say no to Jesus this morning and you walk away and refuse to believe.
How will you escape the judgment of God? You will not my friends escape. Oh there is a season the Bible says that sin is pleasurable but it all comes to an end. And we all must make a decision.
And you say well I’m not going to make a decision. Well my friends to make no decision is to make a decision. But what we see here is those who escape this tribulation period are those who are truly redeemed.
Who have truly put their faith in Jesus Christ. And they will enjoy the blessings of in that day. And if you have not come to Christ for salvation this morning.
If you have not put your faith and trust in what Christ did on the cross for your sins. My friends you will not escape the divine judgment. And you will not enjoy the blessings of the millennial kingdom that is to come for all believers.
Now we get to the rest of the chapter. And we come down to verse three. He reminds us he says and it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy.
Everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. What I want you to see is the protection of that day. The protection of this beautiful day in the millennial kingdom.
God protects his own. Here the prophet Isaiah is using symbolic language to remind us of the protection of God in those last days. You remember if you’ll just go back real quickly Isaiah 1 and verse 9. We’re reminded that God always has a remnant.
And God is always protecting even when his judgment is upon us. Verse 9 unless the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant we would have become like Sodom. We would have been made like Gomorrah.
You see the judgment of God that Sodom and Gomorrah judgment upon those people because they rejected God. Because they wanted to live a selfish lifestyle. They wanted to go away from God’s plan and purpose and design for their life.
And so they chose a path that was dishonoring to God in their homosexual lifestyle. A lifestyle that offended the very holiness of God. You see my friends when I sin against God.
When I live outside of his purpose, outside of his design, and outside of his plan for my life. I am committing treason before a holy God as I am offending in my selfish sinful lifestyle a perfect and righteous God. And that’s where I need to get to in my spiritual walk with God.
That it’s not about me. It’s about honoring and glorifying a holy and righteous God. That I never want to disappoint, let down, or displease this holy and righteous God who has saved me.
Who has protected me. We come to chapter 3 and verse 10 again in the midst of all this judgment that we learned a few weeks ago. We see this that the prophet says, say to the righteous that it shall be well with them for they shall eat of the fruit of their doings.
God always has a remnant that even as judgment is raining down even upon our nation. God always has a remnant of believers who he is protecting. And we’re to be reminded of that church.
That we can continue to move forward for God. We don’t walk in fear. We do not retreat in our mission and assignment from God just because we’re in the midst of judgment.
But rather we continue to move forward in the sovereign power of God who is protecting the remnant. He is protecting the remnant. What is the source of this protection? Again we see it is the source of this protection is the Lord.
The Lord is the source. Look at verse 4, when the Lord has washed away the filth and the daughters of Zion. Verse 5, then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion and above her assemblies.
Who is it that is doing this? It is the Lord who is protecting us. This great protector is God himself. And when our protection is from God, you need no other insurance policy.
Salvation is secure in Christ. He has protected you. He is watching out and covering over you.
Making sure that you achieve what he has purposed in your life. That’s why I’m a strong believer in the security of the saints. In the eternal security of the believer because of John chapter 10 verse 28 and 29 in which Jesus said, I give them eternal life.
Not temporal life. Not partial eternal life. But he says, I give them eternal life and they shall what church? Perish.
I want you to see it. I want you to say it. I want you to feel it.
I want you to sense it. Why? Because I want you to walk out of here with confidence and hope that he will not take away your salvation. They shall never perish.
Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. You nor anyone else can snatch your spiritual eternal life out of the hand of God. How wonderful it is to know that we are in the hand of God.
Not only that the hand of God and his anointing and power to be upon us, but we are in the covering and the protection of his hand. And the Bible says, you cannot be snatched out. My father who has given them to me.
Now stop there. I wish I could just drill down on this and you’d be so overwhelmed. We would just rejoice even into the picnic time.
But here’s what the Bible says. My father has given them to me. I know you saw your salvation as only a means of escaping hell.
As perhaps fire insurance to make sure that when you check out that heaven is your home, certainly that is the surface level. But even deeper about your salvation is this. You and I, every believer that trusts in Jesus Christ is a gift from the father to the son.
You are a gift from the father to the son. And he only gives gifts that he knows will please the son. You don’t go out and buy a gift and say, I hope they don’t like it.
I mean, maybe a few of you, I don’t know. Maybe Christmas is coming and you’re going to really get even, right? Because they only gave you a hand towel last year. So you’re going to pass that candle that’s been going through the family through 10 different people, right? But here’s what I want you to know how beautiful church.
You are a gift from the father to Jesus. And Jesus says, my father who has given them to me is greater than all. He’s greater.
And no one is able to snatch them out of my father’s hand. Don’t mess with the father and his gift to the son. Don’t mess with it.
And don’t think that somehow in your finite life that you have the ability to take away Jesus’s gift from the father. Don’t think that somehow you have the ability. Do not think of yourself so highly that you have the ability to take Jesus’s gift away from the father.
You are secure and you are secured by the father. You are protected in your faith. And the question before us, is God able to protect us all? And the answer is yes.
And yes, absolutely. The sight of this protection. Hang in there church.
How could so much be in so few verses? Because the word of God is so deep we could never get to the end of it. I hope that I lead you into a study of the book of Isaiah that will lead you to greater depths than I could ever share with you. But what is the place? Well, again, we see it in verse 5, that the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion.
Again, he says, and above her assemblies, this beautiful place, Mount Zion, that God is honored. A place where God is exalted. You see, it’s not just that.
This is all symbolism. And it’s not just that it’s all something made up. But it’s a literal person, Jesus Christ, the branch.
It’s a literal place that he’s giving to us. It’s a place where we will rejoice and honor God. It’ll be far superior than any place in this world.
It will be the exalted place of where Jesus Christ will reside. And he will sit in that throne of David. And he will rule and reign.
Listen to the prophet Daniel. As he says in Daniel 12, 1, at that time, Michael shall stand up. The great prince who stands, watch over the sons of your people.
And there shall be a time of trouble. That’s that tribulation time. Such as never was since there was a nation.
Even to that time. And at that time, your people shall be delivered. Everyone who is found written in the book.
Now look, you have to be in the book. Go back to verse 3. It shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy. Everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem.
And the question is your name in the book? Is your name in the book of life? When roll call is given, is your name going to be called out? Are you in the eternal book of life? Have you trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Have you been just fiddle-faddling with the world? Dabbling in the pleasures of your sin? Or have you truly devoted your life to follow Jesus Christ? My friends, there’s much to be said here and much for us to contemplate. But I desire so much for each of you to have your name in the Lamb’s book of life. And that this church family works tirelessly, rises early and late, and gives a hundred percent and more if possible so that your name will be in the Lamb’s book of life.
And I hope that is true. I hope that is true. What is my response this morning? I hope that if you know Christ that you will choose to be holy.
That what is glorious and is to come will be a reflection, a little bit of taste on this earth, a little bit of heaven on this earth, a little bit of the millennial kingdom. Be distinct. Be different.
Make the case through your life for Jesus Christ to be a believer. Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t be someone who is against the church, but be holy.
But I would also say be hopeful, church. It’s going to get better. Now, there is going to be some troubles.
There’s going to be some problems, church. Things aren’t going to always unfold like we want them on this earth. But let’s be hopeful that there’s going to be a greater and a grander day that’s coming forward.
And listen, I want the millennial kingdom to come. Why? Because my loved ones are there. Because I want to hold them and touch them and talk to them again.
I want to interact. I want to fellowship with the people of God. I got some questions for Moses, and I got some questions for the apostle Paul.
I’m going to be one of those guys that Paul’s going to be saying, can you distract him because I got to get out of here. He’s got too many questions. Be hopeful, church.
The curse of sin is leaving this world, and your loved ones are going to be with you. Be hopeful, but also be helpful, church. Until then, until that day, let’s be helpful to one another.
Let’s take care of the household of faith. Let’s be helpful in serving. If you just give a cup of water in his name, you’re doing his work.
You got to stay engaged. You can’t get on the back burner. You can’t quit.
It’s too soon. Somebody made you mad. Well, I’m just saying power through it.
People make people mad all the time. Welcome to life. We can’t quit church.
We can’t give up. We can’t walk away from the assignment of getting the gospel to every person on this planet. We can’t quit on our job from heaven.
We must stay fully engaged. Well, Isaiah talks about a day of vengeance, a period in time in which God is going to right all the wrongs in the world. Certainly, the Bible teaches us that vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.
We cry out in our hearts for righteousness, justice, rightly so, because within our heart, God has created a desire for righteousness, and yet we will never see it fully on display in this world. We will only see it in the coming kingdom of Christ in the thousand-year reign of the millennial kingdom. And we look forward to that day in which God will establish justice and righteousness in the land.
I want to encourage you to make sure that you are checking us out on YouTube. You can get this entire sermon in the YouTube channel. Just go under our playlist, and we have different books of the Bible that we’ve been teaching and preaching from.
And if you’ll jump into the book of Isaiah, you can pick up and see this whole message and take advantage of learning and growing and developing. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post God is in Control Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on God is in Control Part 1. He will be reading out of Isaiah 4:2-6.
And he is glorified in the presence at the right hand of the Father But the day is coming my friends where the brightness and the glory of Jesus Christ Will sit in the seat of David and will reign in the city of Jerusalem You say why do you say that Mike because the Bible says it Hello, this is pastor Mike Sanders Thank you for joining us today as we are sharing the Word of God and we’re looking forward to opening God’s truth And its impact upon our life. If you have your Bible, I want you to join us in Isaiah chapter 4 Isaiah chapter 4 as we are learning the incredible truth that God is in control I want you to take your Bible and join me in Isaiah chapter 4 and this morning We’re covering verse 2 through 6, which actually will complete chapter 4 in the book of Isaiah Now when you come to chapter 4 we Obviously as Americans we like to start in verse 1 But actually verse 1 belongs to chapter 3 and I know some of you are about ready to call me a heretic But it’s not the chapters and the verses relating to their addresses is not inspired by God It was actually added later. And so sometimes there are some mistakes that have taken Verse 1 of chapter 4 belongs in chapter 3 and in chapter 4 verse 2 is the Beginning of a whole new thought you remember that I taught you early at the outset That Isaiah goes back and forth.
It’s not that Isaiah is struggling It’s not that he has ADHD. He can’t stay focused or anything like that. But rather he is reminding us of Not only the current situation of Israel and Judah and Jerusalem and the judgment of God but he continues to infuse hope into the hearts of God’s people by reminding them of the future and So in chapter 1 we see that Isaiah starts out with this vision that he received from God It’s a vision of God’s judgment upon the people because they have not put God first in their hearts We jumped to chapter 2 and we see that now we’re launched into that Millennial Kingdom future Verse 2 of chapter 2 says now it shall come to pass in the latter days We understand that those latter days are referring to this dispensation of the Millennial Kingdom Some people do not like the word dispensation But it is in the Bible the Apostle Paul talks about different time periods and different ages if you will or different particular purposes that God has in Unfolding his ultimate will upon this earth And so we see in that Millennial Kingdom chapter 2 some beautiful things that we’ve already shared with you we come back to chapter 3 and again a warning to Judah a warning to Jerusalem a warning of what are the signs of the judgment of God a Few weeks ago when we walked you through chapter 3 I’m sure that maybe it felt like a heaviness and I’m sure there was some Wow, it seems like this is what we’re experiencing in America.
It’s true It’s exactly what we’re experiencing in America, and it’s not that America will be judged But when we look at Isaiah We see the signs in chapter 3 of the judgment of God upon Israel upon Judah upon Jerusalem And thus these signs are already being manifested in America and my friends It’s not that we will be judged, but we are being judged America is under the judgment of God And so please don’t be saying that we just feel like that’s something for the future. I Want you to know I really believe with all my heart. This is opinion.
Okay, this is opinion but I believe America has peaked out and Now we are beginning into those stages. We’re leading us to the rapture of the church and to the tribulation of the world But when we come to chapter 4 again Isaiah is switching from the signs of judgment To remind us of the future. I call it simply this I’ve entitled my message.
God is in control God is in control Church, whatever might happen in the future of this nation Whatever might happen in this world. God is in control. He is not let go He is fulfilling his will in This text of chapter 4 verse 2 through 6. We are reminded that there is something to look forward to That there is a positive view that Isaiah gives us of the end times which is in contrast to the negative signs of chapter 3 There’s a deliberate contrast From chapter 3 to chapter 4. I think that Isaiah through the work of the Spirit of God Inspiring Isaiah to pen down the very words and the breath of God understands that we can only take so much and so after we read a Chapter like chapter 3 of great judgment upon the nation of Israel Surely it is that the people of God need a hope They need something to look forward to So God is clearing all the wreckage of the people sin and he is building a perfect City the city of Zion in its place and we’ll talk more about that in the book of Revelation But I want you to see some things here, but let’s first pick up in verse 2 it says in that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped or been delivered and It shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem Will be called holy Everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem when the Lord was washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and Purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning Then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion and Above her assemblies a cloud and a smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night for over all the glory there will be a covering and there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat for a place of refuge and for a shelter from storm and rain The first thing that I want you to see in this text is that we see a period of the day of that day Noticed again in verse 2. He reuses that phrase in that day Now the first two verses of this chapter Meaning verse 2 and 3 the prophet is trying to help us to understand that God is in control He’s in control of the times and the seasons that are unfolding on this earth And he is affirming to the people that yes, there is judgment but there is something to look forward to he reminds them that in that day this will be a period of vindication for the Lord note again that it says in verse 2 in that day the branch the Lord shall be Beautiful and glorious there’ll be vindication for Jesus the Messiah you see I want you to understand again Try to see this big scope and try to see this big picture if you will with me It’s very hard sometimes in a worship service to help you to see exactly what God is doing but it’s an assembly of all of what the scriptures teach, but I want you to know that Israel has rejected Jesus as their Messiah Jesus came to this earth offered himself to the Jews first the Apostle Paul when he preached the gospel He offered the gospel of salvation to the Jews first We’re commanded to take the scriptures and the gospel to the Jews first What was the Apostle’s strategy when he would go from place to place? He would first go to the synagogue He would go first to the gatherings of the Jewish Meetings and he would share the gospel of Jesus Christ But unfortunately in the ministry of Christ and the ministry of the Apostles overall the Jews rejected Jesus They rejected Christ as the true Messiah but in that day Look again the branch which is referring to Christ the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious there’s a vindication that is unfolding in that day a Vindication of what God has established his way his righteousness his word his truth is being Vindicated before all the Bible tells us in Romans 11 26 that all of Israel shall be saved And you see what is the tribulation period about some people think it’s about them but they need to get their eyes off themselves and on to the glory of God and Recognize that the tribulation is not for the believer but it’s for the Jewish people the nation of Israel that they would come to Recognize and to realize that Jesus Christ is The true Messiah.
He is the one they’ve been waiting for. He is the one that was promised by the prophet Isaiah He is the one that they are to be looking for and he is the one that they are to believe in and he will bring true salvation Jesus Christ came the first time to Save us from our sins he came as a lamb the Lamb of God who would die on the cross for our sins so that you and I could come by faith and believe in Christ and Experience the grace and the forgiveness of God in our life, but he’ll come the second time as a lion He’ll come as a lion who will rule he will reign and friends in that tribulation period just as The second coming of Christ is upon this earth The Bible teaches us in Zechariah that the people the nation of Israel they will mourn and they will grieve because they will Recognize that they have crucified Jesus Christ and that he is the true one that was sent by God and that he is the one that has come to deliver them from their sins and from their enemies and to establish a kingdom that will be a Thousand years upon this earth. How glorious would that be? That’s what I want you to see there in verse 2 that in that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious It’s a period of vindication.
It’s a period of vengeance in That day is referring to a time when God will bring judgment upon sin We go back to chapter 2 go back if you will with me to chapter 2 verse 12 for the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything that is proud and Lofty upon everything lifted up. It shall be brought low. God will humiliate the prideful God will bring down every king and kingdom of this world Jump to chapter 3 in verse 7 and you’ll note again that in that day What day this latter time in that day? He will protest Saying I cannot curve your ills for in my house and neither food nor clothing Do not make me a ruler of the people.
I told you one of the signs of the latter days one of the signs of the judgment of God upon a nation is That those who are competent and capable of leading will refuse to leave that’s what you’re seeing in verse 7 and Then in verse 18 of chapter 3 in that day The Lord will take away the finery the jingling Anklets and the scarves and the crescents and it goes on it just talking about people who are more interested in style than substance The women are all about making sure that they have their bling-bling going instead of having a relationship with Jesus Christ More concerned about the outward than the inward This is the signs of the times of a culture that is under the judgment of God It may seem like sin is ruling and reigning in our world that we live in It sometimes feels like the world is pushing out God. I saw this morning that 27% of Americans Have no religion no belief in God at all you can only imagine what that number is of people who have a warp view of God or Misunderstanding of who Christ is We live in complicated Confusing times this is part of the judgment of God But in that day God will Judge and he will bring a judgment upon this nation when God returns that second time Jesus Christ And he will defeat all the kingdoms of this earth. He will destroy Everyone that is high and lofty and he will make all evil to be banished It is in that day that Isaiah is reminding us that is to come and so he says in that day That the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious I Want you to see not only the period of that day, but the praise of that day in that Day, the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful.
The branch is already stated as Jesus Christ We know this Jeremiah taught us this in verse 5 behold The days are coming declares the Lord when I will raise up for David a righteous branch What he’s been saying is that a righteous branch shall come out of the lineage of David Out of the heritage of David out of the family tree of David That’s why Matthew took time to help us to see that Jesus did come from the lineage of David That’s why he walked back for us in those beginning chapters. You say what’s the big deal pastor? Why do I got to read about who begat who? What’s it matter because the Jews were particular about this but also because it was the fulfillment of prophecy It was the fulfillment of what God had always promised Jesus would come from That lineage of David a righteous branch chapter 23 of Jeremiah and he will reign as a what church Look up he will reign as a king right before you. He will act wisely I think it is and he will do Justice and righteousness in the land a Church, please again I’m trying to help you sometimes look closely and I’m trying to help you to step back and look at this 30,000 foot view of the Bible and prophecy and what it teaches us So again, why does pastor Mike believe in the rapture of the church before the tribulation because the tribulation is not about? Me or the church or believers it is about the nation of Israel coming to grips that Jesus is the true Messiah and so then What is the Millennial Kingdom about it is about the fulfillment of the prophecies of? Jeremiah and Isaiah and Zechariah and Amos who continued to proclaim That there’s coming a day when this King Jesus Christ Will rule and reign look at verse 5 again of Jeremiah put it back up there on that screen that he will reign as king he will act wisely and do justice and Righteousness in the land the Bible tells us when Christ comes that second time at the end of this seven year Tribulation period that we will come back with him His Saints will come back with him and will rule and reign with Jesus Christ and he will fulfill all the prophecies That were given and it’ll be in the seat of David in the city of Jerusalem And he will rule with righteousness and get that underscore that bookmark it in your in your device He will reign and act wisely.
How about that? There is a lot of common sense that has left, Washington DC, man You say how did you get Washington DC out of that verse? It’s just a contrast Thank God Jesus will make great decisions awesome decisions Thank the Lord that Jesus will reign. He will be our leader not just spiritually but politically He will act wisely. He will do justice and righteousness in the land That’ll be in the Millennial Kingdom so after this seven-year tribulation Then Christ will come and he will defeat all the kingdoms of this world All those who are anti God he will defeat the Antichrist He will destroy the kingdoms of this world Daniel tells us all about that You can read about it in Daniel 2 and Daniel 4 and Daniel 7 and you can see it in Daniel 12 But the point being is I want you to understand that this will be a beautiful day It’ll be a time where Jesus is not only vindicated, but it’ll be a time where we will rejoice and We will give glory to God and we will give praise to God Hebrews 1 I want you to just go to Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3 real quickly Go ahead get your Bible out come to church with your Bible Because this will help you to be a student of the Word of God you’re already scrolling on your Facebook page you’re already scrolling on what Amazon deals are out there forget all that and Recognize you’re in the presence of God It’s a holy presence of God and open the Holy Word of God and look at verse 3 of chapter 1 of the book of Hebrews and Referring to Jesus Christ said who being in the brightness of his glory and the express image Of his person that’s the phrase I wanted you to see that in that day Christ will be exalted in glory and honor.
He already is Exalted and he is glorified in the presence at the right hand of the Father But the day is coming my friends where the brightness and the glory of Jesus Christ Will sit in the seat of David and will reign in the city of Jerusalem You say why do you say that Mike because the Bible says it? That’s why I say at church and you could come up with all of your different eschatological Philosophies that you want but friends. I’m just sticking with the Bible in That day Christ will be glorified He will be beautiful and glorious in that day All of his enemies will be humiliated and destroyed and they will eat the dust of this earth You say what do you mean? First Corinthians chapter 15 verse 25 says referring to Jesus. He must reign Until he has put all his enemies under his feet Jesus will reign my friends.
He will come as a lion and he will rule and reign all the agony and the suffering and the slander and the false Accusations will be nullified in the glorious way when Christ the great prince is praised in that day because he is beautiful and he is glorious Now as Christians as we live in this day Not that day that is to come we look forward to it. I Recognize that many times in Christians we have seasons in our life where we feel that we are never going to be able to escape sin The Bible tells us that we wrestle with sin We wrestle with it that this body is still dealing with the temptations of sin When you came to Jesus Christ and received him as your Lord and Savior You were delivered from the penalty of sin the penalty of sin that is that Jesus took that penalty on the cross the wrath of God that the holiness of God that had to punish sin was Taken care of in the cross. That’s why we glory in the cross Church That’s why we rejoice that our Savior died for us But I also want you to know that as we are growing in our faith as we’re plugged into Bible studies as we’re plugged into mentoring relationships as we’re plugged into the worship service as we are under the teaching and the feeding of the Word of God We can obtain power over sin The power of the Holy Spirit the power of the Word of God that helps us to be able to say no to sin and yes to Jesus Christ that’s why it’s so important, but yet the presence of sin is still here and We will not be delivered until that day In that day you and I will eventually be delivered from the presence of sin And we will live in a place where there is no sin.
There is no sadness. There is no sorrow There is no curse of sin upon this planet We will live in a day where not only all of creation is groaning for and even that the people of God are groaning for and even the Spirit of God is groaning for that day when the Presence of sin is absent in our life and we can live in this utopia Society where God is honored and Christ is glorified every day. Won’t that be beautiful church? That is the hope that Isaiah wants you to have We’ve seen the period of that day in the praise of that day.
Let’s see the prosperity in that day I’m still in verse 2 in that day. The branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious that branches Jesus You say Mike, why do you keep saying it? Because half of you’ve been sleeping I’m trying to wake you up But look at this and the fruit of the earth Shall be excellent and Appealing It shall be excellent and appealing when Jesus Christ is honored when righteousness is exalted and embraced it will Impact this land and the prosperity of this land. It will bear fruit.
Even broccoli will taste good. Amen Yes, broccoli needs salt and cheese to make it taste good But the fruit of the land will be wonderful it’ll be beautiful it’ll taste good You and I We watch a world that thinks they’re prospering a world that’s so upside down a world that has said that right is wrong and wrong is right a World that thinks it can just spend its way out of any problem that they have A world that is in trillions of debt and will never be paid back You’re kidding yourself And any politician who promises you is only lying to you The prosperity of the world is only poverty. It’s only poverty and Certainly it is most of all spiritual poverty but in that day The true prosperity of God will be upon the land as the curse of sin is gone and God will ultimately restore this beautiful place as we live in this millennial kingdom and Everything will be so glorious and wonderful in the reign of Jesus Christ We won’t be hyped up About who’s against who and who’s against what? But we will just enjoy That we are blessed and there’ll be so much prosperity doesn’t mean that you’ll have everything that you want It just simply means that the blessings of God will be upon this place in the millennial kingdom you will be given assignments and Responsibilities you’ll have a job to do you’ll wake up every day not groaning that you have to go to work But you’ll be rejoicing Because you will be working in accordance to your giftedness your passion Your abilities that God has equipped you with You won’t be in a dead-end job.
You’ll have an assignment from the Lord and it will be beautiful and it’ll be Wonderful and you’ll enjoy every moment why because the Bible teaches us that we’ll have the energy of the Lord We wake up and we’re tired We wake up and our bones are cracking We wake up and we’re looking for our wheelchair but you know, there’s coming a day with our age won’t matter and our bodies will be renewed and Isaiah will talk about that later in that we will be like Young people again and we’ll have the energy of the Lord and the strength of God But the day is coming where God is going to restore our youthfulness It’s going to be beautiful church It’s why there’ll be so much prosperity, but I also want you to see the people of that day the people of that day I’m still in chapter 4 and verse 2 in that day The branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel Who have escaped? Or been delivered some translations put it like that they have been Escaped or delivered this speaks of those who will truly experience This glorious time those who have been Saved Those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ again Remember, what are they escaping or what are they being delivered from they’re being delivered from this particular? tribulation time period Jacob’s trouble the prophets would call it We have quite the contrast of chapter 3 to chapter 4 the book of Isaiah Isaiah 3 is talking about judgment and what God is going to do to a nation that has turned their back on him But here in Isaiah chapter 3 God is showing us the future of what it’s going to be like when God brings everything full circle Redeems his people fully and we are walking in the joy of the Lord and enjoying all that he has for us So it’s wonderful to know that God is in control Even in the negative or the positive God is in control of the valley or the mountain God is in control of the past As well as the future and so we continue to worship him and I hope that’ll be your focus This week as you worship the Lord and live for him each and every day We encourage you to check us out on social media We’re on Facebook YouTube and we provide material and encouragement and ways for you to learn and to grow and I hope you’ll take advantage Of that this is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ. There is hope worth having
The post God is in Control Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Loss of Stability Part 2. He will be reading out of Isaiah 3:1-19.
Yes, the Bible teaches that Christ will judge all unbelievers at the great white throne judgment, that those who do not believe in Christ will be cast into the lake of fire. And I believe there is a heaven to gain, and there is a real hell to shun. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from The Open Door Church, and we welcome you to the Hope Worth Having radio program.
We’re excited that you are with us today, and we’re looking forward to sharing God’s word with you. We’re in Isaiah chapter three, so I want you to grab your Bible and let’s get right into this study. That’s what’s going on.
I know we don’t like to hear it, and I know that people say, well, I’m for this and I’m for that. Listen to me, my friends, what you need to be is for the Lord Jesus Christ. You don’t need to worry about what political team you’re on.
You need to make sure that you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and that you’re on God’s team, amen? I think about all that’s happening, and my heart grieves over what we read, what is popping up on our social media feeds, what is we’re witnessing on television or radio or these things that we’re hearing about. It only helps me understand more of what God says to us in this sense, that God is not the author of confusion. If you’re confused about your identity, if you’re confused about your gender, if you’re confused about your purpose, that didn’t come from God.
That didn’t come from the word of God. The Bible teaches us just the opposite. God is a God of order.
He is a God of structure. He is a God of purpose and great intent, and He has a plan for our lives, and He has a will for our life, and the only way that we will find true significance and true meaning is to follow the will of God. Your significance is rooted in your relationship with Jesus Christ, and to try to go the way of the world, and they’re only going to cause more confusion in your life and more chaos in your life, but God is not the author of confusion, but the world is, and the flesh is, and Satan is, and so this confusion oppresses on our young people, and they’re trying to navigate through all these voices that are telling them this and that as if somehow God made a mistake about their life, but God makes no mistakes, does He? Our God is perfect in His purposes.
We don’t always understand them, and we may not always agree with them in our finite life that we live and that we are not always understanding of the big picture, but we still give praise to God. We still worship the Lord. We understand what is happening, and we know the Lord has a plan, and we fulfill that plan, and what I’m saying to you this morning is that what you’re witnessing in chapter three of the nation of Judah and the fall of Jerusalem and the fall of Judah is exactly the path that America is on.
Thankfully, God is long-suffering, isn’t He? And as even our nation ravagely destroys one another and devours one another, as the Apostle Paul said, we are under the promise that there’s coming a day when God is going to right the wrongs, and God is going to bring peace, and He’s going to bring purity, and He’ll rule and reign with justice and righteousness. The question is, are you ready? Are you ready for the return of Jesus Christ? When you see all these things bubbling up and you see the things that are unfolding in our nation, you really ought to take a spiritual inventory on your life. I know it’s easy to curse the darkness, but what you really ought to do is say, where am I at? Am I spiritually ready? Because it seems to me that the signs of the times are imminent upon us, and we can see that His return is very near, and thus, we should be ready to meet our Savior.
Amos said to the people of God, are you prepared to meet your God? Are you prepared? That is not only essential for you and I as followers of Christ, but if you’re here this morning and do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior, and you have never put your trust in Him for your salvation, you must know that judgment is imminent, that it is soon coming. Not only with the return of the Lord, there is going to be judgment upon unbelieving sinners. Yes, that’s what the Bible teaches.
That is what is upon us. And we see, as we read all the way through verse 18, all the way through verse 23, as he describes the different things that the women are trying to do to get attention to themselves, then we come to verse 25, your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty in the war. Her gates shall lament and mourn, and she, being desolate, shall sit on the ground.
Talking about the nation, the nation. Now, we don’t like to think of God in terms of judgment, but we must remember that God’s judgment is very purposeful. It is purposeful for us as a nation, as a community, and certainly as a church family.
What is God’s purpose in His judgments that He brings upon us? Please remember what I told you earlier, that it’s not that we’re waiting for the judgment of God. What you’re witnessing is the judgment of God upon this nation, a nation that is slaughtered, unborn babies, millions of them. A nation that has turned their back against God, a nation that looks to everything but the Lord for answers.
What is the purpose of God’s judgment? Well, first of all, I would say to you, it displays His glory. The judgment of God displays the glory of God. Revelations 14, 7 reminds us that we are to fear God and give Him glory because the hour of His judgment has come and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.
When we see the manifestation of the judgment of God, we ought to worship God and give glory to God because we are reminded that our God has not forgotten us, that He is bringing attention to the matter, and that He is letting things unfold in a purposeful way to bring about the most glory to Him. My life and your life is about the glory of God. It has been written by our forefathers that the chief end of man is to glorify God.
Every day that we rise up, it is to glorify God. But yet, even in the judgment of God, whether that is upon me personally or that is upon a nation, we can bring glory to God Almighty. Why else would God bring judgment? To vindicate the righteous.
To vindicate the righteous. The Bible says in Revelation 6, 10 that they cried with a loud voice saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? We understand the scriptures to teach us that it won’t be long before the church of Christ is raptured out of here. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, the trump will sound.
The dead in Christ will rise from the grave. That’s some of our loved ones, isn’t it? And they will rise from the grave, united with their soul and spirit. And then the dead in Christ who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with the Lord to be with Him forever.
Can God’s people say amen? That will usher in a seven-year tribulation. The seven-year tribulation will be about God getting the attention of the nation of Israel so it all can culminate within this seven years to Romans chapter 11, verse 26, which the scripture says that all Israel shall be saved. In the midst of that, people have said, Well, in the tribulation, you can’t get saved.
But that’s wrong. Because Revelation chapter 6, which is in the midst of the tribulation period, says that there are those who were martyred during the tribulation who are before the throne of God, and they’re asking God the question, How long before you avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Here’s what they’re saying. Lord, how long will it be before you right the wrongs? During the tribulation, the Antichrist will take over, and he will rule the world in a one-world government system, a one-world economic system, and a one-world religious system.
He will control everybody. And those who refuse to take his mark, the mark of the beast, will be martyred. They will flee to the mountains.
They will hide from the Antichrist and his cohorts, who will try to do everything that they can to destroy those who will not align with the Antichrist. What will be the result is that there will be many who have come to Jesus Christ during the tribulation period, because the Bible says that there’ll be 144,000 evangelists who will be raised, and they will spread the gospel to every person on every planet. Can you imagine 144,000 Billy Grahams telling people to get right with Jesus Christ and to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? Isn’t that going to be awesome? And these 144,000 will be invincible.
They will not be able to be stopped by the Antichrist, and they will continue to march forward to fulfill the purpose of God. People will come to Christ. They will refuse the mark of the beast.
They will be martyred for the cause of Jesus Christ. They will stand before the throne, and they will say to the Lord, how long, how long before you avenge our blood? We read in the book of Revelation, when you read about the bowls and the vials and the trumpets, these are the outpouring of the judgment of God. What is going to be taking place in this seven-year tribulation is not only all of hell will be opened up and the wrath of Satan will be poured upon the nations and the people, but all of heaven will be opened up, and the wrath of God and the judgment of God will be poured upon the people through the expression of trumpets, bowls, and vials, and they will then experience the wrath of God and Satan so much that they will desire to be hidden in the cliffs and the rocks because they cannot stand all that they are experiencing.
And why is it that God is allowing this to unfold? Two purposes, church. Do not forget it. Number one is to vindicate the righteous.
And number two, to bring the nation of Israel to true salvation. God’s judgment is purposeful not only to display his glory and to vindicate the righteous, but to defend the weak. The psalmist said in Psalm 140 verse 12, I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted and justice for the poor.
It’s so unfortunate to see people take advantage of the poor and to afflict the weak, but the day is coming that God will judge and he will vindicate those and defend those who are weak among us. Why is it that God’s judgment is purposeful, as we already mentioned, to bring salvation to people? We already went through that, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time, but simply to say this, that even in the judgment of God, people can come to the Lord Jesus Christ. We look at judgment as being an evil thing or a bad thing, and perhaps there are times that could be, but I’m telling you, when the judgment is from God, he has a purpose and he’s working out his purpose.
You remember the story in the gospels when there was this large tower that had fallen upon the innocent and fallen upon the people. It was a great tragedy. It brings up the great question, why do good people suffer and why do people face such dramatic tragedies? When they went to Jesus and said, why do you think that this happened? He said to them, do you think you’re better? Do you think that you’re better than other people? That somehow you escaped this tragedy and this suffering because somehow you were better? He reminds them, it is a reminder to you to repent and believe that God even uses the tragedies and the sufferings of this world to draw our attention to the brevity of life and that just like that, life can be over.
That I can jump in a car after church today and I can pull right onto Grandview Avenue and bam, somebody run right into me. That I can go to a restaurant and eat a wonderful lunch and then bam, have a heart attack. That’s how brief life is.
A tragedy can happen, something that we’ve never anticipated, but it’s a send a message to all of humanity. Life is like a vapor. It’s here today and gone tomorrow.
Are you prepared to meet the Lord? Are you ready to stand before Jesus Christ, which brings us to what I believe to be the ultimate purpose of the judgment of God. It is to turn people to God. Hebrews 12, verse 5 and 6 reminds us that God disciplines us even as believers and he says, and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, my son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are punished by him for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines and he punishes every son whom he accepts.
When you and I get off track, when we start going our own way, instead of the way of the Lord, the Lord knows how to bring us back in alignment with him. He just does. Just like your parents did, or at least they should have.
I know people say to me, pastor, I’m against spanking and I always feel like maybe I was one spanking away from being a good kid, amen. Judgment serves as a means of getting our attention. God’s punishment is both corrective and restorative.
It is not to destroy. God is not trying to destroy our lives as much as he’s trying to correct our lives and he’s trying to restore our lives back to him, to fully faithful, devoted followers of Christ. Isaiah 19, verse 22 says that the Lord will strike Egypt, he will strike and heal it and they will return to the Lord and he will be entreated by them and heal them.
God knows how to get our attention. Temporal judgments may turn people to God and save them from eternal judgment. I want you to take your Bible this morning very quickly to 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians, those of you that are able, you have your Bible. If you don’t, grab one in front of the pew there. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, I want you to go there if you will.
If you are with us on a regular basis, you know that when we have our communion services that we often reference 1 Corinthians chapter 11. We take it very serious. The Bible instructs us that we are to approach the Lord’s table in a manner that is worthy unto God, worthy of what he has accomplished for us.
That is that we don’t bring grudges to the Lord’s table. We don’t bring our guilt to the Lord’s table. We don’t bring our grievances to the Lord’s table.
We don’t bring our pride and glory to the Lord’s table. We come as humble servants and that’s why we are instructed in verse 28 of chapter 11, let a man examine himself and let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Why? Because verse 29 says, he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
He’s not talking to the unbeliever in this passage. He’s talking to you and me because the only people that are allowed to come to the Lord’s table are those who love Jesus Christ, those who believe in Christ. And yes, the word judgment is in the Bible.
How about that? And he says that if you come with the wrong heart, you are eating and drinking judgment to yourself because you’ve disrespected what Christ has accomplished. He goes on to say in verse 30, I want you to stay with me, church. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you and many sleep or have died.
These are not Mike’s words. These are the words of God. God takes it so serious that part of this judgment may manifest itself in sickness, weakness, and even death.
But what is the remedy? Look at verse 31. If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. And I might add this by God.
If you had the courage and the faith to judge your own sin now, you would not have to be judged later by God. If you had the faith to confess your sin now, to come clean with God now, it would all be under the blood. For if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to cleanse us and to forgive us of our sins.
And yet too many believers are holding on to their sin. They’ve got it tucked into that closet. It’s a secret sin.
Nobody knows about it. They’ve not come clean and honest before God, and they are keeping it from everyone. And God says, you need to deal with it.
And it’s better to deal with it now. Your doctor may say, hey, it’d be better if you dealt with this now than wait till later. And God is saying spiritually, it’d be better if you dealt with it now than wait till later than wait till later.
Some people think that Jesus is too kind to judge anyone. However, Jesus spoke more about hell than he ever did about heaven. Jesus spoke often about the reality and the seriousness of God’s judgment.
And his disciples and apostles taught the same in the word of God. I want you to later this day, maybe as you close out the Lord’s day, you could spend some time in the scriptures today. But in the gospel of John chapter five, verse 22, 27 and 30, we’re reminded of how God does bring judgment.
Well, I know that’s heavy. It’s hard for us to digest all the pastor Mike’s saying here. Imagine Judah as they heard the prophet Isaiah say all this.
And I’m being a lot nicer than Isaiah was. But what do we do about this, Mike? What do we do about this? My final thoughts and I’ll set you free. For us to remember that Jesus is the only savior and his gospel is the only gospel.
The word gospel means good news. And the reason the good news is so good to us, because the bad news is so bad to us. When you read Isaiah chapter three, you can be overwhelmed with the bad news.
You can be overwhelmed with sin and you can be overwhelmed with the judgment of God. But I’m here to bring you good news, church. And that is the gospel of Jesus Christ, not the gospel of the world.
That is a fleeting good news. That is a good news that will not lead to salvation. I’m not bringing you the good news of false teachers who promise you so much more than whatever could be delivered to you.
But I’m bringing you the good news of Jesus Christ. Yes, the Bible teaches that Christ will judge all unbelievers at the great white throne judgment. Yes, the Bible teaches us that those who do not believe in Christ will be cast into the lake of fire.
And I believe as I took you through that series on heaven and hell, I believe the word of God and I believe what it says. And I believe there is a heaven to gain and there is a real hell to shine. I believe it, church.
And if I didn’t, I would not stand up here and go through all that I go through. Just for nothing. You understand that? And neither would you.
Neither would you. If there is no heaven and there is no hell, let us eat, drink and be merry and live selfishly however we want to. But there is a heaven and there is a hell.
And so what do we do? Well, for those of you that trust in Christ, Christ has already judged our sin on the cross. We deserve God’s judgment, but Jesus took our place on the cross. Thus, we hold on to the promise of Romans chapter 8 verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.
That’s why Isaiah encouraged them in verse 10 of chapter 3 that there is this remnant and this remnant will be rewarded. And this remnant of believers are safe and protected by God. And listen, no matter how difficult this world gets, whether it’s in your personal circumstances or in a national political sense or whatever direction this nation goes, we can still love God.
We can still live for Christ. Why? Because we have the hope that there is no condemnation to those who are in Jesus Christ. Church, I don’t have to be afraid.
I don’t have to worry because why? Jesus went to the cross for me. He took my place on the cross. Christ took all the fury of God’s wrath.
We deserved. He bore the punishment, the guilt, the shame of all who believe. That’s why the gospel is such good news.
That’s why Paul would go on to say in verse 32 of chapter 11, first Corinthians, in which we just read. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world. Why is it that God would chasten us? Why would he discipline us as believers? Because we’re not acting like we should.
We’re not representing the faith. We’re not representing the cause. We’re not representing the mission.
And so God will align us. He will discipline us. But we’re not condemned with the world.
Why? Why are we not condemned with the world? Why is it that this judgment that is coming upon the world? Why is it that we escape it? Because first, we’re not ordained to it. But second of all, because we have put our faith in Christ and what he did on the cross for our sins. And God’s people said, men, church, knowing the wrath and judgment of God should cause each of our hearts to cherish the gospel.
God delivers his people from the judgment of sin through the sacrifice of Christ. It is no wonder the apostle said that we are not to be shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven. Yes, we read chapter three and we say, that’s a mess.
We see our world and we say, that’s mass confusion. But church, you keep trucking forward for Christ because he died for your sins and you have the hope of the gospel and you have something to look forward to every day no matter how messed up this world gets. And you cling to that old rugged cross and you give thanks to God that at the bare minimum, you know Jesus Christ and you are protected and shielded from the wrath and the anger and the judgment of God because you are in Christ and there is no condemnation.
But we do not well, church, if we just hold this good news to ourselves. Let us fan out into this community and continue to have spiritual conversations with our friends, our family, strangers, people that God puts in our path. And as they talk about the bad news of the world, and they will remind them of the good news in Jesus Christ.
Well, this has been a straightforward message and God pulls no punches and through his prophet, he is reminding us how important it is to build our lives on the solid rock of Jesus Christ and how important it is for us to stay focused in our walk with him. And so we hope that you are striving and that you are giving all your energy and that you are living for Jesus Christ and that God will use that to create spiritual stability in your life and help you to be a solid person for him. Now, we do remind you that we have a podcast and we have blogs and you can check all these out on HopeWorthHaving.com and you just go under the About Us, the different ministries we have, and these things will pop up and you’ll see whether you like to read, listen, exercise, listening, whatever works for you.
And you can continue to be challenged in the word of God. You also have it all on video and you can take advantage of that through our YouTube channel. And we hope that you will use these tools for God’s glory.
This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post The Loss of Stability Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Loss of Stability Part 1. He will be reading out of Isaiah 3:1-19.
When you see the things that are unfolding in our nation, you really ought to take a spiritual inventory on your life because we can see that his return is very near and thus we should be ready to meet our Savior. This is Hope Worth Having with your host Pastor Mike Sanders and we look forward to joining together in exploring what God’s Word has to say. Today we’re going to be in Isaiah chapter 3 and we’re going to talk about the loss of stability.
And so what happens when we lose that stability and we’re not on that solid rock, Jesus Christ? Let’s talk about that today as we study together. Now if you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in Isaiah chapter 3. Isaiah chapter 3, a few weeks ago we began this incredible journey through the book of Isaiah. We’ve only made it to chapter 3, but be encouraged.
Hang in there, we’ve got 66 chapters to cover and somehow, someway, perhaps we will make it through. But we’re okay if God interrupts our series and calls us home, right? We’re not going to argue and you’ll probably get a better lesson up in heaven than you would down here on earth. Now when we come to Isaiah chapter 3, as I have been sharing with you, church, that through the first half of the book of Isaiah, there is a lot of Isaiah pointing out the things that the nation of Israel and particularly Judah, which the nation of Israel had been divided into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom, and he refers to Judah as a nation of a people who have turned their back on God.
Isaiah chapter 3 proclaims that God will bring down the exalted or the prideful. And how will he do this? By removing their leadership and then elevating those who do not deserve any kind of position of rule or leadership. The results will be disastrous for Judah.
We’ll read about that very shortly, but Isaiah describes a nation that is void of military, political, and religious leadership. Sound familiar? Well, when we pick up in verse 1 of chapter 3 of the book of Isaiah, we note that the scripture says, for behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stock and the store, the whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water, the mighty man, meaning the military, the warrior, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the diviner, and the elder, and the captain of 50, and the honorable man, the counselor, and the skillful artisan, and the expert enchanter. What is it that God is bringing upon this nation, the nation of Judah, is that he is stripping them of any quality and competent leadership.
He is taking away from them the blessing of good leadership. He is bringing judgment upon the nation. Again, we see in verse 4, what is the replacement of these leaders? Well, again, let’s look at verse 4. He says, I will give children to be their princes.
He’s not specifically saying children in the sense of age, but in common sense and maturity, that they will be like children, people with no common sense. I often like to say that common sense has left the building. And here the Bible says that God will give children to be their princesses, and babes shall rule over them.
The people will be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbor. The child will be insolent towards the elder, and the base toward the honorable. Now, what we’re seeing here is the people that God is allowing to oversee this nation, that not only are they immature, but they’re incompetent.
They don’t have the qualification and so the judgment of God is upon this nation, and it is being punished with godless leadership. And this godless leadership will lead to desperate leadership, and the people will begin to spiral downward. The nation, the culture, the community will continue to go south and plummet, eventually leading to disaster.
I remind you, church, that when we often think about the things that our culture is facing, we talk about something in the future relating to the judgment of God. But I want you to know that America, very similar to this circumstance that we see in Judah, is experiencing the same thing. The loss of stability, the loss of certainty, and we are under the judgment of God.
It’s not that we will be judged one day. America is being judged. You’re trying to navigate it through the complications of this world and how to somehow make it through the different things that are going on, things that used to be so certain and understandable and used to be the bedrock of who we are as a nation have all been stripped away, and we are left with incompetent people leading us, not only just as a nation, but many times in our communities, in our cities.
So we’re seeing all this take place. So we ask the question, how will God judge? How will he judge his people? Well, we jump down to verse 8, and I think we get a clearer understanding that God is going to not only take away from us, and certainly through Judah, everything that we trust, but he’s going to give us leadership that will lead us down the wrong direction. Look at verse 8. For Jerusalem stumbled and Judah is fallen, because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory, to look on their countenance, witnesses against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom.
They do not hide it. Woe to their soul, for they have brought evil upon themselves. How does God judge his people? He will judge them by stripping away everything that we have trusted, everything that we have relied upon, and that could be leadership, it could be basic resources, it could be our military, it could be our spiritual leaders, it could be many things in many shapes and sizes, but this is what God is doing.
He has not only done it in Judah, but he is doing it in America. So what we see and witness in verses 1 through 15 of chapter 3 of the book of Isaiah, is an entire nation support system is being disintegrated, and there is no physical, temporal remedy. Nobody, nobody is able to come up with a solution.
Look at verse 7, as they institute potential leaders, their responses in that day, he will protest saying, I cannot cure your ills, for in my house is neither food nor clothing. Do not make me a ruler of the people. As people are searching for leadership, as they’re searching for answers, and they grab on to someone, or they grab on to potential people to help them, that individual, that person, that group is going to say, we can’t.
We don’t have the answers. We continue to read, and we see down in verse 12, he says that, as for my people, children are their oppressors, meaning the immature, and women rule over them. Oh my people, those who lead you cause you to err and destroy the way of your paths.
Now ladies, don’t get too upset, okay? What he’s trying to simply say is that, in this sense, the women who were silly women, or immature women, women who were not serious-minded, and could not handle, they kind of just looked at life as kind of just a big game, and that’s the kind of women he’s talking about. He’s not talking about some of you dynamic ladies that are organizers, and you’re leaders, and you’re capable to handle things, and deal with things. I tell these ladies, Len, look, if you can raise teenagers, you can survive anything, amen? I mean, you ladies need to wear a t-shirt that says, you don’t scare me.
I raise teenagers. Yes, ladies, do not misunderstand. He’s not talking about you.
He’s talking about these incompetent women who do not care about taking anything serious. The nation’s leaders in Isaiah’s day were charting a course that was outside of the will of God, and would ultimately bring disaster and judgment, but the righteous, the remnant of the righteous, are protected. Jump back to verse 10, and notice what he says, say to the righteous, in the midst of all this chaos, in the midst of all this uncertainty, in verse 10, he says, say to the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat of the fruit of their doings.
Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with them, for the reward of his hands shall be given to him. And he’s referring here to a contrast of the wicked to the righteous in verse 11, and the righteous will be rewarded for their faithfulness to God. The righteous remnant will be rewarded for their obedience to God, for their desire to follow the will of God, reminding us as believers that no matter how chaotic, how confusing this world may get, and no matter how much it may drift from the will of God, there is still the reality that as believers, we can follow the plan, the purpose of God in our own lives, and let the Lord deal with the other things that are around us, but we cannot let the world lead us astray.
We are required to stay faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, to not give up, to not lose hope, to not be set back emotionally and spiritually, that we somehow just want to quit and give up, but we recognize that God will reward those who love him, who live for him, and are dedicated to his cause and his purpose. After denouncing the leadership, the prophet zeroes in, Isaiah the prophet zeroes in on those who are bringing even more destruction, and again I referred to the women in verse 12, but you’ll see this played out a little bit understanding more in verse 16, he says in verse 16, moreover the Lord says, because the daughters of Zion are haughty, meaning they’re prideful, and they walk without stretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, making a jingling with their feet, they’re all about self, they’re all about attention, they’re all about look at me, they’re not about look at God, look at Jesus Christ, look at God’s glory, how can I minister to you, how can I serve you, they’re all about self. That’s what verse 16 is about, and it goes on to describe even more and more details, and he reminds us that the judgment of God is upon the land.
Nobody’s going to notice the women’s expensive clothes, their elaborate dresses, the jewelry that they have, because the world’s a mess, they’re going to be led astray. So much that the culture has so been destroyed that men have been stripped of their manhood, women have become silly and lost focus. Look at verse 1 of chapter 4, it says that in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying we will eat our own food and wear our own apparel, meaning you won’t have to take care of us, only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach.
And so you see that we read this, and I just feel like I’m reading all about America, and I could continue to give you all the stats, but what we’re seeing is the breakdown of the family in America, right? We were warned about this. We heard the prophets of old, the pastors of old, and our forefathers who stood in this pulpit, and they stood out in our communities, and they said if you start taking away the standards and the barriers of the family, that eventually it would lead to chaos and confusion, so much that people are not even certain whether they’re a man or a woman nowadays. And that now government is saying, look, we’re okay, and we’ll let you transition without even talking to your parents about it, and we’ll let you destroy your body and destroy your identity and destroy your purpose and what God’s plan is for your life.
That’s what’s going on. I know we don’t like to hear it, and I know that people say, well, I’m for this and I’m for that. Listen to me, my friends.
What you need to be is for the Lord Jesus Christ. You don’t need to worry about what political team you’re on. You need to make sure that you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and that you’re on God’s team, amen? I think about all that’s happening, and my heart grieves over what we read, what is popping up on our social media feeds, what is we’re witnessing on television or radio or these things that we’re hearing about.
It only helps me understand more of what God says to us in this sense, that God is not the author of confusion. If you’re confused about your identity, if you’re confused about your gender, if you’re confused about your purpose, that didn’t come from God. That didn’t come from the Word of God.
The Bible teaches us just the opposite. God is a God of order. He is a God of structure.
He is a God of purpose and great intent, and He has a plan for our lives, and He has a will for our life, and the only way that we will find true significance and true meaning is to follow the will of God. Your significance is rooted in your relationship with Jesus Christ and to try to go the way of the world, and they’re only going to cause more confusion in your life and more chaos in your life, but God is not the author of confusion, but the world is, and the flesh is, and Satan is, and so this confusion oppresses on our young people, and they’re trying to navigate through all these voices that are telling them this and that as if somehow God made a mistake about their life, but God makes no mistakes, does He? Our God is perfect in His purposes. We don’t always understand them, and we may not always agree with them in our finite life that we live and that we are not always understanding of the big picture, but we still give praise to God.
We still worship the Lord. We understand what is happening, and we know the Lord has a plan, and we fulfill that plan, and what I’m saying to you this morning is that what you’re witnessing in chapter three of the nation of Judah and the fall of Jerusalem and the fall of Judah is exactly the path that America is on. Thankfully, God is long-suffering, isn’t He? And as even our nation ravagely destroys one another and devours one another, as the apostle Paul said, we are under the promise that there’s coming a day when God is going to right the wrongs, and God is going to bring peace, and He’s going to bring purity, and He’ll rule and reign with justice and righteousness.
The question is, are you ready? Are you ready for the return of Jesus Christ? When you see all these things bubbling up, and you see the things that are unfolding in our nation, you really ought to take a spiritual inventory on your life. I know it’s easy to curse the darkness, but what you really ought to do is say, where am I at? Am I spiritually ready? Because it seems to me that the signs of the times are imminent upon us, and we can see that His return is very near, and thus we should be ready to meet our Savior. Amos said to the people of God, are you prepared to meet your God? Are you prepared? That is not only essential for you and I as followers of Christ, but if you’re here this morning and do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior, and you have never put your trust in Him for your salvation, you must know that judgment is imminent, that it is soon coming.
Not only with the return of the Lord, there is going to be judgment upon unbelieving sinners. Yes, that’s what the Bible teaches. That is what is upon us, and we see as we read all the way through verse 18, all the way through verse 23, as he describes the different things that the women are trying to do to get attention to themselves, then we come to verse 25, your men shall fall by the sword, and you’re mighty in the war.
Her gates shall lament and mourn, and she being desolate shall sit on the ground. Talking about the nation, the nation. Now we don’t like to think of God in terms of judgment, but we must remember that God’s judgment is very purposeful.
It is purposeful for us as a nation, as a community, and certainly as a church family. What is God’s purpose in his judgments that he brings upon us? Please remember what I told you earlier, that it’s not that we’re waiting for the judgment of God. What you’re witnessing is the judgment of God upon this nation.
A nation that has slaughtered unborn babies, millions of them. A nation that has turned their back against God. A nation that looks to everything but the Lord for answers.
What is the purpose of God’s judgment? Well, first of all, I would say to you, it displays his glory. The judgment of God displays the glory of God. Revelations 14, 7 reminds us that we are to fear God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.
When we see the manifestation of the judgment of God, we ought to worship God and give glory to God because we are reminded that our God has not forgotten us, that he is bringing attention to the matter, and that he is letting things unfold in a purposeful way to bring about the most glory to him. My life and your life is about the glory of God. It has been written by our forefathers that the chief end of man is to glorify God.
Every day that we rise up, it is to glorify God. But yet, even in the judgment of God, whether that is upon me personally or that is upon a nation, we can bring glory to God Almighty. Why else would God bring judgment? To vindicate the righteous.
To vindicate the righteous, the Bible says in Revelation 6, 10 that they cried with a loud voice saying, how long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth. We understand the scriptures to teach us that it won’t be long before the church of Christ is raptured out of here. First Thessalonians chapter 4, the trump will sound, the dead in Christ will rise from the grave.
That’s some of our loved ones, isn’t it? And they will rise from the grave, united with their soul and spirit, and then the dead in Christ who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with the Lord to be with him forever. Can God’s people say amen? That will usher in a seven-year tribulation. The seven-year tribulation will be about God getting the attention of the nation of Israel.
So it all can culminate within this seven years to Romans chapter 11, verse 26, which the scripture says that all Israel shall be saved. In the midst of that, people have said, well, in the tribulation you can’t get saved, but that’s wrong. Because Revelation chapter 6, which is in the midst of the tribulation period, says that there are those who were martyred during the tribulation, who are before the throne of God, and they’re asking God the question, how long before you avenge our blood on those who dwell? Here’s what they’re saying, Lord, how long will it be before you right the wrongs? During the tribulation, the Antichrist will take over, and he will rule the world in a one-world government system, a one-world economic system, and a one-world religious system.
He will control everybody, and those who refuse to take his mark, the mark of the beast, will be martyred. They will flee to the mountains. They will hide from the Antichrist and his cohorts, who will try to do everything that they can to destroy those who will not align with the Antichrist.
What will be the result is that there will be many who have come to Jesus Christ during the tribulation period, because the Bible says that there’ll be 144,000 evangelists who will be raised, and they will spread the gospel to every person on every planet. Can you imagine 144,000 Billy Grahams telling people to get right with Jesus Christ and to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? Isn’t that going to be awesome? And these 144,000 will be invincible. They will not be able to be stopped by the Antichrist, and they will continue to march forward to fulfill the purpose of God.
People will come to Christ. They will refuse the mark of the beast. They will be martyred for the cause of Jesus Christ.
They will stand before the throne, and they will say to the Lord, how long, how long before you avenge our blood? We read in the book of Revelation, when you read about the bowls and the vials and the trumpets, these are the outpouring of the judgment of God. What is going to be taking place in this seven-year tribulation is not only all of hell will be opened up and the wrath of Satan will be poured upon the nations and the people, but all of heaven will be opened up, and the wrath of God and the judgment of God will be poured upon the people through the expression of trumpets, bowls, and vials, and they will then experience the wrath of God and Satan so much that they will desire to be hidden in the cliffs and the rocks because they cannot stand all that they are experiencing. And why is it that God is allowing this to unfold? Two purposes, church.
Do not forget it. Number one is to vindicate the righteous. Number two, to bring the nation of Israel to true salvation.
God’s judgment is purposeful not only to display his glory and to vindicate the righteous, but to defend the weak. The psalmist said in Psalm 140, verse 12, I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted and justice for the poor. It’s so unfortunate to see people take advantage of the poor and to afflict the weak, but the day is coming that God will judge and he will vindicate those and defend those who are weak among us.
Why is it that God’s judgment is purposeful, as we already mentioned, to bring salvation to people? We already went through that, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time, but simply to say this, that even in the judgment of God, people can come to the Lord Jesus Christ. We look at judgment as being an evil thing or a bad thing, and perhaps there are times that could be, but I’m telling you, when the judgment is from God, he has a purpose and he’s working out his purpose. You remember the story in the Gospels when there was this large tower that had fallen upon the innocent and fallen upon the people.
It was a great tragedy. It brings up the great question, why do good people suffer and why do people face such dramatic tragedies? When they went to Jesus and said, why do you think that this happened? He said to them, do you think you’re better? Do you think that you’re better than other people, that somehow you escaped this tragedy and this suffering because somehow you were better? He reminds them, it is a reminder to you to repent and believe. Hope is a powerful force, but when we lose that hope or that stability in our relationship with Christ, it causes us to vacillate.
It causes us to go wrong directions. That’s why it’s important for us to keep our relationship with Jesus very, very strong. I hope that you’re cultivating your relationship with him by reading your Bible and that you are on your knees and staying in Bible study, staying in church and continuing to grow your faith.
Now, I want to remind you that we have a website, hopeworthhaving.com, and you can sign up for our devotions. If you will just go to the contact button to sign up for devotions, you can receive right into your email a daily devotion to keep you encouraged, to keep you inspired, and to keep you motivated for the Lord Jesus Christ. So take advantage of that.
This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post The Loss of Stability Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Danger of Success Part 2. He will be reading out of Isaiah 2:6-22.
We’ve got to stop trusting in our own righteousness and our religious works. We’ve got to stop trusting in our own efforts to save ourselves. The only way that you and I can be saved is through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
This is Pastor Mike Sanders, and I want to welcome you to the Hope Worth Having radio program today. We’re looking forward to sharing God’s word with you as a source of inspiration for your heart, and I hope that you will be rooted in your faith. Now today, we’re going to continue our study in the book of Isaiah chapter 2, and we’ll be looking again at verses 6 through 22, and we’ll study the danger of success.
Join me as we study. And they worshiped and served the creature more than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
I know that sometimes we live in this digital age, and we see no need to gather and worship when we can just watch it on YouTube, or we can just watch it digitally, or we can watch it on our phone. And I understand, and I’m grateful for those opportunities, and I see them as a supplement. But nothing can change you like gathering together as a body of believers, and realigning your heart, and refocusing your thoughts and your minds upon Jesus Christ.
Because all throughout the week, what you’re going to spend your time doing is listening to so many voices calling you to follow stuff. To follow idols. To follow other priorities.
When we come back together, God once again focuses our heart and helps us to stay on mission, and to stay together as a team, and to stay together as the people of God. That rather than being full of idols, we want to be full of Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen? And the sad commentary.
Verse 6 again. You have forsaken your people. What caused the Lord to forsake his people was that they were empty of God.
They were empty of God’s power. They were empty of a relationship with the Lord. They treasured the things of this world more than they did Jesus Christ.
They exalted themselves before God. And they humbled themselves before their idols. It’s a warning to us this morning, church, to be careful that as you are prospering, as you are blessed, as you are moving forward, as the Lord is providing, as you are rejoicing, that you don’t get your focus on success and forget who is the one who offers any blessing in our life.
It is God. It is God who provides all that we have. It is Jesus Christ who continues to sustain us and pour out grace upon us.
So then, now that they have become so full of things and empty of God, we see the second thing here is that the terror of the Lord has come upon them. Again, this is a picture of things that are happening in the latter days. In the last days, lofty things have become humbled.
And so we’ll kind of just walk through this because it’s going to be difficult to cover every particular verse. But I want you to see that the overarching point of verse 10 through 21 is that God’s holiness is vindicated. And that though there has been this generation of people who have rejected the Lord, that God has vindicated and righted every wrong.
So what do we see here? First of all, the day of the Lord is proclaimed. Look at verse 10, beginning there. Enter into the rock, hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty.
Don’t forget, church, that God will not share His glory. Isaiah will teach us that later, that He does not share His glory. That you may exalt yourselves above God and you may humble yourselves before your idols.
You may bow down before your idols, but God will destroy those idols. Again, in verse 11, the lofty looks of man shall be humbled. The haughtiness of man shall be bowed down.
And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. Look at verse 12. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up, and it shall be brought low.
The day of the Lord. The day of the Lord. What is the day of the Lord? The phrase, the day of the Lord, is identifying the events that will unfold at the end of history.
The day of the Lord is referring to a future day when God will intervene in history and He will judge those who have rejected Him and He will establish His righteous rule in this world. The day of the Lord is the inception of that millennial kingdom. It is the conclusion of the tribulation period that when we as a church are raptured out of here, receiving our rewards in heaven, that while the events are unfolding in that seven-year tribulation and that there’s this final defiance towards God Almighty by the kingdoms of man, that Jesus Christ will crush them at the end of that seven-year tribulation and He will establish His righteous kingdom upon this earth and we will rule and reign with Jesus Christ.
The phrase, the day of the Lord, it is used 19 times in the Old Testament, Isaiah being one of them, other passages of scriptures as well. It is used four times in the New Testament. When you see the phrase, you know that the Lord is proclaiming how things will unfold at the end.
This day of the Lord is not only a time of judgment, but is a time of salvation as God will deliver the remnant of Israel. Remember I told you, why is it that we believe that God would rapture us, the church, before the tribulation period? Remember this, do not forget, because the tribulation period is about the nation of Israel. It is about a nation that has not accepted the fact that Jesus Christ is the coming Messiah.
I told you before that when I sat there with the chief rabbi amongst other pastors, he said, the only difference between us and Christians, meaning Jewish people and Christians, is that you are looking for the second coming of your Messiah and we’re looking for the first coming of our Messiah. But there’s coming a day, the day of the Lord, that during the tribulation and especially at the end of the tribulation, that the Jewish people, according to Zechariah, they will recognize that Jesus Christ is the true Messiah that they’ve been looking for, the one that they have been waiting for. He is the fulfillment of all the prophecies in Isaiah, and in Zechariah, and in Zephaniah.
He is the fulfillment of all those prophecies, as Matthew taught us, and as Luke taught us, that they all align together, and so Jesus Christ is the Messiah. The Bible teaches us that great sorrow will come upon Israel, and they will be very repentant, and they will be very broken, and they will cry out to Jesus Christ for true salvation. Romans 11, verse 26 says, All of Israel will be saved.
Why do we love Israel as Christians? Well, not only because God has given us a promise that you are blessed if you do, if you bless His people, He’ll bless you, but number two, they are the chosen people of God, and He is using the tribulation period to woo them back to Him, to bring them back into a true relationship with Him, and that’s why there is favor, that’s why there is blessings, that’s why we as believers and those who follow Jesus Christ, that we have an affection towards the nation of Israel, and we have a special protection because God called them the apple of His eye. And so we understand that, and we recognize that, and we look forward to that day in which they will truly come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. You will note again that in verse 10, that He says to us that we are to enter into the rock and hide in the dust.
This is a reference to what the Bible already teaches us in the book of Revelation, that when the vials are poured out upon this world, when the bowls are poured out, when the trumpets are sounded, these are the things that represent God’s judgment and God’s wrath upon the Antichrist and his man-made kingdom, and the judgment of God upon them. The judgment will be so fierce that people will want to hide in the rocks and the cliffs. Isaiah talks about in verse 12, that the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything that is proud and lofty.
That’s that second coming. That word can be translated host, it can be translated army. Some of your translations probably have that.
It is referring to the armies of angels, the legion of angels that are around the throne of God. In 1 Kings 22 verse 19, the Bible says, and He said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the hosts, or all the armies of heaven, standing by Him on His right hand and on His left, that God with all of His angels, all of His armies, and the people of God, we will come back on white horses.
The book of Revelation teaches us, and we will come back. And Jesus, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, He will destroy every man-made kingdom. He will destroy every enemy of God.
And as the judgment of God is coming upon this world, people will be in so much pain and so much terror that they will want to hide in the cliffs and hide in the rocks, the scriptures teach us. Now the day of the Lord is described here by Isaiah. He says, The lofty will be humbled, and the Lord will be exalted.
Look again at verse 12. When the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up, it shall be brought low. You and I witness, and we wonder, why do the heathen rage? Why is people getting away with their defiance to God? Listen to me, my friends.
It’s all coming to an end. It’s just not going to come when you want it to, and when I want it to. But God is going to bring everything to a point, and He’s going to finally bring judgment.
And those who exalt themselves above God, He is going to confront them, and He is going to deal with them. Joel 2, verse 31 says, The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Wow.
So we look at verse 13. Upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, upon every high tower, and upon every fortified wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all the beautiful slopes, and the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
So the day of the Lord is being described to us. What’s going to happen? People are on their perches, and they are blaspheming God, and they are acting all prideful, and they can do whatever they want, and there’s no accountability. But I tell you, my friends, that every person will give an account to God.
And that’s why you and I do not have to be afraid. You see, if you’ve already humbled yourself before Jesus Christ now, you will not have to humble yourself on the day of the Lord because you will already be with the Lord, and you will be in a relationship with God, receiving your rewards. Now is the time.
The Bible tells us that one day every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess. That day is coming. But how much better it is to bow your knee today and to confess in your heart today that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Do not wait until the terror of the Lord comes upon this world and upon this land. But receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Acknowledge before God Almighty that you’re a sinner in need of a Savior, and accept Him as your Lord.
The house of Jacob, the nation of Israel, they were bragging about their military pride. You see that in verse 16. They were bragging about their trade and their commerce and how prosperous that they had come.
But look at verse 18. But the idols He shall utterly abolish. They shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty when He arises to shake the earth mightily.
The lofty things that have been in direct competition with God’s glory are going to be destroyed. Human pride always seeks to exalt itself. We look across this world.
We see world leaders exalting themselves above God. We see politicians who think that they are better than God. They belittle God.
And they think that everything’s because of them. It’s a reminder to me of an incredible story in 1951. We saw this picture occur that the communist era in Eastern Europe came to a close.
The communists exalted themselves above God. And they belittled God. They refused to let anyone believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You remember in downtown Budapest in the Hungarian Communist Party had erected a monument to the great communist leader Stalin. It was completed in 1951 of December. It was a gift to Joseph Stalin saying that he was above God.
It was torn down on October 23, 1956 during a revolution. The statue was 75 feet high and the people pulled it down with rope around the neck and they began to torch it and to burn it. And I thought, you know what, that’s exactly what’s happening.
We see it all across America. We see these leaders claiming that they’re God or that you’re to worship them and they tell you not to believe in God but to only believe in them. And then what do we see? Their kingdoms crumble.
Their statues fall. Why? Because there’s only one true God, Jesus Christ. And I’m going to tell you at the end of the day of the Lord God is going to take care of all those who’ve exalted themselves against God.
He will destroy all those who challenge His supremacy. Now I want you to see the result. What is the result of this day of the Lord? Well, verse 19, they’re going to go into holes.
They’re going to go into caves. Why? From the terror of the Lord and the glory of the majesty when He arrives and shakes the earth mightily, in that day a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which have made each for himself to worship to the moles and to bats. God is warning that His wrath is coming and this wrath will come upon people who reject Him.
Revelation 6.16 says, The people cried out to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us, hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. When Jesus comes that second time, He’s not coming like He did the first time. He came as a Lamb, as a sacrifice for our sins.
But the second time He’s coming as a King and He will destroy all those who reject Him and the terror of the Lord will be upon this world and they will long to hide from the terror of the Lord and the glory of God. They will so despise and hate God Almighty and want nothing to do with Him that they will want to run into the caves and be hidden from the face of the One who sits on the throne. So I want us to look at these last two verses.
You say, Mike, what’s that mean to me? Well, this is the invitation that God gives to us in verse 21 and 22. Notice what He says in verse 21. To go into the clefts of the rocks and into the crags of the rugged rocks from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty when He arises to shaken the earth mightily, sever yourself from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils for of what account is he? There’s three things that God wants us to do and I want you to learn this and that is first we got to stop trusting in ourselves, our wealth, our own self-sufficiency.
We’ve got to stop trusting in our own righteousness and our religious works. We got to stop trusting in our own efforts to save ourselves. The only way that you and I can be saved is through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Any effort to save ourselves, to be more religious than the next guy so you’re accepted before God is futile. It is vain. Turn to Jesus Christ and believe in Him for your righteousness because your righteousness, my righteousness, is as filthy rags.
Let us turn to Jesus Christ and stop trusting in ourselves. I would say as a nation, though America spends lavishly lavishly on its military expenditures and though Americans have much wealth, gold and silver and possessions and investments and though Americans have trusted in all the things of this world, this is a nation that needs to humble itself before Jesus Christ and they need to exalt the Lord and quit exalting idols in their hearts. Now listen.
One of the ways that we worship idols as a nation is that we pursue the pleasures of this world with more passion than we do pursue God. We pursue entertainment, sports, music, movies, social media, material pleasures. These are all clamoring for our heart’s throne.
They all desire. Are they all evil? No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying anything you put before God can become an idol in your heart.
Your own children can become an idol. So many people say to me, well, I’m not going to go to church because I want to spend time with my children. Don’t say that.
We need to remember that Jesus Christ is number one and when you make Jesus Christ number one in your life, everything else will fall into place as it should and give honor and glory to God. We use different things that sometimes are good in and of themselves, but we put them before Jesus Christ. We put them before our relationship with God.
I think about parents who will drive their children all over this state for sports, but they never take their children to Sunday school. They never take them to Awana. They never take them to church and then their kids grow up and want nothing to do with church and you say, what happened? I’ll tell you.
You bowed down to the idol of sports. Hey, I went through that phase. We loved sports, but sports never kept us away from the house of the Lord and there were many temptations and there were many people pushing for it, but we stood up and said, no, and if I can do it, I know you can do it.
I love sports too, but sports not more important than my relationship with Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen? That’s right. Some of you, you put family before.
You say, well, we got this family thing and that’s more important. You need to make a decision. Is Jesus Christ number one? Is he premier in your heart? Is he preeminent in your heart? And if he is not, then you need to ask the Lord to forgive you and stop trusting in the wrong things.
Repent from your idols and follow the true God. The second thing is that we are to come. Let us walk in the light of the Lord.
Walk in the light. Go back to verse five. Remember what we were told? Come and let us walk in the light of the Lord.
Let us walk in his glory. Let us walk in his joy. Let us walk in his perfect plan and will for our life.
Let’s walk in the light of Jesus Christ. None of these things of this world will satisfy you, church. The things of this world will not satisfy you.
Some of you are jumping from relationship to relationship only to find that they’re dead ends. The only true relationship that will satisfy you is Jesus Christ. And if you are married, the only way that your relationship will ever be meaningful and make a difference in your heart is if it is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ.
Your marriage must be built upon Christ. Jesus must be at the center of your marriage. He must be at the center of all your relationships.
He must be at the center of everything that you do in this life. Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. He deserves all praise.
Amen, church. Don’t be enamored by human glory. Don’t be enamored by the achievements of others.
Don’t be pulled away by the razzle dazzle. Some of you, honestly, you’re more passionate about politics than you are Jesus. You come to me and you talk to me about this.
I had this guy was up preaching somewhere and wasn’t here, so relax and calm down. But this guy came up to me and he’s handing me Donald Trump money. And I said, buddy, I don’t need Donald Trump money.
I trust in the Lord. He’s a Christian. He’s all bent out of shape because I said I trust in the Lord.
I’m gonna tell you, no politician gonna save this country. Only Jesus Christ will save this country. And I know that makes some of you angry because you’ve exalted politicians.
You’ve exalted them and you’ve made them your passion. You’ll put a yard sign out, but you’ll never put a yard sign out for Jesus Christ. You’ll never hand out a track to a lost person.
You’ll never invite somebody to a special day, but you’ll certainly invite them to come and vote. That’s when we have exalted politics above our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You hand out all these signs.
You walk around with your fancy buttons, but you never wear a button that says, I love Jesus. You never walk around. You come to the church and you wanna try to recruit people to be a part of your political movement.
And why don’t you recruit people to be a part of your prayer movement? Why don’t you recruit people to be a part of your soul winning movement? Why don’t you be a part of those things? Because let me tell you something, friends, politicians will go the way of the world. I’ve already told you, church, the Republican Party took pro-life out of their platform. The Republican Party took out traditional marriage out of their platform.
They are no difference. Do you wanna die slow or quickly? That’s how you vote. And I’m saying that what we need to do as a nation is get back to the Lord Jesus Christ and we need to exalt Him.
We need to surrender to King Jesus and we need to worship Him and we need to follow Him and we need to walk in the light of Jesus Christ. I know I’ve made some people mad, but that’s okay. It’s okay.
Somebody needed to tell you because it’s getting out of hand. It happens every political season. I want you to stop being enamored with human glory.
How can any human achievement compare to what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross for us? Nothing can compare to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, can it? Nothing can compare to it. So what do we do? We need to follow Jesus Christ. Stop these things of the world and come to Christ and walk in His light.
Are we in the last days, church? Oh, we’ve been in the last days and we are in the last of the last days and what is going to be the turning point for your family? What is going to be the turning point for this nation? It is going to be, are we going to be all in, fully devoted followers of Christ? Are we just going to fiddle faddle with church, dabble in it a little bit, get a little bit of religion to make me feel good? Are we going to be sold out for the Lord Jesus Christ? He’s coming. The signs are all around us. He tells us what it’s going to be like.
I want to be a part of that group that’s raptured out of here and I want to be in the presence of God. I don’t want to have to endure the terror of the Lord and I don’t want the wrath of God to come upon me. I want to be in the safety of the old gospel ship of Jesus Christ.
God’s word is sure and God’s word is steadfast and it is reliable. And when we come to the Bible and we see those warning passages, they are not for us to run or overlook or even to neglect, but rather to see them as God speaking to us and we take the time to make sure that we don’t fall into these traps, that we’re alert to these potential dangers. And so I hope today the message and last week’s message has come together and given you not only some hope, but also some courage as you strive to honor Christ in your life.
Now, I want to remind you that we are on social media, Facebook, Instagram, and want to encourage you to check us out there. Go to Facebook, like our page, and you can keep up with us and you can send us messages and all that kind of wonderful stuff. If you have a prayer request, let us know and we’ll be glad to pray with and for you.
And this is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post The Danger of Success Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Danger of Success Part 1. He will be reading out of Isaiah 2:6-22.
We live in this digital age and I’m grateful for those opportunities and I see them as a supplement, but nothing can change you like gathering together as a body of believers and refocusing your thoughts and your minds upon Jesus Christ. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders and I welcome you to the Hope Worth Having radio program from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. I serve as the Senior Pastor of the Open Door Church.
Today, we’re going to be in Isaiah chapter 2 and we are going to be studying verses 6 through 22. We’re going to talk about the danger of success. Join me as we study together.
I want you to take your Bible to Isaiah chapter 2. We were in Isaiah chapter 2 last week. We covered verse 1 through 5. We talked about that great hope. We talked about that one day God will be exalted above the hills and all the nations will flow to him.
Look at verse 5, O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord. What a beautiful truth that is. Now we come to verse 6 through 22.
I told you last week Isaiah is one of those books in the Bible that we keep shifting. We go forward, we go backward, we go forward, we go backward. It’s sometimes very confusing to me and it’s confusing to believers.
It’s like watching that movie. They go backwards on me and I don’t know what happened and my wife will say, Mike, this is in the past. I’ll be asking a bunch of questions.
You don’t want to watch a movie with me because I got 20 questions. You just give up, throw the popcorn away and just walk away, okay, because that’s the way I am. I just I can’t help it.
It just doesn’t make sense to me. I always am moving forward. I don’t like to go backwards, but here’s Isaiah.
He’s like that. He’s telling us about what the current state of Israel, which is often referred to as the house of Jacob, and then he fast-forwards us to the future and we learned so much of the positive and the hope of the future last week, but this week I want to talk to you about the danger of success. The danger of success.
We’re gonna finish out the chapter somehow, some way, but before we dive into the details of this chapter, I want to tell you a story about Augustine. He was a bishop in North Africa and he wrote a book entitled The City of God. In Augustine’s mind, in this book, he believed that history was really about two different cities battling each other in unequal terms.
He referred to it as the city of man, which represented Rome at that time, and the city of God, which represented the church, the true church of Christianity. At the core of the city of man is one driving spirit, love of self, which results in a contempt towards God. At the core of the city of God is an opposite driving spirit.
It is love for God, which results in contempt for self. In this book, The City of God, the story of history is that these two cities are battling for glory. The city of man is battling for its own glory and the city of God is battling for the glory of God.
The city of God against the city of man, which we could say simply is the love of God verse the love of self. It’s the outcome of that struggle that Augustine reveals in his book that is the topic of Isaiah chapter 2. So when we begin to dive into it, remember that we’re at the end times, we’re in the last days, we’re in those latter days that has already been revealed to us in verses 1 through 5, and what we’re seeing is the competition. The competition of self, or the competition of love of self, and the competition to love of God, and glorifying God.
Which will it be? The danger of success. The danger is that we can get so focused on self, it can become all about us, about building our own kingdom and what we want rather than a desire for God’s kingdom and God’s love and God’s people. So the first thing I want you to see in verses 6 through 9 is what we might refer to as pride, or we might call it that the people had become full of things, and they were empty of God.
Look with me in verse 6, for you have forsaken your people the house of Jacob, because they are filled with Eastern ways. They are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they are pleased with the children of foreigners. Their land is also full of silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures.
Their land is also full of horses, and there is no end to their chariots. Their land is also full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.
People bow down, and each man humbles himself. Therefore, do not forgive them. Now, the house of Jacob has become corrupt.
They have turned their heart from God. They have refused to believe in God. They have chosen to follow a path of pride and self, and they have become full of things.
What you will see over and over in just these few verses for 6 through 9 is the word full or filled. That’s a key word, full or filled. You want to underscore that in your Bible.
You see in verse 6 that they are filled with Eastern ways. And then we jump down to verse 7, that they’re full of silver and gold. Then we look again at verse 7, they are full of horses, and there is no end to their chariots.
Verse 8, they are full of idols, full of stuff, but empty of God. When you and I fill our hands with the things of the world, then there’s no room for God. That’s why God sometimes calls us to let go of stuff, so we can come empty-handed to Him and let His love and life fill our hearts.
What are they full of? Well, we see in the text that, first of all, they’re full of superstitions and not true faith in Christ. Again, look at verse 6. They are filled with Eastern ways. They are soothsayers like the Philistines.
So, he’s referring that Israel has begun to practice pagan ways of the Eastern culture of that day. And rather than practicing what Moses had taught them, what they had been taught in the Word of God, they had begun to adopt these superstitions in their life. And so, they were full of superstitions.
And they are pleased with the children of foreigners. And so, that is that they wanted to follow the ways of the world. That’s what their heart was, satisfying their selfish desires.
Then you’ll note that they are full of silver and not the true wealth of Christ. Look at verse 7. Their land is also full of silver and gold. There’s no end to their treasures.
Yes, they have wealth. They have gold. They have silver.
But they don’t have the true treasure. They don’t have the true wealth that is found in a relationship with God Almighty. What an indictment upon people who will not let God be their true wealth and their true treasure.
Here again, he goes on to say that they are full, in verse 7, that they are full of horses and chariots rather than the true power of God. Their land is also full of horses and there is no end to their chariots. Now, I know that you guys look at this and I look at it and we say, what’s the big deal? Horses, chariots, doesn’t seem like that’s too powerful.
But in that day, that’s how the armies were. We might say that they had the F-17s. They had these mammoth warships.
They were filled with all these powerful things. But Israel did not have the power of God. Another indictment upon the people of God that we might be loaded with wealth and the bank account might be full, but we don’t have true wealth in Jesus Christ.
That we may have much strength, many buildings, wonderful property, but we don’t have the true power of Jesus Christ resting upon our lives. That we are operating in our own strength rather than the strength of the Lord. That we are worshiping our own accomplishments and achievements.
That we are impressed what we have done. And now you can see that pride is taken over, full of things, empty of God. Noted again in verse 8 that they are full of idols and they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.
Verse 9, they bow down. They bow down to these idols and rather than being full of the Lord, they have become full of idols. Idols.
I know that we’re a sophisticated society and surely we would not be so odd as to bow down to an idol, but yet an idol is anything that you put before the Lord. An idol could be sports. An idol could be a relationship.
An idol could be a thing. It could be a passion. It could be a hobby.
Anything that you put before the Lord Jesus Christ is an idol. That you would spend more time doing that particular thing or that particular hobby than you do in spending time with Jesus Christ in a relationship. These are the things that we have to be alerted to because there is great danger, church, in being successful.
The Bible tells us in Romans 1 25 that what had happened to the society is that they had changed the truth of God into a lie and they worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. I know that sometimes we live in this digital age and we see no need to gather and worship when we can just watch it on YouTube or we can just watch it digitally or we can watch it on our phone and I understand and I’m grateful for those opportunities and I see them as a supplement, but nothing can change you like gathering together as a body of believers and realigning your heart and refocusing your thoughts and your minds upon Jesus Christ.
Because all throughout the week what you’re going to spend your time doing is listening to so many voices calling you to follow stuff, to follow idols, to follow other priorities. When we come back together God once again focuses our heart and helps us to stay on mission and to stay together as a team and to stay together as the people of God that rather than being full of idols we want to be full of Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen? And the sad commentary verse 6 again.
You have forsaken your people. What caused the Lord to forsake his people was that they were empty of God. They were empty of God’s power.
They were empty of a relationship with the Lord. They treasured the things of this world more than they did Jesus Christ. They exalted themselves before God and they humbled themselves before their idols.
It’s a warning to us this morning church to be careful that as you are prospering, as you are blessed, as you are moving forward, as the Lord is providing, as you’re rejoicing, that you don’t get your focus on success and forget who is the one who authors any blessing in our life. It is God. It is God who provides all that we have.
It is Jesus Christ who continues to sustain us and pour out grace upon us. So then now that they have become so full of things and empty of God, we see the second thing here is that the terror of the Lord has come upon them. Again this is a the last days lofty things have become humbled and so we’ll kind of just walk through this because it’s going to be difficult to cover every particular verse but I want you to see that the overarching point of verse 10 through 21 is that God’s holiness is vindicated and that though there has been this generation of people who have rejected the Lord, that God has vindicated and righted every wrong.
So what do we see here? First of all the day of the Lord is proclaimed. Look at verse 10 beginning there. Enter into the rock, hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty.
Don’t forget church that God will not share his glory. Isaiah will teach us that later that he does not share his glory that you may exalt yourselves above God and you may humble yourselves before your idols. You may bow down before your idols but God will destroy those idols.
Again in verse 11, the lofty looks of man shall be humbled. The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. Look at verse 12.
For the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up and it shall be brought low. The day of the Lord, the day of the Lord. What is the day of the Lord? The phrase the day of the Lord is identifying the events that will unfold at the end of history.
The day of the Lord is referring to a future day when God will intervene in history and he will judge those who have rejected him and he will establish his righteous rule in this world. The day of the Lord is the inception of that millennial kingdom. It is the conclusion of the tribulation period that when we as the church are raptured out of here, receiving our rewards in heaven, that while the events are unfolding in that seven-year tribulation and that there’s this final defiance towards God Almighty by the kingdoms of man, that Jesus Christ will crush them at the end of that seven-year tribulation and he will establish his righteous kingdom upon this earth and we will rule and reign with Jesus Christ.
The phrase the day of the Lord, it is used 19 times in the Old Testament, Isaiah being one of them, other passages scriptures as well. It is used four times in the New Testament. When you see the phrase you know that the Lord is proclaiming how things will unfold at the end.
This day of the Lord is not only a time of judgment but is a time of salvation as God will deliver the remnant of Israel. Remember I told you, why is it that we believe that God would rapture us the church before the tribulation period? Remember this, do not forget, because the tribulation period is about the nation of Israel. It is about a nation that has not accepted the fact that Jesus Christ is the coming Messiah.
I told you before that when I sat there with the chief rabbi amongst other pastors, he said the only difference between us and Christians, meaning Jewish people and Christians, is that you are looking for the second coming of your Messiah and we’re looking for the first coming of our Messiah. But there’s coming a day, the day of the Lord, that during the tribulation and especially at the end of the tribulation that the Jewish people, according to Zechariah, they will recognize that Jesus Christ is the true Messiah that they’ve been looking for, the one that they have been waiting for. He is the fulfillment of all the prophecies in Isaiah and in Zechariah and in Zephaniah.
He is the fulfillment of all those prophecies, as Matthew taught us and as Luke taught us, that they all align together and so Jesus Christ is the Messiah. The Bible teaches us that great sorrow will come upon Israel and they will be very repentant and they will be very broken and they will cry out to Jesus Christ for true salvation. Romans 11, verse 26 says, all of Israel will be saved.
Why do we love Israel as Christians? Well, not only because God has given us a promise that you are blessed if you do. If you bless his people, he’ll bless you. But number two, they are the chosen people of God and he is using the tribulation period to woo them back to him, to bring them back into a true relationship with him.
And that’s why there is favor, that’s why there is blessings, that’s why we as believers and those who follow Jesus Christ, that we have an affection towards the nation of Israel and we have a special protection because God called them the apple of his eye. And so we understand that and we recognize that and we look forward to that day in which they will truly come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. You will note again that in verse 10 that he says to us that we are to enter into the rock and hide in the dust.
This is a reference to what the Bible already teaches us in the book of Revelation that when the vials are poured out upon this world, when the bowls are poured out, when the trumpets are sounded, these are the things that represent God’s judgment and God’s wrath upon the Antichrist and his man-made kingdom and the judgment of God upon them. The judgment will be so fierce that people will want to hide in the rocks and the cliffs. Isaiah talks about in verse 12 that the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything that is proud and lofty.
That’s that second coming. That word can be translated host, it can be translated army. Some of your translations probably have that.
It is referring to the armies of angels, the legion of angels that are around the throne of God. In 1 Kings 22 verse 19 the Bible says, and he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne and all the hosts or all the armies of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left.
That God with all of his angels, all of his armies, and the people of God, we will come back on white horses. The book of Revelation teaches us and we will come back and Jesus the King of kings and the Lord of lords, he will destroy every man-made kingdom. He will destroy every enemy of God and as the judgment of God is coming upon this world, people will be in so much pain and so much terror that they will want to hide in the cliffs and hide in the rocks the scriptures teach us.
Now the day of the Lord is described here by Isaiah. He says the lofty will be humbled and the Lord will be exalted. Look again at verse 12.
When the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up, it shall be brought low. You and I witness and we wonder why do the heathen rage? Why is people getting away with their defiance to God? Listen to me my friends. It’s all coming to an end.
It’s just not going to come when you want it to and when I want it to, but God is going to bring everything to a point and he’s going to finally bring judgment and those who exalt themselves above God, he is going to confront them and he is going to deal with them. Joel 2 verse 31 says, the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Wow.
So we look at verse 13. Upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up and upon all the oaks of Bashan, upon all the high mountains and upon all the hills that are lifted up, upon every high tower and upon every fortified wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish and upon all the beautiful slopes and the loftiness of man shall be bowed down and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
So the day of the Lord is being described to us. What’s going to happen? People are on their perches and they are blaspheming God and they are acting all prideful and they can do whatever they want and there’s no accountability, but I tell you, my friends, that every person will give an account to God and that’s why you and I do not have to be afraid. You see, if you’ve already humbled yourself before Jesus Christ now, you will not have to humble yourself on the day of the Lord because you will already be with the Lord and you will be in a relationship with God receiving your rewards.
Now is the time. The Bible tells us that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess. That day is coming, but how much better it is to bow your knee today and to confess in your heart today that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Do not wait till the terror of the Lord comes upon this world and upon this land, but receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Acknowledge before God Almighty that you’re a sinner in need of a Savior and accept him as your Lord. The house of Jacob, the nation of Israel, they were bragging about their military pride.
You see that in verse 16. They were bragging about their trade and their commerce and how prosperous that they had come, but look at verse 18. But the idols he shall utterly abolish.
They shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty when he arises to shake the earth mightily. The lofty things that have been in direct competition with God’s glory are going to be destroyed. Human pride always seeks to exalt itself.
We look across this world. We see world leaders exalting themselves above God. We see politicians who think that they are better than God.
They belittle God and they think that everything’s because of them. It’s a reminder to me of an incredible story in 1951. We saw this picture occur that the communist era in eastern Europe came to a close.
The communists exalted themselves above God and they belittled God. They refused to let anyone believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember in downtown Budapest and the Hungarian communist party had erected a monument to the great communist leader Stalin.
It was completed in 1951 of December. It was a gift to Joseph Stalin saying that he was above God. It was torn down on October 23rd 1956 during a revolution.
The statue was 75 feet high and the people pulled it down with rope around the neck and they began to torch it and to burn it. And I thought you know what that’s exactly what’s happening. We see it all across America.
We see these leaders claiming that they’re God or that you’re to worship them and they tell you not to believe in God but to only believe in them. And then what do we see? Their kingdoms crumble. Their statues fall.
Why? Because there’s only one true God Jesus Christ. And I’m going to tell you at the end of the day of the Lord God is going to take care of all those who’ve exalted themselves against God. He will destroy all those who challenge his supremacy.
Now I want you to see the result. What is the result of this day of the Lord? Well verse 19 they’re going to go into holes. They’re going to go into caves.
Why? From the terror of the Lord and the glory of the majesty when he arrives and shakes the earth mightily. In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold which have made each for himself to worship to the moles and to bats. God is warning that his wrath is coming.
As Isaiah in Isaiah 2 gives us a glimpse of hope as we look into the future, he reminds the people of God that there is a danger to success. And one of those dangers is that we can become prideful, self-sufficient, and make it about us. And God wants us to always give him glory and always be dependent upon him.
And so the things we’re learning about these dangers may they serve as barriers for us and guardrails as we strive to honor Christ in our life. Now I also want to mention to you that if you’ll check out our website hopeworthhaving.com we have a newsletter and that can come to you through email or if you would like it to be physically sent to you just go to our website hopeworthhaving.com, hit newsletter, and then you can sign right up for it. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post The Danger of Success Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Faith In Action (Fathers Day). He will be reading out of Hebrews 11:23-29.
And every story is not a David and Goliath. And sometimes you’re at the point of a sword. And sometimes you’re at the point of loss.
And sometimes you’re in the midst of suffering and persecution. Yet, in that crisis, will you stand strong? Happy Father’s Day. This is Mike Sanders, and I am the Senior Pastor of The Open Door Church.
And I’m glad to bring to you this broadcast today. And it is Father’s Day, and we want to be an encouragement to all dads. And so I’ve entitled my message, Faith in Action.
Every dad ought to have a faith that is active. So we hope that you’ll be encouraged and challenged in this message. We’re going to be in Hebrews chapter 11, looking at verses 23 through 29.
So let’s grab our Bibles, and let’s begin to study. We have your Bible this morning. I want you to turn with me in Hebrews chapter 11.
And verse 23 through 29 is going to be our text. This Father’s Day, I would like us to learn about faith in action. Faith in action.
When you come to Hebrews chapter 11, you come to the great faith chapter of the Bible. Hebrews 11 has been called the roll call of the heroes of faith. And when we come down to verse 23 through 29, we are introduced to one of those heroes of faith.
And his name is Moses. And Moses exemplifies for us a faith in action. He is a man of God who stands as a model for every man, every father, and yes, every person present today on making sure that our faith is moving forward in action.
You know the story. How God delivered Israel from Egypt during the time of Moses. He led the people through the desert for 40 years, providing for them miraculously along the way.
After 40 years, God led them to the promised land where they settled in the land that God had given to them. Acts chapter 7, Stephen gives a narration, an overview of exactly what the Lord was doing. He said in verse 34 of Acts chapter 7, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt.
I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt. That was the calling that was on the life of the man, Moses.
He was called to be an instrument of God, to deliver the people out of slavery, out of bondage, into the land of the promise that God had given them, where they would experience the true freedom that is only found in their Messiah. This moment of the calling was so holy and so momentous that Moses took his sandals off. For he recognized from the angel that the land and the ground that he stood on was holy ground.
And Moses began that journey of leading the people. And there was a lot of detours. There was a lot of struggles.
There was a lot of ups. There was a lot of downs. There was frustration.
And even one time Moses was so angry that he smote the rock out of his anger. But yet in all of that journey, God used the life of Moses to influence and impact a whole generation for God. A generation that would march in to the promised land with the man, Joshua, that Moses had mentored, that Moses had discipled.
And Joshua then would lead the people to take on the different battles of this land that was given to them. So when we come down to verse 23, we see that Moses makes the hall of faith. And we recognize the scripture says in verse 23, By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king’s command.
By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. For he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.
By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned. Now I want us to see in the life of Moses, as well as his parents, faith in action.
So let’s first look at the parental faith in verse 23. It says again that by faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents. As soon as Moses breathed his first breath, his life was in danger, because Pharaoh had sent out an edict.
He had given, if you would, an ordinance or some kind of a command from the government. And the command was that every firstborn child should be put to death. And this certainly would be a sign of Moses’ life to come, how that his life would always be in danger, and that God would call Moses to be courageous and to take risks and to step out in faith all of his life.
But where did it begin for Moses, and this is what I want all dads to get, and this is what I want all moms to get, that Moses’ parents’ faith kept them from killing Moses as they had been instructed by the Egyptian government. How important it is for us to understand that Moses’ parents were people of faith in Yahweh. They understood that he was no ordinary child, that he was a unique child, that he was blessed of God, favor was upon his life.
When you come down to verse 23, and it says that the reason that they hid him was because they saw he was a beautiful child. In the Hebrew, he’s not talking about appearance, but there was a uniqueness to Moses. There was a glory upon Moses.
There was something special, a favor from God upon Moses. And this is something that was so startling to the parents that the Bible tells us that by faith they hid Moses, and they hid him for three months. Now, this very act of disobeying the government, of disobeying the Pharaoh, would cost them their lives if it was discovered.
And yet, these parents demonstrated great faith in the midst of a crisis. And it’s easy to imagine that this one act of faith that they took as mom and dad shaped their son’s life forever. And I want you to know, moms and dads, that our children are watching us, and that they are watching how we respond in crisis, how we handle situations, how we handle difficulties and problems in our life.
And it is our responsibility that even though we may not understand it, that we are always called to be a people of faith. And as a result of the strong faith of Moses’ parents, they were able to impact the life and influence their son, who would go on to be a great man of God and a great person of faith and a instrument in the hand of the holy God, our righteous God, our Savior, Yahweh, Jehovah, however you want to term His name in relating to giving praise and honor to Him. And today, moms and dads, you as well can influence your kids.
You can influence them for Christ. And I know some of you say, well, you know, I got a little bit started late, Pastor, and maybe I haven’t had the chance, and maybe I haven’t had the opportunity. Well, listen, friends, start where you’re at.
Make a commitment in your heart today. From this moment on, I’m going to live a life of faith. I’m going to live a life of courage, and my children are going to see faith in action in my life, in every aspect of my life.
They are going to watch my life, and they’re going to see that I’m going to stand up for the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I want you to note something. I want you to know that the government is not always right, that there are times that the government is wrong.
And listen to me. We have a higher calling. The head of the church is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can God’s people say amen? And we are to follow Christ. Now, we do everything we can. The government says, Mike, you need to have exit signs at the entryways.
They all work, the last I checked. And if they don’t work, you let me know, and we’ll get on top of it tomorrow morning. But let me tell you something.
We want to make sure that we follow the ordinances, the guidelines, the codes, everything like that. But when the government tells us to do something that violates the Word of God, when the government says, hey, you cannot gather together, when the government says, hey, you have to do something against what the Bible teaches, that’s when, in the moment of crisis, that God is calling on His people to stand up in courage and to stand for Christ and say we have a higher authority in our life. It’s higher than the government of this world.
Amen. And that’s what I’m talking about. You say, well, I took my kids to church.
But the key influence on the life of your children is in the moment of crisis. Are you retreating or are you stepping in? Are you stepping up? Are you being that man of faith? Are you being that person of courage and your children get to see faith in action? Now, we’re all gonna have problems. There’s never gonna be a day in your life that you rise up and you’re problem-free.
How about that one? Now, a lot of people hope they’re gonna have a problem-free day. And as soon as they have a problem, as their day begins, they have a meltdown because they thought that they were gonna have a problem-free day. But if you would get up every day and say, Lord, I know there’s gonna be some challenges.
I know there’s a lot of flawed people around me. It’s not me, God, it’s everybody else, amen? But I want you to know this, that you’re gonna have challenges in your life. But what are you gonna do about it? How are you gonna handle it? And what kind of faith is going to be demonstrated that your children can see? Faith is obeying God when I don’t understand it.
You know, there’s a lot of things we’re not gonna understand in life, okay? I don’t have all the answers. And I want you to know many times people have asked me why. And I say, I don’t know.
I wish I did. I wish I did. But you know what? Faith is obeying God when I don’t understand it.
The evidence of faith in my life is always obedience. Will I obey God? Unfortunately for too many, they build their faith on their feelings. They build their faith on their circumstances.
That every time their circumstances change, they’re all messed up. And every time their feelings are down, they’re down. Friends, we have feelings that are up and down.
It’s just part of the human nature, right? Okay? And there are gonna be things you’re excited about, and there’s gonna be things you’re gonna be frustrated about. But you know what? Don’t ever stop living for the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t ever stop being a person of faith and courage.
Now, how does faith produce courage in our life? How does faith produce courage? Now, I want you to jump back in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1, real quickly. Because I think that gives us the answer. That helps us to understand.
Faith, I’m in verse 1 of chapter 11, Hebrews. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Let me help you.
Faith emboldens us to be courageous because it is the assurance of what God promises that is better than anything than the world can promise me. So I have an assurance of the promises of God. I have faith in God.
Things that maybe I cannot see or know that I cannot touch or even taste. But they are promises of God, and I know the promises of God are better than the promises of the world. The promises of the world will fail you, and they will let you down.
But the promises of God are as sure as the sun is shining today and the sun will rise tomorrow in the providence of God, as every time you see that sun shine, you remember that our God is a faithful God who keeps his promises. And I want you to know that when you build your faith on the promises of God, you will be a person of courage today. Now, the second thing I want you to see this morning is the personal faith of Moses.
So we saw his parents’ faith. Now we’re back in verse 24, and now we’re transitioning to Moses’ faith, and we see that it says, by faith, Moses, when he became of age, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Moses’ faith included two critical things that are important for our faith.
First, there was a refusal, meaning that he refused, or we could put it like this, he renounced his status as a member of the royal household. Now, there is a lot of misnomers about Moses among Christians. There are many of you think that he was a stumbling, fumbling idiot that could barely articulate his words, but Acts chapter 7 helps us to fully understand that Moses many times in the presence of God was playing possum, and that he was trying to fool God that he could not communicate, that he could not fully speak.
But Moses went to the finest schools of Egypt, and Moses was being groomed, and he was being mentored to be the potentially next Pharaoh. He was gonna be a world leader. He was gonna be the man who would take the place of the current Pharaoh.
He was gonna be the person that was going to be stepping in and taking over the world and the kingdom of Egypt. But friends, remember the Bible says that Moses was beautiful. More than just his appearance, he was a man who was favored of God.
And at his mother’s knee, he learned about the principles of God. He learned about the Word of God. He learned about everything that was involved in understanding the heritage of his faith.
And the moment came where Moses had to make a decision. Would he follow the path of a world’s identity, or would he go down the path of the identity in his Messiah and God’s people? And would he follow what he knew was in his heart and what he was designed for and what God purposed in his life? And the Bible tells us in verse 24 that when he became of age, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. That’s huge.
Because the moment he walked away and said, I’m no longer identifying myself with this family, but I am identifying myself with the people of God, Moses understood there would be great sacrifice and there would be great loss. A willingness to suffer loss is evidence of your faith in Jesus Christ. Jump to verse 34 of Hebrews.
Notice again. When we read, let me give you this context before we read the verse. But when we read Hebrews, we tend to stop.
And we say, wow, that was awesome. There was some great people of God and look at all that they accomplish. But friends, when you read Hebrews chapter 11, don’t forget the final verses because we read about great people of God who lost, who suffered, who dealt with opposition and persecution.
Look again at verse 34. They were quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong became valiant in battle and turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Verse 35.
Women received their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trials of mockings and scourging, yes, and of chains and of imprisonment.
They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were tempted.
They were slain with the sword. They wandered about in the sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. And I love this verse.
Verse 38. Of whom the world was not worthy. Friends, part of your faith in action and showing courage is that there are gonna be times you’re gonna stand up for God and you’re gonna suffer loss.
You’re gonna have to sacrifice some things that maybe you’ve enjoyed, but God is bringing you to that moment, that crossroads in your life and saying, are you willing to follow me or do you wanna follow the world? And that’s exactly what was before Moses and that was exactly what was before God’s people. Every story is not a story of resurrection and every story is not a David and Goliath and every story is not a story that victory was seen on this side of heaven. Sometimes the victory is not experienced until the other side of heaven.
And sometimes you’re at the point of a sword and sometimes you’re at the point of loss and sometimes you’re in the midst of suffering and persecution. But yet, in that crisis, will you stand strong? Will you stay strong? May God help all of us that as we refuse the world’s identity and embrace the identity of Jesus Christ, may God help us that we will stay strong even in persecution. There was not only Moses’ refusal, but there was his rejection, verse 25.
So choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. In Moses’ refusal, he had to decide his identity. In Moses’ rejection, he had to decide whether he would enjoy the pleasures of sin or he would enjoy the stigma of following the Messiah.
To identify with the people of God, Moses rejected all the wealth, all the pleasures that came with being a part of Pharaoh’s household. Remember that the stigma of God’s people was like this, Exodus 1-11. Here’s what they did.
Therefore they did set over them taskmasters, meaning the people of God. The Egyptians were taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Python and Ramesses.
And what I’m trying to say to you is this. They bore this stigma of being in bondage and the stigma of being in slavery and the stigma of being a people who were looked down upon and were rejected by the world. And they were just used as stepping stones for other people to obtain their wealth and to obtain their desires.
And Moses, who was at the top of the ladder, being ready to step into the position of Pharaoh, had to make a decision. Would he go back and identify with the people of God at the bottom? Or would he stay in the palace and enjoy the pleasures and the wealth and the sin of the Egyptians? It was before him. And he learned from his mother’s niece that he was truly a Hebrew.
He was part of the family of God. And that he was to follow Christ, the Messiah. And so Moses gave up pleasure.
He gave up pleasure to live a life of virtue and honor to his God. That’s why it’s so significant. That’s true faith in action.
And every day, you and I have to make a choice. Every day, choices stand before us. Will we glorify God? Or will we glorify the world, ourself, and our own desires? Will we do what’s right? Or will we follow the values of the Bible and the word of God and our Savior? Or will we follow the values of the world? It’s all before us.
Little decisions. And you say, what’s the big deal, Mike? What’s the big deal about these little decisions? Let me tell you what the big deal is. Is that eventually, you’ll be in a crisis.
And eventually, you’ll face a big decision. And those little decisions will only pave the way for whatever your big decision is going to be. And that’s why every day, you have to make that choice in your life.
Am I gonna do the thing that honors God? Am I gonna follow Christ? Because in choosing to identify with the people of God, Moses was rejecting the values of the world and of Pharaoh. And that very decisive action of Moses foreshadowed a future decision by our own Messiah. We see in chapter 12 and verse two, excuse me.
And remember this. The Bible says of chapter 12 of Hebrews, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross and notice, despising the shame. It was embarrassing to die on a cross in the Roman culture.
It was a shame to be put on a cross and crucified. Only the worst of the worst criminals faced the ultimate death penalty of the cross. In the Old Testament, it was a curse.
So no wonder that Jesus not only bore the curse of the cross, he bore the shame and the embarrassment of the cross upon him. But why did he do it? The Bible says for the joy that was set before him. What was that joy? It would be your salvation.
And my salvation and the salvation of all who would come and receive Christ and turn away from this world and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. It was that joy. He was willing.
He was willing to take on shame for you. He was willing to take on embarrassment for you. He was willing to take on the curse of sin and the wrath of God.
And he did it all for the Lord Jesus Christ. Can the church give praise to Jesus Christ this morning? Amen. I mean, Jesus did all that for you.
He did it for me. We ought to be shouting from the mountaintop what Christ did. Moses was foreshadowing what was to come.
Now I want you to also see the perceptive faith of Moses in verse 26. And I want you to see what the Bible says here. That he esteemed, meaning Moses valued the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.
For he looked to the reward. He looked to the reward. You see, Moses had a conviction for a greater wealth, a greater treasure.
Not the treasure of the world, but the treasure of the Messiah. Now, it’s easy to misunderstand the text here a little bit. Because when the Bible says that Moses esteemed, or he valued the reproach of Christ, we certainly think in terms from the back end of everything, because we’re always looking back.
But Moses was looking forward. For Jesus had not yet come to this earth, and he had not yet died on the cross. But what Moses had always heard from his mom, and from his dad, and from his family, was that a Messiah was coming.
And what was so beautiful is that the parents gave him the full scope, like the prophets had taught. That in Isaiah, that the Messiah would be a suffering Savior. That he would be a Savior who would not only just bring victory, and he would one day rule and reign from the seat of Jerusalem, and all the beauty of that.
But that he would come and give his life for his people. And that it was that reproach that Moses learned from his parents. And it was that that instilled in the heart of Moses.
Look at verse 26. Greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. I want to know, is your faith perceptive? Do you have the ability to discern and distinguish the greater riches? When we think about the ills of society and all the problems in America, we can just bring it all right back to the home, and the breakdown of the home, and the lack of fathers having faith in action, and being active in their lives of their families.
And so it’s important for dads to step up, be strong, be bold, be courageous for the Lord, and to be able to speak up for him when it is necessary. And that’s what faith in action is all about. And so dads, I hope that you will continue to follow these principles, and apply them to your life.
We want to pray for you. So if you’ve got a prayer request, go to our website, hopeworthhaving.com, and click the contact button, type out your request, and I will spend some time praying for you. So take advantage of that opportunity.
This is Pastor Mike Sanders, reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post Faith In Action (Fathers Day) first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Future. He will be reading out of Isaiah 2:1-5.
And the kingdom of God will march on with you or without you. Are you gonna follow? Are you willing to take on the challenges that are before us? But the most important kingdom, church, listen to me, the most important kingdom is not the kingdom of this world. It is the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders. Welcome to the Hope Worth Having Radio Broadcast, and we are broadcasting from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and delighted to have you along with us. We’re gonna be in Isaiah chapter 2 today, a very intriguing and interesting passage of scripture, and we’ll be talking about the future.
So join me as we study together. When we come to Isaiah chapter 2 in verses 1 through 5 this morning, we’re reminded that God tells us about the future. But what is so great is that even though man may have aspirations of trying to create his own future, God has a plan for a future that supersedes all the plans of mankind and are better than mankind.
Most of us live our lives with an eye on the future. It would be foolish for us to live our lives regardless of what we know about the future. As we understand the future, it gives us more hope for the future.
And God has revealed the future with absolute certainty, and we should plan our lives based upon that future. And that future includes his soon return. Now Jesus taught us that there would be signs of the times, and as you and I are recognizing and we see these signs of the times, there is great anticipation for what the future will bring for us as believers.
And we are getting excited about what God has for us. When we come to Isaiah chapter 2, that is the very tone of this passage. It is a message of Isaiah that is very upbeat.
It is exciting. It belongs in the winner’s circle. It encourages anyone that might be discouraged about the circumstances of life, perhaps even of the world, and perhaps even of this nation.
You and I have such confidence in what the future will be like. There is a definite contrast that takes place in the book of Isaiah that you will note as we journey together. But in chapter 1, if you’ve been with us, you know Isaiah exposes the sin of Judah and Jerusalem.
Go back to verse 1 of chapter 1. The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amaz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And he goes on to narrate those different things that were troubling God, how they were empty in their worship and they were following the sinful ways of the heart. But then all of a sudden, having made it through chapter 1, and having seen how God was exposing a sick nation, we see the hope in chapter 2. And what God does over and over in the book of Isaiah through the prophet is to continue not only to expose sin and provide a remedy for our sin, but he continues to infuse us with great hope for the future.
God doesn’t just leave us. And what’s unique about the book of Isaiah, it’s not so much that it’s chronological. We’ll be going back from the past to the future and to the past again.
And you know when I read Isaiah, that’s what’s going on. It’s not the past, it’s the future. Isaiah, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he pops in God’s word of hope into the future.
And so again, we come to chapter 2. It is the message of the future. It is a message of hope that I want you to see this morning. So let’s first of all learn about the positive about this future.
Isaiah starts off chapter 2 just like he did chapter 1. And he says, The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Remember in chapter 1, he’s going to expose the sin. But in chapter 2, he’s going to talk about the future and what we have to look forward.
What is the source of this great positive outlook upon the future? Look at verse 1 again. Underscored in your Bible. The word.
It is the word of God. It is the word of God that Isaiah received. Isaiah received this message from God.
It is not something that Isaiah was just trying to teach the people to have positive thinking. It’s not that he was trying to give some kind of a message so that the people could somehow pull themselves together and keep moving forward. But rather, it was a message from God almighty.
It was the word of God that came to Isaiah. And what does Isaiah say to us? Go to verse 2. It shall come to pass. Look at the middle of verse 2. It shall be established.
This is the word. This is the promise. This is what God is telling us.
It’s not just that God is saying, here is my plan. But he is saying to all of us, here is my promise. This is what I’m going to do in the latter days.
This is what’s going to happen in the future. This is what you have to look forward to. And it is this future that we have as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ that keeps us motivated and it keeps us inspired to living strong for the Lord Jesus Christ.
And whatever God says is going to happen, friends, it’s going to happen. People make all kinds of promises. And you probably have had many people break promises to you.
But let me tell you something that’s different is that God’s promises are established. And they are sure. And God will fulfill everything that he has said.
And so that’s what I want you to see. The positive about the future is that its source is God’s word. It is God himself.
And it’s not something that he’s just putting out there to just pump you up. But it’s something that you can definitely bank on and that you can look forward to. So let’s see, second of all, this unique period in the future.
Look at verse 2 again. He says, Now it shall come to pass in the latter days. We know that in Acts chapter 2 and Hebrews chapter 2, the apostles talked about the latter days.
Talked about the last days. And the last days is a long period that exists from the coming of Jesus Christ the first time all the way to the coming of Christ the second time. And when we think about the latter days, what the prophet Isaiah is talking about, the last of the last days.
Or the last of this time period after the return of Jesus Christ. So, in general, you’ll read throughout the scriptures. You’ll read in the Old Testament.
You’ll read in the New Testament about the last days. People say to me, well, Mike, we’re definitely in the last days. Yeah, we’ve been in the last days for quite a while.
But I understand what they mean. They are saying we believe as we see the signs of the times that we are in the last of the last days. That we’re in that kind of final fourth quarter.
And it looks like God is bringing everything together. And everything that he said would come to pass is starting to come together so that it can come to pass. And we are witnessing some exciting times that you and I are living in.
And so, Isaiah says, the latter days. The last days. And this is an encouragement.
Because what he is trying to remind us is we are on schedule for God’s plan and God’s promise. That we are moving according to all that God has already orchestrated. People get so frazzled.
They get so frustrated. They get so upset about what they see happening in our nation. Or happening in the world.
Or perhaps even happening in their own lives. But listen to me, my friends. God has a plan.
And God has a purpose. And that even though it may not be what we always want. Or we want to see how certain things unfold certain ways.
You need to remember that God is in charge. And he is in control. And nothing is happening and catching God by surprise.
He is not shocked. His hand is working. And his hand is moving.
And he is accomplishing everything that he has already scheduled for the latter days. It’s exciting. God’s judgment.
God’s dealing with America. God’s dealing with people. And he is dealing with the righteous as well as those who are unrighteous.
And he is bringing it all in accordance to his perfect plan. You say, how do I learn about this perfect plan? Well, I want to give you a quick template. But you can read the book of Revelation.
You can read different books that talk about what is to unfold. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, chapter 5 helps us a lot. But you can begin to see this template.
But in general, this is where the position of our church family. But we believe that the next great event on the prophecy schedule of the latter days is the rapture of the church. Do you believe that church? Amen.
There’s a few of you left. Hey, my friends, I believe that the rapture is before the tribulation period. We’re given a promise that we are not ordained to tribulation.
Or we are not ordained to the particular suffering of the tribulation period. And again, I can take you back to the Greek. And I can help you walk through that.
And help you understand that. But there are some of you who still don’t believe the same way that I do. Or our church does about the rapture.
And that’s okay. We’re not saying you don’t love Jesus. Okay? We’re just saying that we believe the next great event is the rapture of the church.
After the rapture of the church is the tribulation period. How long is the tribulation period, church? It’s going to be a seven-year period. Christians are already raptured out of this world.
All that’s left is unbelievers. But in the midst of this seven-year period, there will be those who believe in Jesus Christ. They will come to Christ.
They will believe in Christ. I did a Bible study on insights into the tribulation through the book of Daniel. We taught about how you can understand what is going to unfold.
But one of the things we know is that the Bible says in the book of Daniel that they’ll be running to and fro. And people seem to think that that means that technology is going to be faster than ever. And knowledge is going to be more than ever.
And all those are true. I don’t deny those things. But that’s not what Daniel’s talking about.
He’s talking about that there are going to be people running all over, looking for the truth, trying to find the answers. What happened to all these people? They say that there’s just over 8 billion people in this world. But they say there’s about 2.5 billion Christians.
There’s only about 330 million Americans. And can you imagine that in a moment, instantaneously, 2.5 billion people are raptured out of here? Gone! And I’m telling you, those that do not believe in Jesus Christ, they’re going to be, what in the world just happened? And you know what they’re going to do? They’re going to run over to Grandma’s house. And they’re going to run over to Grandpa’s house.
They’re going to run over to their mom and dad’s house. And they’re going to say, they kept telling us we need to get saved. We needed to obey the Bible.
We need to get into the Word of God. And they’re going to be running to and fro, trying to find the truth. And Daniel says they’ll find it in the Word of God.
And you see, my friends, that’s why it’s important for us to print the Bible. That’s why it’s important for you to have a Bible at home. That’s why it’s important for you to tell your children about Jesus Christ.
That’s why it’s important for you to tell your grandchildren about Jesus Christ. You say, they don’t listen, Mike. It don’t matter.
That never stopped me. And it shouldn’t stop you. Amen? And it didn’t stop Isaiah.
When we get to Isaiah chapter 6, the Lord’s going to tell Isaiah, the people aren’t going to listen to you. But he said, keep telling them. And that’s the way God rolls, is that he keeps telling us the truth.
But here’s the thing. We, as a people, we tend to be hard-headed, and sometimes it doesn’t sink in as quick as we’d like it to be. Thank God for those who have been awakened, and they see the truth.
They respond to truth. That’s why it’s important to reach these children when they’re young, to reach these teenagers when they’re young, because they’re more responsive and they’re more receptive. They haven’t been hardened by sin.
That’s why we need to have ministries for children and continue to reach out to them and tell them about the Lord, Jesus Christ. But here’s what I want you to know. This tribulation period, people are going to be looking for the answer, and many will come to Christ.
The Antichrist will come on the scene. He will rule and reign, and he will control this world by three different means. You might write this down.
He will rule this world through a one-world government. He will rule this world through a one-world currency system, and he will rule this world through a one-world religious system. It won’t be the faith of Jesus Christ.
No, the Antichrist hates God, but he loves religion, because if he can use religion to control people, he’ll be glad to sign you up. Now, don’t you worry, church. We’re out of here, except for those guys that they want to wait until after the tribulation to be raptured.
You know, if I was God, I’d let you. I’d let you stay around if you wanted to. But for the rest of us, we’re out.
We’re up in heaven. We’re enjoying receiving our rewards, worshiping God, getting ready for the big moment. What’s the big moment? The second coming of Jesus.
At the end of the seven-year tribulation, I’m giving you a template. I’m helping you understand the end of the latter days. What’s it going to be like? It’s going to be a second coming of Jesus Christ.
I just read to you in Revelation chapter 20 some of the things that will be happening. Read to Revelation chapter 19 and Revelation chapter 21, and you’ll begin to see this big picture of what’s coming. Read Daniel, and you’ll begin to see this big picture that is coming, and the second coming of Jesus Christ will be upon this world, and we will rule and reign.
He will conquer every nation. He’ll conquer every political system. He’ll conquer all those who rebel and are against God Almighty, and he will sit on the throne that is in Jerusalem, the seat of David, and he will fulfill all the promises that have been made by the prophets that we will have a Messiah who will rule from Jerusalem.
That’s why it’s called the city of God, and that’s why Jerusalem and Israel matter so much to us, for, of course, many other reasons, and that’s why we have so much hope in the future. Now, what is the purpose of this thousand-year reign of Christ? I’ve referred to you before as it being the millennial kingdom. The millennial kingdom is not found in the Bible.
You’re not going to find that word millennial. I mean, you can look for it. Do a Google search.
It just isn’t going to pop up, but don’t worry. Don’t get upset because neither is the word missions. We all love missions.
These are words that we use to describe what the Bible teaches. We’re not saying that they somehow are man-made. What we’re saying is that there’s this thousand-year reign, the millennial kingdom, which is a Latin word that means a thousand, millennial.
It means a thousand. The millennial is a time of peace and prosperity on earth when Christ will rule from Jerusalem. The purpose of this thousand-year reign is to fulfill the promises that God made to his people that cannot be fulfilled while Satan is running free and rampant.
It is a time that we will be able to witness that Jesus Christ will conquer all political authority and he will be the sole authority on this earth. These promises sometimes are called covenants. They are sometimes specific to Israel.
Other times they are specific to Jesus himself. And other times they are to the church. It is our responsibility to distinguish what is this promise and who is this promise for.
Sometimes the church gets super excited. No problem. We understand it.
I like that you’ve got some zeal and some passion for God and that you’re excited and you read the Bible and you read a promise and you think, man, this promise is for me. And you come to me about it and I say, no, no, that’s for Israel. And you get discouraged.
No, don’t be discouraged. There’s plenty of promises to share, church. There’s plenty to enjoy.
But you’ve got to know what the promises of God are and who are they for. Is this for Israel? Is this for Jesus? Is this for the church? And once you distinguish that, then you can properly apply it to your life. Now, all these promises that are given so much in the Old Testament will be fulfilled during the thousand-year reign called the Millennial Kingdom, which will be ruled by Jesus Christ.
And when Isaiah, I’m doing Isaiah 2. I know you think I left it, but I didn’t. But in Isaiah 2 at the beginning, it shall come to pass in the latter days, the last days. Now, let’s talk about the power of the future.
Now, you will note in this text, again, as we continue to read in verse 2, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills. When you read, again, the book of Revelation and you read the book of Isaiah so many times that God uses metaphors, he’ll use different symbolic language to help us understand. So when God says the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, this is excellent news for all who love Jesus Christ, but it’s symbolic language that he is teaching us.
And the mountain that he speaks of is a metaphor for the Lord’s kingdom that will be exalted above all other kingdoms. And the term mountain can often be referred to as governments or kingdoms. And here, I want you to read that with that understanding that the mountain of the Lord’s house, that is, the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of the Messiah, shall be established on the top of the mountains, meaning the mountains of man’s kingdoms, that the kingdom of God will supersede the kingdom of man and will be on top of all these other man-made kingdoms and shall be exalted above the hills.
What will happen is that the mountain of Christ and the mountain of his kingdom will so supersede the mountains of man’s kingdoms that man’s kingdoms will become nothing more than just little hills. Their status will change. Let me help you out a little bit, okay? I want you to take your Bible, and I want you to go to the book of Psalm 48.
I want you to see this again. So Psalm 48, verse 1, says, Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, in the city of our God, in his holy what church? Mountain. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, and the city of the great king.
What I want you to see is that this is not the only time that this word mountain has been used as a metaphor. So it is. The psalmist, he taught us, the mountain refers to the kingdom of God.
Here’s what I want you to know, that after the tribulation period, in the second coming of Christ, the establishment of this thousand-year reign called the millennial kingdom, that God will be recognized as the supreme rule of all the nations. It will not be the United States of America. It’s not even mentioned in prophecy.
I don’t even know if the United States will be here, church. And that’s why what you’re witnessing may be a part of God’s perfect plan. And you say, well, I don’t want America to go down.
Well, I don’t either, but I’m just telling you that the Bible doesn’t mention America. But sometimes we have to recognize before we can get to the good, we got to endure the bad. And sometimes in order to fulfill God’s plan and that his kingdom will rule and reign and that there’ll be all these things that unfold in the book of Revelation, it’s probably going to require for the decline of America.
It won’t be the United States that rules in the millennial kingdom. It won’t be the United Nations. It will not be China.
But the true ruler in the latter days will be Jesus Christ himself and the kingdom of God. Can God’s people say amen? Amen. Now I want you to see not only the status of this kingdom, but the strength of this kingdom.
We’re back in Isaiah chapter 2, so flip back there. And again, I already mentioned this, but I just want you to see the strength of this kingdom. He says in verse 2, it shall be established.
And then he says again in verse 2, it shall be exalted. That’s the great strength of this nation. And God will overcome all the wickedness and all the sin that is in this world.
And there’ll be many that defy God, hate God in the tribulation period and desire to destroy Jesus Christ, his followers. They will literally demand that they take on the mark of the beast. And if they do not take on the mark of the beast, they will be martyred for the cause of Jesus Christ.
But there’ll be no evil by Satan or his own kingdom that will be able to stop the kingdom of God. For Hebrews 12 teaches us that the kingdom of God is unshakeable. Now, sometimes his servants, yeah, they get shaken, but the kingdom of God will not be shaken.
And the kingdom of God will march on with you or without you. That’s your choice. You have to decide, are you all in? Are you going to follow? And are you willing to endure? Are you willing to take on the challenges that are before us and keep marching forward? But the most important kingdom, church, listen to me, the most important kingdom is not the kingdom of this world.
It is the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And I hope you’ll put all your energy and all your effort to advancing the kingdom of God. Now, what will the thousand-year reign be like? As we go through the book of Isaiah, as I told you, Isaiah is going to keep bringing us back to this millennial kingdom.
If you want to learn about the millennial kingdom, man, read the book of Isaiah because over and over again, as Isaiah deals with sin and confronts a nation, he will then jump us into the future to once again infuse hope into our hearts, and he will describe what this thousand-year reign will be like. Just a few things that I put down. This is not all, but I want you to write this down.
It will be a universal kingdom, meaning the kingdom of Christ will be universal all over the whole world, not just certain parts, but all over, Christ will rule. Where will be the center? It’ll be Jerusalem, and it will be a righteous kingdom. It will be a time of perfect justice.
We get frustrated because there’s so much injustice in this world. Isn’t that true, church? It’s frustrating, and you say, man, that’s not fair. I hear you, but that’s the world we live in.
You haven’t made it to the millennial kingdom yet, but hang in there, church. In the millennial kingdom, you’re not gonna be able to say it’s not fair, because God’s kingdom will always be fair. We’ll also learn that Israel will be converted in the millennial kingdom.
Jeremiah chapter 30 teaches us that, and Romans chapter 10 and 11 teach us that the nation of Israel will be converted to Jesus Christ. But I went on a trip to Israel. You’ve heard me say it before.
It was a great trip, and there was 20 of us pastors, and we were led by Dr. Dino Padrone, and we had the privilege of meeting the top rabbi of the nation of Israel. And he said, the only difference between the Jewish people and the Christians is that the Christians believe their Christ has already come the first time, but we are waiting for our Messiah. And see, I want you to know that one day they’ll recognize that Jesus is the true Messiah that they have been waiting for.
He is the true Messiah, but it’ll be also a time of great peace. I want you to look at verse four again. We’re jumping down in Isaiah.
The Messiah will judge between the nations. He’ll rebuke many people, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Let me put it to you like this.
The weapons of warfare in the millennial kingdom will become instruments of agriculture. That’s what’s gonna happen. And the Bible gives us a promise.
Look at the end of verse four. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, and neither shall they learn war anymore. We are living in times where we are constantly under the threat of war, aren’t we? And we read the news, we see it across our social media, we see the threat of all that is happening, and we are terrified as to what might happen.
But let me tell you, there’s coming a day when there’ll be no more war. It’ll be wonderful, church. Now let’s learn about the praise in the future.
The Bible says, this kingdom of God shall be exalted above the hills. We talked about that, and it certainly speaks of the future, because it’s certainly not now, but God will be exalted, His kingdom will be exalted, and we will praise God. It’ll be a beautiful time.
Right now, we’re in a battle between good and evil, aren’t we? We’re in a battle, we’re fighting. I mean, you know, you win one battle, and then you turn around, you wake up the next day, and there’s another battle. And it’s easy to get weary in the battle.
It’s easy as believers to say, man, I’m just gonna coast, I can’t take it no more. But no, friends, we gotta stay on the front lines, because we are to be salt, and we are to be light, even in a wicked world. We are to be the people who are spreading the good news of Jesus Christ, and we are to stay fully engaged.
We can’t jump on the sidelines, church. We can’t just quit, we can’t just give up. We gotta stay fully engaged with the gospel of Jesus Christ, trying to promote the righteousness of Christ anywhere and everywhere that we can, in small ways, big ways.
We’re fully engaged Christians who refuse to retreat and to back down from the opportunity that is before us. But I want you to see here again that it says that these mountains will become hills, meaning God has conquered them, which reminds me in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, when the apostle spoke of the millennial kingdom and the second coming of Christ, he reminded the people of God, then comes the end in 1 Corinthians 15, when he hands over the kingdom to our God and Father, when he has abolished all rule, meaning the rule of mankind, and all authority and power. In the millennial kingdom, all of Christ’s enemies will be put in subjection and under his feet, so that the sovereign plan of God will be… As we study the book of Isaiah together, one of the things you will note is there are times that Isaiah begins to look into the future, and today’s text in Isaiah chapter 2 is about the future.
And so God is bringing us a hope, he is bringing us truth, and he wants us to know that it won’t always be like this. The nation of Israel will not always be a sin-sick nation, but there is much to be thinking about relating to their future and what it’ll be like in the thousand-year reign. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post The Future first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on What Exactly is Worship? Part 2. He will be reading out of Isaiah 1:11-20.
And you and I have a responsibility how we treat others. You can’t walk out of this place and live like the devil and then come back here next Sunday and think that your worship is acceptable to God. It’s not.
Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from The Open Door Church, and I want to welcome you to Hope Worth Having, and we’re delighted that you’re listening today to the program. And we’re looking forward to what God has to say and teach us today. And we’re going to be in Isaiah chapter one, verse 11 through 20.
We’re continuing our study on what exactly is worship. So I want you to grab your Bible and join me as we study together. You just cannot be right with God if you’re wrong with everybody else.
It’s impossible. That’s why Peter said to the believers that the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.
And he’s not talking about unbelievers. He’s talking about believers. And this is what Isaiah the prophet is saying when he says to them in verse 15, you spread out your hands.
They’re lifting their hands unto God. Great, wonderful. But he says, I’ll hide my eyes from you.
Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. It could refer to the blood of the sacrifices, or it could be symbolism of how they treat other people.
Either way, the point is clear, that God will not hear the prayers of his people if our life is not aligning with the word of God. And that it is hypocritical to come into the house of the Lord and worship God when we are walking in sin. So third John tells us, beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good.
He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil has not seen God. See, people watch our lives, don’t they? They see how we act and react and how we handle circumstances. And they are seeing whether we worship God in our daily activities, that all that we do is for his glory and not for our selfish ambitions or our own agendas, but rather everything is about God.
And so they look at us, and John is saying, you need to do what is right or what is good. Because that’s what God’s good work is in you. That’s how he is glorified for you.
So we come down to verse 16 and 17, and there’s a call to repentance. Look at it again. Wash yourselves.
Make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil.
Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor.
Defend the fatherless and plead for the widow. The prophet is not trying to tell us to work our way to heaven. He’s trying to say, show yourself as being a person who has been touched by heaven.
That God has done his good work in you. That you are to be a person who promotes justice. You’re to be a person who learns to do good.
That you speak up and step up against those who are oppressing others. This is a reflection of our heart. This is a reflection of who we are as we worship God.
We are worshipers of God, and we worship him in spirit and in truth. And the Bible tells us to worship him in spirit, which means that it needs to be authentic. He’s not talking about the Holy Spirit.
Certainly the Spirit of God leads and guides all of our worship. That’s a known factor. But in the idea of this word and the original language, he’s talking about being real in your worship.
Being true to God in your worship. And then not only are you true to God in your heart, but you are guided by the truth. Worship God in spirit and truth.
The truth shapes our worship, and it shapes how we live. And as we are out there interacting with others and operating as believers and true worshipers of God, people are seeing whether our life is glorifying God, reflecting God. Then they know that there is a God, and that God can change a heart, and God can transform a person.
James put it like this in James 1, pure religion, undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Now again, sometimes people like to make these the marks of salvation, but that’s not the point. The point is that these are the marks of someone who’s truly been saved.
These are the marks of true worshipers who are genuine before God in their walk with him. And so Isaiah continues on after this call of repentance, after he acknowledges in verse 11 through 15, he points out the failure of outward religion and outward worship going through the motion, and then a call to repentance in verse 16 and 17. Then we come to an incredible invitation in verse 18 through 20.
Let’s read it. Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. What beautiful sets of words, amen? Because see, that’s what I love about God, is that God doesn’t just say, hey Mike, this is your problem, but he says, I want to show you a path to deal with it.
He helps me and restores me and renews me. He brings me back. He shows me the path.
We like to refer it to like this, that it is redemptive discipline. Redemptive discipline. When we came many years ago, we believed it was important to establish redemptive discipline in the Christian school.
Because we believe that redemptive discipline is the way of the Lord. And so it is in our walk with Jesus Christ this morning, is that God is not cutting you off because you came just dragging in and going through the motions. And though he may have been disappointed that your heart was not really there and all in with worship this morning, God is saying, hey, I want to restore you.
I want to renew you. And he says, here’s the way. And he gives us an invitation.
Let’s look at first the tone. It’s a tone of reason rather than demanding. He says at the outset, let us reason together.
I love this because one of the things that I think is so essential in the 21st century in the American church is this skill set to think or to discern. It seems to me that so many Christians have quit thinking. There is no discernment in the body of Christ.
And that whatever is the razzle-dazzle and whatever moves the heart and the emotion, whatever makes the foot tap, it must be from God. And if it came down from heaven, or at least I should say it says heaven or Jesus on it, it must be true. But you see, the Bible tells us that the devil appears as an angel of light, doesn’t he? And we’re called to test all things, to prove all things.
And here God says, I don’t want you to check out your brain when you come to the gathering. I don’t want you to check out your brain when you are coming to assemble as corporately as believers. But he says, I want you to reason with me.
I want us to reason. Use your noggin. And so it is that God is not only a righteous judge, but he’s a loving father.
And his tone towards us is, let’s think about this. Let’s just think about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it. And his tone is one that he certainly has great sorrow over his children.
We jump back to verse 5 and 6. He said, why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the whole heart faints. Verse 6, the sole of the foot, even to the head.
There is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment. He is saying, you’re sick.
And I care about you. And I care enough about you to intervene. To be intentional.
Not to just leave you in your sickness and delay in your spiritual bed. And let you deteriorate spiritually and drift from God. He says, I want to get your attention.
So God, out of great love, gives this great invitation. And that he gives it in a heart that cares. We remember our Savior in Luke 13 who said, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem.
The one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. But you were not willing.
Our empty worship breaks the heart of God. Our hearts that have drifted break the heart of God. He cares.
It does matter. It is important to him. So what an amazing thing that God reasons with us when we stray.
How incredible that the Lord Jesus knocks at our door even though we have become lukewarm in our faith. You remember the words of Jesus. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
And if anyone hears me, my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine or fellowship with him and he with me. This is the tone that God has this morning to each of our hearts. It is a desire that we would open the door and that we would reconnect with God and have that fellowship with him at a deeper level.
That our Bible reading would be more than just, I checked that off. That our prayers would be more than, yep, got that done. So I don’t have to worry about pastor getting on to me about that.
But that we would want to fellowship him at a deeper level. That we’re not worried about a checklist. But we are passionate about spending time with Jesus every day.
Let’s talk about the terms of this invitation. Stepping from his bench, the judge offers the accused a full pardon. Both wool and snow are white by nature.
And the Lord is offering to give each of us, his people, a new heart and a new nature. It’s like the words of John when he said, if you walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all of our sin.
You see, friends, when we respond to God, he takes the initial step. He reaches out. He’s the one that is searching, looking, and being intentional.
But when we respond to his great work in our hearts, what does he do? The Bible teaches us that he cleanses us, he washes us, and he makes us brand new. Gives us a fresh start in the Lord Jesus Christ. And what I want you to know in 1 John 1, 7, is that there’s a connection here.
Again, what I’ve already taught you. That you can’t be wrong with others and be right with God. And you can’t be wrong with God and be right with others.
It’s just an impossibility. It’s something that we have to keep in the forefront of our hearts. And so, John says, we have fellowship one with another.
You see, you may drift. God hasn’t kicked you out of the family, but the fellowship’s not as sweet, right? You’ve been to those Thanksgiving dinners when it was awkward. Maybe a brother and sister aren’t getting along.
Maybe a mom is upset with a son. Maybe a dad is disappointed in his children. And yet, we all tried to do the Thanksgiving dinner because we’ve always done the Thanksgiving dinner.
And we kind of just showed up and we ate the turkey and we ate the cranberry sauce. And then we were trying to figure out how to get out of there because we can’t stand some of these people. Amen? But here’s what God does.
He comes in and wipes all those offenses away. All those issues away. And he brings us back into sweet fellowship with him.
And he brings us back in sweet fellowship with others. It wasn’t the sacrifice of animals. It wasn’t the rituals that was going to make it right.
It had to be getting right with God in their hearts. That was essential. You know in Isaiah 53 verse 1 and 2. I want you to real quickly just jump over there.
Will you do that for me? Because it becomes such a thread throughout this whole book and even the Bible. That it’s hard for us to ignore this great passage in Isaiah 53. In which we are reminded who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed.
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant. And this is a prophecy about Jesus. And as a root out of dry ground he has no form or comeliness.
And when we see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him. And look at verse 4. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And by his stripes we are healed. We are healed spiritually.
We are healed from the offenses of sin. And the walls of disfellowship. We are healed through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But there is a condition. And the condition is that we must repent. It means we need to change direction.
Now guys, if you’re like me and most of you probably are in some way. Is that you’re hard headed. And we’re saying, I know how to get there honey, don’t tell me.
And my wife will say to me, Mike, I think we’re on the wrong road. Honey, I have driven this way 10 times. I know what I’m doing.
This just happened, okay. And I am so determined. And then I can’t find where we’re supposed to be.
And I got to humble myself. Not only do I have to humble myself to my wife. But I have to humble myself to the GPS lady.
So now I got two women to humble myself to. But I got to change direction. And you see, that’s what God’s saying.
He’s saying change direction. Change directions. Reject apathy.
Reject formalism. Reject the charade. And let God do his work in your heart as you are repenting.
Now verse 21 through 31, we don’t have time to read every verse. But we’ll point out a few. But there is a painful purification.
So God has given us this great invitation. But he’s purifying us too. That as we come to him and we make things right, he is purifying our hearts.
So unlike Sodom, remember that he sarcastically called him Sodom? Remember he referred to the people like the people of Gomorrah? And you remember that story that God just rained down judgment upon them? Well, these people are his people, Judah. And so it’s a little bit different in that the Lord is going to purify, not annihilate. He’s going to purify our hearts.
And so we are a stubborn people and we can be persistent. But God is still going to draw us to him. Look at verse 26.
I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Look at verse 27.
He says, Zion shall be redeemed with justice and her penitents with righteousness. The destruction of transgressors and of sinners shall be together. And those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.
He goes on to talk about those who reject God. But he goes on to teach us that he is purifying us. He is purifying us, church.
And I want you to understand something. That God will discipline you. He will discipline me.
He will confront me. He will confront us if need be. He will judge our sins and we will have to face the consequences of our sin.
But he has not given up on us. He has not kicked us out of the family. When we try to substitute religion or a religious experience for genuine worship and obedience to God and love for others, it will always fail.
But God says, I want you to realign your heart. I want you to realign your heart. Yes.
I want you to remember that, and again you can read this on your own, but in 1 Peter, the Bible teaches us that we’re tried by the fire. And when Peter shares this story about being tried by the fire, he talks about all the infirmities when the gold is put into the fire or the metal, the precious metal is put into the fire, that all the infirmities rise to the top, and then the blacksmith takes a tool and wipes that infirmities away. And it’s a beautiful picture of the believer going through adversity, that we are tried by the fire.
There is a purification that God is doing in our life. And some of you are wondering the what and the why. There are storms of correction that God is using in our life to help us get back on the right path and to purify our hearts.
And when all of our weaknesses are exposed in the midst of the adversity, in the midst of the trial, in the midst of the challenge, who you really are is right there naked before God. But it’s also right there naked before you, isn’t it? Some of you remember what it was like taking a test in school, don’t you? But I want you to know it was not just to let the teacher know, did you learn anything? But see, the test was designed to show you what you knew and didn’t know. And what I want you to know, that as I walk through a test or trial, you and I together as we walk through adversities, that it’s not only showing God where am I at and what do I need to work on, but it’s revealing to me where I’m at and what I need to work on.
And God is purifying me so that I would stay in alignment with Him. There is no vital relationship with God apart from obedience to God. And you and I have a responsibility how we treat others.
You can’t walk out of this place and live like the devil and then come back here next Sunday and think that your worship is acceptable to God. It’s not. You can’t be wrong with people out there and then come in here thinking you’re right with God because you lifted up your hand or you prayed a prayer or you signed a card or you went through the motions.
You need to make sure that when you leave this place that your worship continues to God in how you treat others. And that’s why Isaiah spent so much time in this chapter talking about defending the fatherless, helping the widows, seeking justice. He is saying that it all flows together because our proper treatment of others is foundational to our worship to God.
And so if you want to abandon empty worship, you have to abandon a lifestyle that is contrary to the Word of God out there so that when you come in here that God is receiving your worship as true. Let’s pray. Our heads are bowed and our eyes are close.
We don’t stand in judgment to you this morning. We say we know and we understand, but we call upon you to join together as believers to say, Lord, forgive me. Maybe there’s something you said or did this week that needs to be brought to the Lord in this moment.
This is our response to God. While our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, I invite you to respond to Him, whatever God has pointed out. And maybe even through your adversity, God has shown you some things you need to work on, things that you’ve got to make right.
And maybe there’s someone you need to be right with and you need to reach out and connect so you can be right with God. That’s the crux. You can’t be wrong with others and authentically worship God.
You just can’t. And so through His blood, let Him cleanse you and make you white and pure. And the Bible says if we confess our sins, He’s faithful.
May it be our heart this morning to sing again in our hearts, change my heart, oh God. May I be more like you. If you’re here this morning and you don’t know Jesus Christ, I pray today that you would reason with the Lord, that you would come to Him, and that you would see that you’re a sinner in need of a Savior.
And the Savior through the blood of Christ can wash away and make you as white as snow. He can wash away your sin if you’ll only come with a surrendered and submissive heart. Heavenly Father, this morning we come acknowledging that there have been moments and times we have just walked through the rituals.
We just did the motions, but our heart was not there. And for many reasons, our heart was not there. But we ask God that you would again renew our hearts, restore us in fellowship with you, with others, and may we walk in alignment with your truth.
May you bless us with your wisdom as we navigate the challenges of this world. I pray, Lord, that you would help us to be real as you expose what we need to address in our hearts. Grant us hearts that are obedient, hearts that are humble.
I pray, Lord, for anyone here this morning that may not know you as their Savior. I pray that they would engage their mind and think about your invitation to them and how reasonable it is to come to Jesus, how much sense it makes to bring your sins to you, Lord, and that you promise when we humble our hearts that you will forgive us of our sins, that if we call upon your name that you would save our soul. I pray that many hearts today would trust you as Lord and Savior.
And we ask God that you would forgive us of empty worship and that you would grant us hearts that authentically and genuinely worship, not just here, but throughout the day as we interact with others. We pray all this in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Despite their rebellion, the Israelites did not abandon religion.
But unfortunately, the Lord could not bear their rituals anymore, and he was tired of their insincerity. And so when we think about worship, it’s not so much the outward as it is the inward, and that we need to make sure our heart is in alignment with Jesus Christ, that we’re not caught up into empty formalism, and that we are distant from the Lord in our hearts where we are indulging in hypocrisy. So I pray that God will grant us a sincerity as we worship him.
I want you to know that we appreciate your support. Many of you pray for our radio program. Many of you are sending donations and thank you because as you give, it helps us to stay on the air.
And make sure when you give, let us know what radio station you’re listening to us on so that we can continue to be an encouragement to them as well. So this is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post What Exactly is Worship? Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on What Does the Bible Mean When it Speaks on Heaven Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 12:2-4.
People ask me, is there really guardian angels? I believe so. I believe that God has guardian angels and they have responsibilities. I believe angels minister to us.
Sometimes miraculously step into a situation and do phenomenal things on orders from God Almighty. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders with Hope Worth Having. Thank you for tuning in to our radio station today.
We’re beginning a new series. What does the Bible mean when it speaks of heaven? What does it mean? 2 Corinthians chapter 12 is where we’re going to be and we’re going to be a part of learning the vision that the Apostle Paul received. And what does he mean about the heavens? And what does that mean to us spiritually? So let’s grab our Bibles and begin our study today.
I want you to join me in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Today, we begin that first question about heaven. Now, heaven is hard to explain.
As a matter of fact, when we look at our text this morning in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, we will note in verse 2 that the Apostle Paul gives a testimony. He is actually speaking of himself. But he says in verse 2, Which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
I think really what the Apostle was saying is that all that he envisioned in this unique encounter in which he went to the third heaven and he saw things that the Bible says are hard, they are inexpressible, meaning difficult to articulate and to say exactly all that he saw. So much it was not lawful for a man to utter. And I know that many of you might say to me, Well, Pastor Mike, I read this particular book and a person died and went to heaven and they came back and wrote a book and told us everything about heaven.
I don’t know if those experiences are all true. I know some of them have turned out to be false. And some of them were all about making money and fame.
I know the Apostle did not want to be famous. He wanted to be faithful. I know that the Apostle said that he could not even express in words what he saw.
I know that he said it wasn’t even lawful for a man to utter. He did not put a book together in the sense of selling it and marketing it and making a lot of money. And I want you to understand this morning that when you and I are trying to learn about heaven, I think the best authority on heaven is the Word of God.
It really is the Word of God. We do not deny anybody’s experience, but nothing can surpass the inerrant, infallible Word of God. So we encourage you that whatever you might believe about heaven, or even imagine about heaven, that you would make sure it is rooted in the truth of God’s Word.
It really is a place, heaven, that is hard for us to grasp. When we think of terms like this, that heaven is a place without pain, without evil and disappointment or even doubt. It’s interesting that sometimes when we read the scriptures about heaven, it does not so much tell us what is heaven as much as what it is not.
John the Revelator said this in Revelation 21.4 about heaven, that God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. In that enough of itself is enough for me to think and contemplate, first, what is it that motivated or stimulated the tears? But the Bible says God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Were they tears of joy? Were they tears of sadness? Were they tears of happiness? God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, and neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.
Amazing. It’s a lot to grasp and wrap your brain around. The apostle in our text described that he went to the third heaven.
I want to help you understand what does the Bible mean when it speaks of heaven. Let me help you a little bit this morning in our introductory part of this sermon is that in the first sense, heaven is the sky and the atmosphere that you and I can see from the earth. We see in the Bible that it refers to the birds of heaven, and it talks about rain from heaven, and it talks about even snow and dew and frost and wind all coming from heaven.
That is reiterated throughout the Scriptures. There is a second heaven that is the celestial bodies. It is the place where the sun and the moon and the planets and the galaxies are.
It is referred to as the second heaven. We see these through our different technological instruments or tools that we might have. Some of you are fascinated with the different alignment of the planets, and rightly so because it’s so amazing to see how some of these things come together, and we get to be able to witness what was read in the Scriptures, how the sun and the moon are able to declare and give praise to God Almighty.
The Bible tells us that the heavens declare His glory. It doesn’t matter whether it is a creation here on this earth, whether it is creation in the seas, in the depths of the seas, or in the heights of the heavens. All things that are created by God are to give glory to God.
You say, what is my purpose in life? Why should I get out of bed? Why should I get at it today and get some things done? Because you are to give glory to God. Some of you are baffled by that very thought of giving glory to God, but friends, I want you to know that even in the minutest details of our life and just doing our daily responsibilities and the things that we are called to do and the different roles that we have in life, all bring glory to God as we are faithful to that task. The Bible tells us that there is a third heaven.
The apostle Paul in chapter 12 refers to this third heaven in verse 2. He says that such a one was caught up to the third heaven. Most of the time when we read in the Scriptures, that is what God is referring to and speaking to when the word heaven is used. It is also most of the time what you and I are referring to when we talk about our loved ones going to heaven or we talk about what heaven is like.
We’re not talking about what maybe we could visually see here on earth or even through the instruments that might be given to us to be able to look beyond into the galaxies and the planets, but rather that third heaven is what fascinates us and what certainly captures our attention. One might say, what is the particular purpose of even studying heaven? It is so complex and difficult to fully grasp. Why would you even take this time, Pastor Mike, to talk to us about heaven? Well, first of all, friends, it’s in the Bible and we want to give you the whole counsel of the Bible.
Second of all, I want you to understand that the hope of heaven is what strengthens us and sustains us and helps us as believers as we walk in this journey of life. And friends, you won’t be long in the journey of life when you find that there are different times of seasons of suffering and sorrow and struggles in your life. What is it that helps you to power through it? What helps you to keep marching forward for God and not retreating and giving up? It is the hope of heaven.
Keep that in mind. We are fascinated with heaven. We encourage you to study it on your own.
We encourage you to make maybe a part of your study in your devotion time this new coming year to put that on one of your lists that you’d like to study more what the Bible has to say about heaven. But let me share with you four things. Remember, we’re going to cover five questions about heaven.
We won’t cover everything today. This is just the first question. And we’ll continue to expand upon it and build upon it, but this will be foundational for us that what does the Bible mean when it speaks of heaven? First, it is a place where God dwells.
Heaven is a place where God dwells. We know when Jesus taught us the Lord’s Prayer or what is often referred to as the Disciples’ Prayer, as he was modeling a template for the people of God to pray, not a prayer that necessarily had to be repeated at every service, nothing wrong with repeating it. It is certainly a comforting and encouraging passage of Scripture.
And whatever God’s Word is read, it is memorized or even repeated. It certainly is a blessing. But what I want you to see here at the outset of this prayer, Jesus said, Our Father, which art in what? Heaven.
Jesus would often, as he prayed, lift his hands to heaven. He would lift his eyes to heaven. Heaven is a place where God dwells.
Heaven is the dwelling place of God. Ecclesiastes 5, 2 reminds us, for God is in heaven and you on earth. And when the Bible refers to this heaven, it is referring to what the apostles said, that third heaven, the place where God dwells.
What is unique about this place where God dwells? His presence is there. Again, we’re going to inundate you with some Scriptures here, so hang on, and we’ll be glad to share these Scriptures. I think they’re on the app.
You can get all the notes that I have given and studied together to help enhance your own personal study. But in 1 Kings 8, in verse 30, it says, And may you hear the supplication of your servant and of your people, Israel, when they pray towards this place, meaning the temple, here in heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive. And so they encouraged that as the people were praying that God would hear from heaven, that he would hear the prayers of God’s people.
And so I want you to know that where is God? He is in heaven. Hang in there with me. His presence is everywhere.
We know that. But I want you to understand that his dwelling place, according to the Scripture, is in heaven. Again, Deuteronomy 26, 15 says, Look down from your holy hill, habitation from heaven.
And bless your people, Israel, and the ground that you have given us as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey. God is present throughout all creation. He is present throughout all creation, but the very inhabitants of God the Father and certainly God the Son and God the Spirit is in heaven.
And the Bible describes heaven as being the very place in which God dwells. Again, the psalmist said in Psalm 115, verse 3, But our God is in heaven, and he does whatever he pleases. And friends, do not be discouraged because God’s presence is not limited to heaven.
God’s presence is not limited to heaven. The reason this is important for us to understand is that we use the term omnipresence, which means that God’s presence is in heaven, but God’s presence is in earth as well. But we understand that God dwells in heaven, that his habitation, his place is in heaven.
And this is where God is. Do not be discouraged because there is the manifestation of his presence. We understand the omnipresence, that God is everywhere at the same time.
It’s phenomenal. It’s hard for us to even think. But yes, God is there.
There are times that there is the manifested presence of God. Jesus referred to this many times about this manifested presence. The apostle referred to this manifested presence.
Jesus said, where two or three are gathered there in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Are you saying I have to have two or three to get the presence of God? No, but there is a special manifested presence. You say, what is the case, Pastor Mike? I can worship God out on the tree stand.
I can worship God out on the lake. I can worship God on the beach. And no one said you couldn’t.
And I think you should, and I hope you are. But there is something special about being here together. It is the manifested presence of God.
And one of the things that I love about being here with God’s people is the manifested presence of God. And that’s why we hold on to that. But we understand that God fills heaven and earth.
The scripture says, can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? Sayeth the Lord, do not I fill heaven and earth? Sayeth the Lord. Well, not only do we understand in relation to the presence of God to the place where God dwells in heaven that his presence is there, but his throne is in heaven. His throne is in heaven.
The psalmist said in Psalm 103, verse 19, the Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all. If you will, please understand that God in heaven is on a throne and he sits on his throne. And the Bible describes Jesus as being at the right hand of the Father.
And it is on this throne that unbelievably that the Father is ruling the world as the sovereign God. He is in charge and he is in control. And I know there are times that you wake up and think, what is wrong with this world? It’s a good question.
But certainly we could say that partly what’s wrong with this world has nothing to do with God, but has everything to do with the demonic forces and the devil and man being sinful, people being sinful and making very selfish decisions and living lives for themselves rather than to the glory of God. And all the things that you’re seeing being pumped out through the different media outlets, including social media, is designed to disciple us to be people who hate God. And that’s why we have to have so much discernment.
And we need God’s word to help us filter all the trash that is constantly bombarding us. We need the wisdom of God to help us to discern the true voice of God and not the voice of the world and not the voice of charlatans and not the voice of those who would mislead us. But there is a God church, and I want you to know today and I want you to be encouraged that he is sitting on his throne and he is overseeing the affairs of all of mankind.
Yes, he is. Daniel 4, verse 37, Nebuchadnezzar, who had been humbled by God, who oversaw a great Babylonian kingdom full of great wealth, prominence, and power, gave a testimony after God had humbled him and said, Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth and his ways justice and those who walk in pride. He is able to put down.
You must understand that all these people who are living such reckless lives and all these government officials that are doing everything they can to desecrate the very name of God and the sacredness of the truth of God, I’m telling you the day is coming they will give an account of their life before an almighty God who sits on a throne and they will have to answer for their deeds. On this throne he is not only ruling over the affairs of people, but he is receiving the worship of Christians. He is receiving the worship of Christians.
We get a little bit of glimpse of heaven in Revelation chapter 14 and verse 3. The curtains are pulled back and the Bible tells us that they sang, as it were, a new song. That is, the believers, those who love God, were singing a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures and the elders and no one could learn that song except the 144,000 who were redeemed from the earth. Friends, there’s so much to say, but I want you to know that God is receiving worship not only from this earth to heaven, but even up in heaven.
You say, what are my loved ones doing gathered around the throne, worshiping our great God in his constant presence and rejoicing in the greatness and the majesty of God Almighty. I want you to know that they’re having a whole lot better worship services than we are down here. Nobody goes to heaven and says, man, it’s a bummer up here.
What they do is they say, you know, it’s more than what the preacher could say. It’s more than what I’ve read. It’s better than I could ever imagine.
If you are hurting today and you are struggling with the loss of a loved one who is in heaven, remember they are having the time of their life. And one day when Pastor Mike enters those pearly gates, for a few that might be disappointed and sad that Pastor Mike’s not here, know this, I’m having the greatest time in my life. I need you to get your head up and move forward for God until your assignment’s done.
When your assignment’s done, you get called to heaven as a believer. But when your assignment’s not done, you got to stay here. And sometimes I know our brothers and sisters in Christ say to me when we visit them and they say, well, why does God still have me here? Because he’s got an assignment.
And if nothing else, he needs you to be praying. The greatest ministry in the church is not the preaching and teaching of God’s word, but it is prayer. And thank God for the many saints who could not be here or are not here and they’re in nursing homes or maybe they’re at home, but they are praying for us right now.
We send all of our shut-ins a prayer sheet every week and they get to pray for you and they’re still connected to the family of God because prayer is the most important ministry of the church. Which leads me to my thought here as well that while he is on his throne there in heaven, he is also hearing our prayers. He is hearing our prayers.
2 Chronicles 7, 14. If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from where, church? Heaven. And will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
There’s no doubt our land needs to be healed. The wickedness is sometimes all that I can take. I know some of you are going to be mad at me, but there’s a righteous anger in me towards the wickedness that has propagated upon this world and even worse, upon our own children.
I mean, you send your kid off, you save all your life to send your kid off to college. They go to college, they teach him to hate God. They teach him to hate the family and they teach him to hate America.
Why are we doing this, church? They indoctrinate. It upsets me. They went to go be an engineer and they came out hating God.
They went to be an engineer and they can’t even talk to you at Thanksgiving because they’re all messed up in the head. I’m just trying to give you some wisdom, church. Our land needs healing.
It’s only gonna come as we get on our knees, humble ourselves before God, pray and seek his face and turn from our wicked ways. I have to be honest with you, church. There’s no reason God should bless America.
Sometimes when I sing that song because of my patriotism in my heart, I sing in that prayer, if you will, and I’m thinking, God, we haven’t turned from our wicked ways as a country. We haven’t turned from our wicked ways. Sodomy is rampant and it’s now promoted.
I know that upsets you, but friends, it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t break your heart. We talked about heaven being a place where God dwells, but the second thing that I want you to learn this morning is that heaven is a place where angels dwell.
It’s a place where angels dwell. Matthew 18 10 tells us to take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones for I say to you that in heaven, their angels always see the face of my father who is in heaven. People ask me, is there really guardian angels? I believe so.
I believe that God has guardian angels and he has angels assigned and they have responsibilities. I believe angels minister to us. I believe that angels sometimes miraculously step into a situation and do phenomenal things on orders from God almighty.
I believe in angels. I don’t believe that angels should be worshiped. I don’t believe that angels should be exalted.
I don’t believe that angels are in any way equal with God and I don’t believe when our loved ones leave this earth that they become angels, but I do believe that there are angels in heaven and God sends them from his throne down. Some of you are very difficult and God’s had to send a lot of angels. Some of you are every day getting up and saying, Lord, my kid, he’s so full of energy.
Please send a host of angels, right? What I want you to see something about this text in Matthew 18, 10, I think I have to say it because of what things are going on in this crazy culture is Jesus said, take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones. I just want you to understand something that Jesus has a special protection upon the little ones and that’s what I see one of the things that are decaying in our culture. I mean, if you want to be a nut job, it’s fine, but don’t do it to the kids.
Leave the kids alone. Amen? Jesus said that if you were to hurt one of these little ones, one of these little children, that it would be better for a millstone to be tied around your neck. A millstone is not a little pebble, but it’s about four feet high and it’s about two feet wide and they used it in the Middle East to grind the grain and Jesus said it’d be better if you mess with one of the kids that to be tied around your neck and you thrown in the ocean.
And as if that wasn’t enough, Jesus said there is a greater condemnation when you mess with the kids and that’s Mike Sanders translation, amen? I’m sorry, but I just had to say it. He said, I thought we came to hear about heaven. We did.
There are angels in heaven. The word angel is anglios in the Greek and it simply means messenger. How beautiful it was for the angels to announce the birth of Jesus to the shepherds.
How amazing it was for the angels to announce to the women who came to the tomb that Jesus is risen. Angels have special messengers. Angels have special ministry and they minister to us and God has a host of them in heaven and the Bible describes angels as coming from the throne and ascending into heaven in the throne.
Again, Genesis 28 verse 12 says that he dreamed and behold a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. It’s a lot to think about, but I tell you if the skies could part as they did in Acts chapter 7 for Stephen, we would see Jesus on his throne at the right hand of the father. We would see the father and the spirit and we would see that the throne is surrounded by angels who are worshiping him.
Heaven thirdly is a place in which Jesus ascended and from which he shall descend. In heaven we must understand that our Savior preexisted. We celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Some people think that’s the beginning of Jesus, but it’s not. The Bible teaches us in John 17 verse 5 that before the world our Savior existed, Jesus was there in the beginning, in the beginning God. It’s the Hebrew word Elohim, and in Hebrew, I just took a Hebrew class, so you got to get a little bit of benefit out of it, right? And that at the end whenever you use what we would call the M sound and you add that to a word, it is plural.
And what is the Hebrew writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? That God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit were present at the creation of the world. Jesus left his majesty. He left the beauty and all the glory of heaven and he came to this world where there is suffering and there is sorrow and there is death.
What I want you to know about the birth of Jesus Christ, not to get ahead of myself, but I want you to remember something that is unique about Christianity, that unlike all other religions, not only is our Savior alive and not only is our God sitting on a throne ruling and reigning, but he did not leave us in our plight. He entered into our world to bring salvation to all who would believe in him. We not only have a Savior who came from heaven and that he suffered on the cross for our sins, he suffered for us, but listen to me, church, he suffers with us.
You do not suffer alone. We have a little boy in our school. His name is Emmanuel and every once in a while I drive the bus and he gets on and I yell out, Emmanuel, God with us.
And at first he did not know what I was talking about. His eyes were bigger than saucers and he didn’t know how to take it. I said, buddy, that’s what the word Emmanuel means, God with us.
And so he went home and told his mother and he tells his family that his name means God with us. And heaven was a place in which when Jesus came, he left the world, he came to the earth from heaven, he took on flesh, and he lived a sinless life. And he died on the cross for our sins and then he resurrected the third day and he returned, he ascended to heaven, the Bible says.
And he is presently seated at the right hand of the Father. And here’s the promise. He’s one day returning from heaven.
He is going to return from heaven. I want to boldly declare to you this morning that Christ is returning. He will descend from heaven again and the archangel will shout and the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised and believers will be caught up and we will meet the Lord in the air.
Hallelujah. Go ahead. Give the Lord praise.
Some of you love to debate. And yes, we can debate. Maybe you feel differently about the timing of his return and how the rapture would take place and how the dead in Christ would rise.
But friends, it doesn’t matter about all the timing. You know where I stand. I believe that we will be raptured out of here before the tribulation and the tribulation is about the nation of Israel and it’s about the nation of Israel being saved.
It’s about God calling his people back to him. It’s about him judging the nations that have rejected him. It’s about him judging the antichrist and eventually setting up his millennial kingdom on this earth in which we will rule and reign.
You know where I’m at on all that. You don’t have to guess about it. But all of us, no matter what we believe about the timing, the chronological spots of where we think certain things are happening in what is referred to as eschatology or the end times, we all believe that Christ is returning.
So thank you for joining us today and I’m hoping that it’s been a blessing to you. Make sure you check us out on social media. We are on X, Facebook, and Instagram and you can check out those different areas and like us.
So this is Pastor Mike reminding you that in Christ there is hope. Hope is worth having.
The post What Does the Bible Mean When it Speaks on Heaven Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Why is it Important to Think About the Afterlife Part 2. He will be reading out of Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11-14.
I want you to consider this, what God has in store for his children in the next life gives us hope, helping us to navigate the trials and the disappointments in this world. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church and we welcome you to our radio broadcast, Hope Worth Having. We are delighted to have you and certainly thankful that you’ve taken time to tune us in and we are looking forward to what God has for us today.
We’re gonna be in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3. We’re talking about eternity, we’re talking about this question, why is it important to think about the afterlife? Too many people wait too long to do that, so let’s learn more about why it’s important to think about it. He is in charge of all of our circumstances and all that we encounter and deal with day to day in life and he goes on to say in verse 11, also he has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor.
It is the gift of God. Verse 14, and here is the crux of the matter that we eventually want to get to in our response to God. I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever.
Nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it that men should fear or revere or worship before Him. The Bible teaches us in this text that God has put eternity in our hearts.
The Bible reminds us that we have a sense of the past and we have a sense of the future. It is in our minds, it is in our spirit, it is in our soul, it is in our very heart. We have eternity built within us and that makes us unique as humans.
Unlike animals who will live only for the present, you and I have the ability to study the past. We can not only study the past, but we can contemplate the future. We can think about what life is, what it has been, what it will be.
We can consider the values, the morals of our choices and even the choices of society. For God has given to all humans a self-consciousness that enables us to transcend the present and reflect upon the past and to think about the future. And so this morning I’d like to have us consider this question, why is it important to reflect or to think about the afterlife? Why is it important? I submit unto you three things this morning.
First is that our belief in the afterlife causes a hunger for justice in our hearts. You see, we know that there is evil in this world and the Bible teaches us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. When we talk about the sinfulness of people, we’re not just simply saying that yes, we’re all sinners, but we’re also understanding that the presence of sin and the presence of evil is even in this world.
We know that we live in a world there is a battle of good and evil and we see this all the time as we look on our social feed, as we look and watch the news. We are reminded that there is evil in this world. The Bible teaches us that we are sinners.
It doesn’t mean that as a sinner I live out the full capacity of my selfishness or my sinfulness, but it does teach us that the ability and some have lived out to the full capacity of their sinfulness. And that’s why we conclude that some of the evil that is in this world is heinous. It’s almost unspeakable.
It’s horrible. It’s hard for us to even contemplate what has taken place. On October 7th, you and I heard the breaking news that Hamas had invaded Israel and began to kill and murder people and rape the women.
And we learned that they took 40 children, preschool children, some of them infants, and cut their heads off even while they were living. How heinous was their crime and sin and evil. We learned through news reporting that they took one little infant baby and put it in an oven and made the parents watch the baby be baked to death.
It’s hard. It sometimes becomes so much for me I have to turn it all off because I’m weary. I’m tapped out with so much of the evil that’s in this world that it’s hard for me to process it all.
But from our hearts, there is no doubt that whether we are believers or not believers, that we wonder where is justice for the victims? Where is justice for the victims of human trafficking and those who are oppressed? We could all tell stories and we could all talk about these particular horrifying things and perhaps even some could give testimony this morning of some of the horrific things that they have endured in relating to abuse and neglect. The question is where is the justice? Let’s be honest this morning. If we imagine that there is no heaven or hell and that all we have is just living for today, then we have also imagined a universe that is not only out of kilter, but a universe where the scales of justice are never balanced.
They’re never balanced. But if we believe that we are eternal creatures and God has put eternity in our hearts, that we are the image of an eternal God and we are endowed with a clear sense of what is right and wrong and that God has given us this moral compass and it is either trained by the Word of God and enhanced and enrooted by the Word of God or it is trained and enhanced by society or our own sinful nature. But we understand that in every person there is a sense of justice and there is a sense of things that are right and things that are wrong.
And so we begin to contemplate a world without heaven, a world without hell, a world without an afterlife. And how would there ever be justice? Because I’m here to tell you that everything in this world is not always dealt with appropriately. There are times we have to say, Lord I give this to you.
Maybe you have been personally wrong and it just seems like it should have been handled differently. It seems like there should have been other things done to bring about the justice, to right the wrong, but it was never done. And here you are left to work through that emotionally and to work through that spiritually and to somehow make sure that your heart doesn’t become bitter and that you don’t let the root of bitterness to begin to dig deep into your spirit and soul.
And then you watch what’s going on in this world. Are we in a crazy world or what? Crazy times Church, but I want you to know something. I want you to be reminded of something.
I want you to jump down to verse 17 of Ephesians chapter 3. The author writes under the inspiration of God, chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 17, I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked. For there is a time there for every purpose and for every work. You see friends, there is a time, there is a season.
God has these times and though everything in this world is not always dealt with as it should be, I promise you that one day Jesus Christ is going to right every wrong in this world. And if you, yes go ahead and clap, amen. If you spend your life trying to right every wrong, you’re gonna be like the dog chasing its tail and you’re gonna become weary, you’re gonna become overwhelmed, and there comes a point that you understand that you are like what the scripture says, a person who comprehends that God is working and though as we learn back in verse 11, He has put eternity in our hearts except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
And here’s what he’s saying, not that you and I can’t know what God is doing, but that we don’t know the full scale or scope of all that God is doing. You don’t know how God is working all the time and what you might think is being left undone and God is not rightly dealing with it. We are reminded that God is always at work and He’s not only always working in us and He is always working around us and through us, that God is always dealing with what is before us as believers.
And we don’t have to be bitter and we don’t have to be angry. Yes, there’s a sense of justice and if it doesn’t happen in this time span, I promise you that we will stand before God and everyone will get an account of their life. And the Scriptures teach us in Romans chapter 2 verse 5 and 6, but because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will repay each person according to his, what church? Deeds.
Now, I often get asked the question, are there degrees in hell? Yes. You see, every person will be judged according to their deeds. And Jesus said there’s a greater condemnation for those who hurt these little ones.
See, I’m just telling you, you start messing with the children and God is going to put the smackdown on you. And it may not always happen in the time that I want it to happen, and it may not always happen in the way that I want it to happen, but I promise you in the scope of all eternity, God is going to make every person have to deal and give an account and repay for the deeds that they have done. And so church, remember, go back to chapter 3 verse 1, to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck what is planted, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up.
Now hear me, there is a judgment time in God’s sovereign plan. No one will escape. What is done in secret will be proclaimed, the housetop.
And everybody will give an account. God will judge the wicked, but he will also reward the righteous. We rejoice in that there is a time for everything.
And we sometimes say, Lord, we give that matter to you. And sometimes we wonder, is what am I doing, does it have any impact? My friends, it does. And there are even, if you will, I like to put it like this, if you will, degrees in heaven.
In that some will be rewarded more than others. Perhaps I have often thought that maybe God, out of great compassion and sympathy for me, that he would reward me with the responsibility of overseeing all the golf courses in the new millennium. Because I am the worst golfer at the Open Door Church.
That not even my own sons would allow their own father win a particular golf game. That there are members in this church who have made every effort to make sure they humiliate me on the golf course, and not even give their pastor that 20-foot putt. See, I have the Sanders rules, and there’s a rule that if the club can reach the ball from the hole, then it’s a gimme.
We live by grace. But as you are serving Jesus Christ, and you consider that God is just, that he is not only just to deal with the wicked and the heinous crimes that have gone unpunished, but he is also a God who is rewarding, and he is blessing, and he is giving grace to those who love him. And that’s why we hunger for justice.
We hunger for it to be dealt with. The prophet Nahum gave us a promise in Nahum 1 verse 3, and he said, the Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and he will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
I don’t want you to be discouraged, church. I don’t want you to throw in the towel. I want you to do as the scripture says.
I want you to see it there in verse 12. I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives. What can I rejoice in? I can rejoice that he has made everything beautiful in its time.
I can rejoice that, verse 1, to everything there is a season, a time, for every purpose under heaven, I can rejoice in these things. And what should it motivate me to do? To do good in their lives. You see, friends, God will right every wrong.
Now, why should we think about the afterlife? Number two is that our belief in the afterlife motivates us to live sacrificially for others. So we must contemplate this question, why sacrifice for the needs of others if, in the end, nothing we do will make a difference? If we are just the result of evolution and we are just going to end with a whimper or perhaps even a bang, if we’re just going to be done, then why would we ever sacrifice? Why not eat, drink, and be merry and live for self? Right? Are we made for something more? Did God create us for a higher purpose? If there is no afterlife of heaven and hell after you die, then your life does not have meaning. A worldview that regards others as made in the image of a good, just, loving God are going to see the world totally different.
They’re going to see eternal value, not only in ministering and serving humanity, but bringing glory to God. And it is that very motivation that spurs us to practical application or action in eliminating people’s misery. What we do to help others has no expiration date because, go back to our text, he says, in verse 11, he has put eternity in our hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
And I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives. And then look at verse 14, I know that whatever God does, it shall be what? Forever. You think listening to that hurting heart is meaningless, but it’s not.
You think helping people who are struggling has no impact, but it does. You think giving a gift to someone who’s without doesn’t really make an impact, but it is having a ripple effect on people’s spiritual lives. I’m reminded that a few weeks ago, my class went down to the rescue mission, as many of you have.
And when we get down there, we feed them, and then we do a chapel program for them. And I like to go amongst the people and talk to them and interact with them and kind of hear their story and ask them questions. And one guy said to me, he said, where are you from? I said, the Open Door Church.
He said, the Open Door Church. The Open Door Church, I got saved at the Open Door Church. I said, you did? He said, yeah.
He said, I was a young man. I was bussed in. I got saved at the Open Door Church.
How would God bring it full circle in the midst of his tough time, the Open Door Church would be there to minister to him? We got to encourage him and give him some next steps on what he should be doing to get his life aligned with Jesus Christ again. And he committed in his heart that evening that he would begin to reaffirm his love for God and his commitment to follow Jesus Christ. That’s what I’m trying to say to you, is that because eternity matters and because there is an afterlife, we are motivated to live our lives sacrificially for others because we don’t always see the ripple effect of what God is doing.
I think about the history of America, and one thing stands out in the history of America, that it is through the work, the sacrificial work of Christians who lived in light of eternity, that they have done more to alleviate the plight of the downtrodden and the suffering than any other faith or religion or philosophy has ever done. It’s been the Christians who’ve always been on the forefront, who not only loved Jesus Christ, but loved their fellow man and cared about their sufferings and their plights that they found themselves in. C.S. Lewis understood this when he said, and I quote, if you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought the most of the next.
End of quote. Why does the afterlife matter? Why talk about heaven and hell, Pastor? It not only gives me a hunger for justice, but it also motivates me to live sacrificially for others. And then finally, our belief in the afterlife gives us hope.
It gives us hope. I want you to consider this, what God has in store for his children in the next life gives us hope, helping us to navigate the trials and the disappointments in this world. I want to say something to you, church, and this is really the crux of what I want to say to you so much this morning as we go through this study that we’re beginning on heaven and this study on hell, but I want you to look at verse 4 of chapter 3. There’s a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
Our belief in the afterlife gives us hope because we are reminded that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. You’ve walked through the valley. You’ve dealt with the sorrows of life.
You know what it’s like to lose loved ones. You’ve stood at the foot of a grave. You know what he is saying, a time to weep and a time to mourn.
You understand it, but what is it that sustains you? What is it that is helping you to put one foot in front of the other? It is your belief in the afterlife. It is your belief in what God has in store for those who love him that gives you hope. Jesus said in Matthew 29, are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your father’s will.
I don’t know and I can’t explain and I don’t have all the answers to your questions in mind, but I know what the scripture says that except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end, we can’t always know everything that God is doing that is within the father’s will. But it is all under his sovereignty, his care and his control. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from the father’s will.
God hasn’t caused every sorrow in your heart, but he sometimes allows sorrow in your heart. And this is where we are called to live by faith. And remember, God has not called us to live by explanations, but we are called to live by faith.
The Bible says the secret things belong to the Lord. If I had the answers for everything, my questions are so many. When I burst into heaven, I need to get to the throne because I got a lot of questions.
Perhaps those questions will fade away, I don’t know. But as I live in this world, I know under the sovereign plan of God that there’s a time to weep and there’s a time to laugh. There’s a time to mourn and there’s a time to dance.
And I see that the full scope that God has his own timetable and that he is working even when I cannot see it and he is doing things even though I may not fully comprehend it. And I don’t understand all that’s going on in this crazy world. When I grew up, there were just certain values and traditions.
I never heard in my lifetime until recently that it was wrong to be a patriotic Christian. I didn’t know it was wrong to pledge the allegiance. The world’s been turned upside down on me.
Sometimes I’m not even sure what I can say and what I can’t say. But hear me, though I grieve over the state of our world, and I grieve over the pain of personal loss, though I mourn over the sin that even lies within my heart, I do so as one who looks at the ultimate victory to a day in which every tear will be wiped away from my eyes, to a day in which not only will God right every wrong, but I’ll be reunited with my loved ones and sin and sorrow will be cast away and I will live in the constant presence and the fullness of joy of Jesus Christ. It is no wonder that the Apostle said in Romans 8-19, For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, meaning that all of creation in great anticipation is even waiting for this glorious day when every tear will be wiped away and we will all be promoted in the presence of God and the kingdom of God will be established forever and ever and we will rejoice in all that God has done and is doing and will forever do and it is all for Him, through Him, and to Him we will give glory to God Almighty.
Amen. Church, thank you. I want you to know this.
Don’t ever halfway clap to God. You give Him everything you’ve got. If you’re excited, go for it.
Knowing this is what gives me strength, not merely to endure, but to thrive for Jesus because I can consider what this future waits for me and I am waiting along with creation for the revealing of the sons of God. Would you pray with me? It’s never too late, as long as you have breath in your life, to think about eternity. And the question is, if you stand before God, where are you going to spend eternity? Are you going to be with Jesus in heaven or separated from Jesus in hell? And the way to spend eternity with Jesus is to acknowledge that you’re a sinner in need of a Savior and to believe in your heart that Christ died on the cross for your sins and that you would turn away from your sins and repent and believe in Jesus and to call upon His name for eternal life, for true salvation.
And the Bible gives us a promise that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. So I hope that’ll be true in your life today. If you’ve responded and you’re ready to receive Christ and you feel His call upon you, then reach out to us and let us know through our website, HopeWorthHaving.com. In addition, as you’re reaching out to us, share your prayer requests.
We want to be able to pray for you. Don’t be afraid to reach out to us and let us know how we can pray for you and your family. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post Why is it Important to Think About the Afterlife Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Why is it Important to Think About the Afterlife Part 1. He will be reading out of Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11-14.
If we imagine that there is no heaven or hell and that all we have is just living for today, then we have also imagined a universe that is not only out of kilter but a universe where the scales of justice are never bound. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church here in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and we are broadcasting our radio ministry entitled Hope Worth Having and today we’re gonna be in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3. We’re starting a brand new series, we’re talking about eternity, we’re talking about heaven, we’re talking about hell and questions that people have about eternity. So the first question that we want to tackle for these next few weeks is why is it important to think about the afterlife? So I want you to get your Bible and join me as we study together.
Now if you have your Bible this morning I want you to join me in the book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes. You say, Pastor, where is the book of Ecclesiastes? Well let’s start in the Old Testament.
We have in our Bible the Old and the New Testament and then let’s find the book of Psalms. When we find the book of Psalms we’re starting to make some progress and so when you go to the Psalms you go to Proverbs and then you bump into Ecclesiastes. Always say excuse me and then get to chapter 3 and that’s where we’re going to be spending some of our time this morning.
As you know we finished up the book of Acts last week and what a journey that was through the book of Acts and we enjoyed every minute of it and it was kind of a little anticlimactic when we got to chapter 28 because we’re really not told what happened to the Apostle. We know through history what happened but we’re not told of any details. But anyways I had promised you that I would preach a sermon series after the book of Acts not knowing when we would ever get to the book of Acts but we finally made it.
I told you Church one time I had an evangelist here and he asked me what some of my goals were and I told him that my goal would be to preach through the entire book every book in the Bible and he said well what book are you on and how many have you done and I told him he said you’re not gonna make it and I said thanks but he said you spend too much time in the books I mean as far as I break them down too much and so we did get through the book of Acts so we’re making progress and that is the I was adding it up the other day the 18th book in the Bible that I preached through we still got a lot to tackle and of course you know there’s 66 books and you know I am getting older Church you know that I may have to find out what is out there if there’s any fountain of youth or not but if there isn’t then we’re gonna have to somehow maybe make it till we’re a hundred and twenty you know Moses lived to be a hundred and twenty did you guys know that and so that may be what I have to do is preach to you until I’m a hundred and twenty could you guys listen to that long that’d be rough wouldn’t it now I told you I would begin a series entitled five questions about heaven and five questions about hell to lay the table if you will or to kind of prepare the way for that series I want to share with you today why is it important to think about the afterlife why is it important that we should even think about heaven or think about hell in his popular song imagine John Lennon asked us to imagine a universe in which there is no heaven nor any hell below us in Lennon’s ideal world people would forget about living for some fictitious pie-in-the-sky afterlife but instead focus only on the real world living for today let’s think about that for a second suppose we only had a physical world a world in which all that existed was what we see and what we feel and what we know imagine if there is no heaven above and there is no hell beneath there is no spiritual realm populated by demons angels or God the universe arose from clumps of stardust banging together eons ago through random unguided processes these same processes somehow brought forth human beings evolving us into the highly complex people that we are today eventually we see the world from that mindset or that worldview as a universe that will wind down it’ll burn itself out passing away with a bang or perhaps it’ll only pass away with a whimper but long before that happens you and I will just simply live we will live in time we will die and we will slip into oblivion without even leaving a trace if this describes our ultimate destiny does such a view affect our aspirations does it impact our behavior today does it change the way that we live our lives conversely let us consider the worldview that we are more than just some biological machine that we are actually eternal creatures with a soul a spirit created with a body that is made in the likeness of a personal loving and just God with that results in a different way of living our lives would it change the way we see the world and how we would respond to all that is taking place in our world the author of the book of Ecclesiastes he addresses these very issues and he brings to our attention in chapter 3 the understanding of not only that God is sovereign that he’s in charge and that he is in control but the things that we should contemplate not only in the framework of now our time but beyond we begin in verse 1 and the scripture says to everything there is a season a time for every purpose under heaven under the inspiration of the Spirit of God the author begins to then describe for us those seasons and those times in a poetic presentation he helps us to see the highs and the lows of life the triumphant and the tragic of life and then we come down to the main part of our text this morning in verse 11 and the Bible says and concludes that he has made everything beautiful in its time it’s hard to digest that verse because if you found yourself more on the tragic side than the triumphant side of time it’s hard to conclude he has made everything beautiful in its time the author is speaking from the point of a sovereign God who is in charge of all time he is in charge of all of our circumstances and all that we encounter and deal with day to day in life and he goes on to say in verse 11 also he has put eternity in their hearts except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor it is the gift of God verse 14 and here is the crux of the matter that we eventually want to get to in our response to God I know that whatever God does it shall be forever nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it God does it that men should fear or revere or worship before yeah the Bible teaches us in this text that God has put eternity in our hearts the Bible reminds us that we have a sense of the past and we have a sense of the future it is in our minds it is in our spirit it is in our soul it is in our very heart we have eternity built within us and that makes us unique as humans unlike animals who will live only for the present you and I have the ability to study the past we cannot only study the past but we can contemplate the future we can think about what life is what it has been what it will be we can consider the values the morals of our choices and even the choices of society where God has given to all humans a self consciousness that enables us to transcend the present and reflect upon the past and to think about the future and so this morning I’d like to have us consider this question why is it important to reflect or to think about the afterlife why is it important I submit unto you three things this morning first is that our belief in the afterlife causes a hunger for justice in our hearts you see we know that there is evil in this world and the Bible teaches us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God when we talk about the sinfulness of people we’re not just simply saying that yes we’re all sinners but we’re also understanding that the presence of sin and the presence of evil is even in this world we know that we live in a world there is a battle of good and evil and we see this all the time as we look on our social feed as we look and watch the news we are reminded that there is evil in this world the Bible teaches us that we are sinners it doesn’t mean that as a sinner I live out the full capacity of my selfishness or my sinfulness but it does teach us that the ability and some have lived out to the full capacity of their sinfulness and that’s why we conclude that some of the evil that is in this world is heinous it’s almost unspeakable it’s horrible it’s hard for us to even contemplate what has taken place on October 7th you and I heard the breaking news that Hamas had invaded Israel and began to kill and murder people and rape the women and we learned that they took 40 children preschool children some of them infants and cut their heads off even while they were living how heinous was their crime and sin and evil we learned through news reporting that they took one little infant baby and put it in an oven and made the parents watch the baby be baked. Death. It’s hard it sometimes becomes so much for me I have to turn it all off because I’m weary I’m tapped out with so much of the evil that’s in this world that it’s hard for me to process it all but from our hearts there is no doubt that whether we are believers or not believers that we wonder where is justice for the victims where is justice for the victims of human trafficking and those who are oppressed we could all tell stories and we could all talk about these particular horrifying things and perhaps even some could give testimony this morning of some of the horrific things that they have endured in relating to abuse and neglect the question is where is the justice let’s be honest this morning if we imagine that there is no heaven or hell and that all we have is just living for today then we have also imagined a universe that is not only out of kilter but a universe where the scales of justice are never balanced they’re never balanced but if we believe that we are eternal creatures and God has put eternity in our hearts that we are the image of an eternal God and we are endowed with a clear sense of what is right and wrong and that God has given us this moral compass and it is either trained by the Word of God and enhanced and enrooted by the Word of God or it is trained and enhanced by society or our own sinful nature but we understand that in every person there is a sense of justice and there is a sense of things that are right and things that are wrong and so we begin to contemplate a world without heaven a world without hell a world without an afterlife and how would there ever be justice because I’m here to tell you that everything in this world is not always dealt with appropriately is it there are times we have to say Lord I give this to you maybe you have been personally wrong and it just seems like it should have been handled differently it seems like there should have been other things done to bring about the justice to right the wrong but it was never done and here you are left to work through that emotionally and to work through that spiritually and to somehow make sure that your heart doesn’t become bitter and that you don’t let the root of bitterness to begin to dig deep into your spirit and soul and then you watch what’s going on in this world are we in a crazy world or what? Crazy times church but I want you to know something I want you to be reminded of something I want you to jump down to verse 17 of Ephesians chapter 3 the author writes under the inspiration of God chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 17 I said in my heart God shall judge the righteous and the wicked for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work you see friends there is a time there is a season God has these times and though everything in this world is not always dealt with as it should be I promise you that one day Jesus Christ is going to right every wrong in this world and if you yes go ahead and clap amen if you spend your life trying to right every wrong you’re gonna be like the dog chasing its tail and you’re gonna become weary you’re gonna become overwhelmed and there comes a point that you understand that you are like what the scripture says a person who comprehends that God is working and though as we learn back in verse 11 he has put eternity in our hearts except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end and here’s what he’s saying not that you and I can’t know what God is doing but that we don’t know the full scale or scope of all that God is doing you don’t know how God is working all the time and what you might think is being left undone and God is not rightly dealing with it we are reminded that God is always at work and he’s not only always working in us and he is always working around us and through us that God is always dealing with what is before us as believers and we don’t have to be bitter and we don’t have to be angry yes there’s a sense of justice and if it doesn’t happen in this time span I promise you that we will stand before God and everyone will get an account of their life and the scriptures teach us in Romans chapter 2 verse 5 and 6 but because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will repay each person according to his what church deeds now I often get asked the question are there degrees in hell yes you see every person will be judged according to their deeds and Jesus said there’s a greater condemnation for those who hurt these little ones see I’m just telling you you start messing with the children and God is going to put the smackdown on you and it may not always happen in the time that I want it to happen and it may not always happen in the way that I want it to happen but I promise you in the scope of all eternity God is going to make every person have to deal and give an account and repay for the deeds that they have done and so church remember go back to chapter 3 verse 1 to everything there is a season a time for every purpose under heaven a time to be born a time to die a time to plant a time to pluck what is planted a time to kill a time to heal a time to break down and a time to build up now hear me there is a judgment time in God’s sovereign plan no one will escape what is done in secret will be proclaimed the scripture says on the housetop and everybody will give an account God will judge the wicked but he will also reward the righteous we rejoice in that there is a time for everything and we sometimes say Lord we give that matter to you and sometimes we wonder is what am I doing doesn’t have any impact my friends it does and there are even if you will I like to put it like this if you will degrees in heaven in that some will be rewarded more than others perhaps I have often thought that maybe God out of great compassion and sympathy for me that he would reward me with the responsibility of overseeing all the golf courses in the new millennium because I am the worst golfer at the open-door church that not even my own sons would allow their own father win a particular golf game that there are members in this church who have made every effort to make sure they humiliate me on the golf course and not even give their pastor that 20-foot putt see I have the Sanders rules and there’s a rule that if the club can reach the ball from the hole then it’s a gimme we live by grace but as you are serving Jesus Christ and you consider that God is just that he is not only just to deal with the wicked and the heinous crimes that have gone unpunished but he is also a God who is rewarding and he is blessing and he is giving grace to those who love him and that’s why we hunger for justice we hunger for it to be dealt with the prophet Nahum gave us a promise and Nahum 1 verse 3 and he said the Lord is slow to anger and great in power and he will not at all acquit the wicked the Lord has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm and the clouds are the dust of his feet I don’t want you to be discouraged Church I don’t want you to throw in the towel I want you to do as the scripture says I want you to see it there in verse 12 I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives what can I rejoice in I can rejoice that he has made everything beautiful in its time I can rejoice that verse 1 to everything there is a season a time for every purpose under heaven I can rejoice in these things and what should it motivate me to do to do good in their lives you see friends God will right every wrong now why should we think about the afterlife number two is that our belief in the afterlife motivates us to live sacrificially for others so we must contemplate this question why sacrifice for the needs of others if in the end nothing we do will make a difference if we are just the result of evolution and we are just going to end with a whimper or perhaps even a bang if we’re just going to be done then why would we ever sacrifice why not eat drink and be merry and live for self right are we made for something more did God create us for a higher purpose if there is no afterlife of heaven and hell after you die then your life does not have meaning a worldview that regards others as made in the image of a good just loving God are going to see the world totally different they’re going to see eternal value not only in ministering and serving humanity but bringing glory to God and it is that very motivation that spurs us to practical application or action in eliminating people’s misery what we do to help others has no expiration date because go back to our text he says in verse 11 he has put eternity in our hearts except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end and I know that God that nothing is better for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives and then look at verse 14 I know that whatever God does it shall be what forever you think listening to that hurting heart is meaningless but it’s not you think helping people who are struggling has no impact but it does you think giving a gift to someone who’s without doesn’t really make an impact but it is having a ripple effect on people’s spiritual lives I’m reminded that a few weeks ago my class went down to the rescue mission as many of you have and I was when we get down there we do we feed them and then we do a chapel program for them and I like to go amongst the people and talk to them and interact with them and kind of hear their story and ask them questions and one guy said to me he said where are you from I said the Opendoor Church he said the Opendoor Church the Opendoor Church I got saved at the Opendoor Church I said you did he said yeah he said I was a young man I was bussed in I got saved at the Opendoor Church how would God bring it full circle in the midst of his tough time the Opendoor Church would be there to minister to him we got to encourage him and give him some next steps on what he should be doing to get his life aligned with Jesus Christ again and he committed in his heart that evening that he would begin to reaffirm his love for God and his commitment to follow Jesus Christ that’s what I’m trying to say to you is that because eternity matters and because there is an afterlife we are motivated to live our lives sacrificially for others because we don’t always see the ripple effect of what God is doing I think about the history of America and one thing stands out in the history of America that it is through the work the sacrificial work of Christians who lived in light of eternity that they have done more to alleviate the plight of the downtrodden and the suffering than any other faith or religion or philosophy has ever done has been the Christians who’ve always been on the forefront well the most important thing about your life is where you will spend eternity for us we must understand that we either are going to spend eternity with Christ in heaven or separated from Christ in hell and I know that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance that you would spend eternity with Jesus Christ and so you need to think about afterlife and if you have questions about the afterlife and you want to know more about it reach out to us on our website hopeworthhaving.com hopeworthhaving.com go to the contact button up in the right corner and send us a message we’d love to talk to you and interact with you about the afterlife and more than anything we want to see you to become a born-again believer and spend eternity with Jesus this is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope
The post Why is it Important to Think About the Afterlife Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Hope of Humanity Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 28: 17-31.
We look at the life of the Apostle Paul and we remember the words of Romans 1 16 I am NOT ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation To everyone that believeth and to the Jew first and also to the Greeks meaning that we are to take it to every person We are the to be continued This is Mike Sanders and I am the host of hope worth having we are bringing you the Word of God from the book of Acts chapter 28 verse 17 and all the way to the end of the chapter want to talk to you about the hope of Humanity, you know, the world is looking for many answers But the only hope is really Jesus Christ you and I both know that so let’s get into Acts chapter 28 and start studying that Together Indeed besides all this today is the third day since these things happen Yes, and certain women of our company who arrived at the tomb early astonished us when they did not find his body they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said he was alive and Certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said but him They did not see Listen to what Jesus says to them. Oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all That the prophets have spoken You see the Old Testament there verse 26 ought not the Christ The Messiah that the Christ the word Christ is Greek for Messiah To have suffered these things to enter into his glory Look at verse 27. This is what I wanted you to see and beginning at Moses and all the prophets He expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself You see friends the Old Testament points to Jesus and I want you to note that Jesus taught from the Old Testament the Apostle Paul taught from the Old Testament and who are we to listen to these Charlatans out there who would tell us that the Old Testament is irrelevant and we no longer need to teach from it they are false prophets Do not embrace them.
I wouldn’t address these things if these things were not so serious To you, but I want you as a believer and part of the fold of Christ to not be deceived or led astray and I want you to see the great value of the Old Testament and how it points us To Jesus Christ the hope for Israel the second thing I want you to learn from our text in Acts chapter 28 verse 17 through 31 Is that the gospel is the only hope for Gentiles now as the Apostle is explaining? From the law of Moses and the prophets and he is explaining from morning Till evening, I don’t know somehow us pastors. We just love those phrases but verse 24 says and some were persuaded by the things which were spoken and some disbelieved Remember, this is a group of Jewish people that have met with the Apostle So when they did not agree among themselves they departed after Paul had said one word The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through now notice the Apostle was quoting the Old Testament again the Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our father saying go to this people and say hearing you will hear and shall not understand and Seeing you will see and not perceive For the hearts of this people have grown dull their ears are hard of hearing and their eyes They have closed less They should see with their eyes and hear with their ears less they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them as This group of Jewish People were gathered and they began to leave the Apostle said I want to give you one more Scripture and it was particularly for those who had disbelieved Rejected the gospel and he said I want you to hear what the prophet Isaiah says And he’s not talking about physical hearing or physical seeing he is talking about spiritual hearing and understanding and seeing and believing The gospel of Jesus Christ he gives them this warning from the prophets but look at verse 28 Because this is a conclusion that the Apostle makes therefore. Let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles and They will hear it Friends I want you to know remember Acts chapter 1 verse 8 Remember that Jesus gave a commission to his disciples Remember that he said take the gospel that they were to take it unto Jerusalem first and then to Samaria and then to the uttermost what we see in the book of Acts is this Unfolding of taking it to the Jews first and then unto Samaria and then unto the uttermost parts of the world Why would Jesus be so particular and specific about the scope of the gospel message? Because the Jewish people believed That they were the only ones worthy To have salvation from God It’s so unfortunate because it’s not what the prophets taught.
It’s not what the law of Moses taught but they believed that they were exclusive and that There was no one else no other ethnic group no other society no other people group that was to hear the gospel and to know God in a personal way and that was the majority of the thinking of the Jewish people and Particularly the leadership. So when the Apostle looked at them boldly and quotes Isaiah To them and then he says to them that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles and he says they will hear it Explanation point they will hear it meaning that a he is going to do everything in his power to get the gospel to every person on the planet and Be they will respond they will hear the gospel and they will respond to God and they will turn to Christ and you are part of that proclamation Every one of you that is believed in the Lord Jesus Christ You see friends hearing the Word of God always influences people The Bible tells us that God’s Word will not return void It doesn’t mean that everybody who hears the gospel will be saved or automatically believed in Christ, but it does mean this even in this congregation Even those listening on the internet and watching live or those who are on the radio or television Later on they will hear this message and they will either be responsive receptive and return to the Lord and give their lives and dedicate their hearts to God or they will reject God God’s Word never returns void There is no in-between in a response to God It’s either one or the other it is the same Sun That melts the ice that also hardens the clay his word does not return void either people melt and are moved by Jesus Christ in their hearts and receive him as their Lord or they Reject him and they increasingly become hard-hearted towards Jesus This is why parents it’s so critical to have your children Under the sound of the gospel the teaching of the gospel So important to have them in Sunday school and I want a Bible clubs and different opportunities certainly at home Having a family time of sharing the gospel and teaching the gospel It’s so important because the older people get and this is all proven statistically, but it’s already was declared biblically People’s hearts get hard They get hard and they push away from God and they want nothing to do with Jesus Christ But friends the Apostle makes a bold declaration that the Jews refuse to listen So Paul says I’m moving on and I’m taking this hope of salvation to the Gentiles Paul had the Passion to get the gospel out to every person now, what is spiritual blindness? I want us to consider that this morning to be spiritually blind as Isaiah talked about is to not see Christ as the Savior is to not see him as the Messiah The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 11. He prophesied in Romans 11 25 he said about a spiritual blindness that would come upon Israel He said for I would not brethren that you should be ignorant of this mystery Whenever you hear the word mystery the Apostle was teaching something new That has never been taught before and he’s letting the believers as some insight on the mystery of God’s dispensation and Providential unveiling of the gospel to around the world and the end times He says lest you should be wise in your own conceit that blindness in part has happened to Israel Until the fullness of the Gentiles become in the gospel went first to the Jews Because Jesus told us that He told us that that’s why we’re pro-israel at the open-door church That’s why we pray for Israel because we are commanded to pray for Israel in the Bible That’s why we support Israel and we support Ministries that are taking the gospel to the Jewish people because the Bible says we’re to take it to the Jews first And that’s what Paul did But now he’s taking it to the Gentiles Why because there’s a spiritual blindness It doesn’t mean a Jewish person can’t get saved But overall in God’s scope of what he is doing what he has taught us in the book of Daniel that these Gentile Kingdoms would rise up and they would rule the world and that you and I are in this process of that final Roman Empire coming to the forefront and there being a tribulation period and friends there being this time which God during that tribulation period is reaching out to the Jewish people because there’s been a spiritual blindness for how long until the times of the Gentiles are Complete when will the times of the Gentiles be complete when all of their kingdoms will come to a finish? Well, it’ll be at the second coming of Jesus Christ But that finality will begin at the rapture of the church seven years before the second coming of Christ according to the book of Revelation and first Thessalonians chapter 4 and 5 that I want you to know that the church will be called out now I know some of you like to debate and I hear you.
I’m with you All right. I understand I’ve taken so many classes and I’ve read so many books I can show you them all my library is full of them and you disagree on the timing of the rapture but you cannot disagree that there is a rapture in the Bible and I believe after all the studying I’ve done as a young man as an old man now as I’ve Continued to search the scriptures over and over again I am more firm than I have ever been that the rapture of the church is Imminent and it is upon us and it will be soon my friends and then after that rapture There’ll be a seven-year tribulation in which God will reach out to the nation of Israel One more time to draw them back into true salvation Zechariah says that when they finally realize that Jesus is the Messiah that they will mourn of their sin and they will repent of their sin and they will be Saved and receive Christ as Savior Amen, go ahead and clap Now if we had time and we don’t because you’re not evening people But you could go on to study the book of Romans chapter 11 and you could read further It says at the end that all Israel will be Saved now again What God is saying? Is that collectively as a people? They will finally come to the conclusion. That’s the whole purpose of the tribulation That’s the whole purpose of the tribulation is To help them come out of their blindness to help them to come out of their stupor and to realize that Jesus is the Messiah and All Israel will be saved how glorious he’ll be at how rejoicing it will be for us to see These chosen people of God Now we must ask ourselves the question Why do people reject Jesus as their Savior you and I and are out there witnessing to our family We’re witnessing to our children our grandchildren We’re witnessing to people everywhere.
We can we’re inviting them to special activities So that they can hear the gospel I want to submit unto you just a few things to consider so you would understand what the Apostle was dealing with as people have Rejected the gospel as he shared it with them. So eloquently from the law of Moses and the prophets to the final Resurrection of Christ. I think one reason people reject Jesus is they don’t think they need a Savior They don’t understand that they’re a sinner in need of a Savior We live in the self-esteem generation, I mean you show up to soccer you get a trophy Everybody’s just like look how wonderful these kids are and I always ask what did they do? Well, they showed up Mike Well, I do believe this for you young adults out there that if you would just show up to work you’ll be better than 90% of your peers and I tell you that that might be a new concept to some of you But I saw on social media that a young lady was upset that her boss required her to be there 15 minutes early and that he required her to work eight hours and She was stressed out and she was ready to throw in the towel and she just thought that it was the end of the world She had been triggered.
I Guess a microaggression had come after her. But here’s what I want you to know. I Want you to know that there’s so many To think that they’re good enough that they don’t need a Savior They consider themselves to be good and they don’t realize that they are sinners in need of a Savior they don’t understand that the Bible says for all have sinned and Come short of the glory of God.
They don’t understand that the wages of sin is death they don’t understand the words of Jesus who said I am the way the truth and the life and no man comes unto the Father but by me and They think and they are under the impression that somehow that they’ll be able to stand before God and plead their case their goodness And they’re good will outweigh their bad, but they are going to find out that it is insufficient It will not save your soul Only Jesus can save your soul and only Jesus has the righteousness to bring us into the presence of God The second reason people reject God is I think there’s the fear of rejection of their own peers They don’t receive the Savior because they want to be accepted by others We see an example of this in John chapter 12 in which many were concerned about their acceptance or status among their peers The Bible says that they love the approval of men rather than the approval of God Most important for you is not to live to please men, but to please God When you lay your head on that pillow, you need to know you gave everything for God That your heart is in tune with Jesus You can rest in peace. The Bible says he gives his beloved sleep. I Love that verse But I want you to know that you can be peaceful in your heart and that you can rest Knowing that you have given your life to the Lord Jesus Christ and you don’t have to worry about what others think because friends I want you to know it doesn’t matter and People’s opinions are always changing aren’t they? And they’re like a roller coaster So, let’s be careful about that another reason people reject God is because the things of this world Are more important to them Than the things of God.
Yeah, I see this seeping into Christian families that the material stuff The sports it’s all more appealing to them than the eternal things of God We read about a man like that in Matthew 19 and he loved money, he loved things and He was unwilling To let go of it. He was unwilling to let go of his earthly possessions so that he might gain an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ The Bible says he walked away. I Not every person that Jesus witnessed who got saved Do you know that you think Jesus be batting a thousand But he wasn’t wasn’t Jesus’s fault it’s the heart of those who listen and Hear and some people won’t let go of the things of this world The final reason I put down why people reject Jesus is that they just over and over resist The Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit is drawing them.
The Holy Spirit is Convicting them and compelling them and convincing them But over and over again, they will not Surrender their hearts to Jesus Christ That’s the example we see we see here The Bible says in verse 24 underscore that and some Disbelieved So unfortunate that some would disbelieve after the Apostle spent from morning to evening persuading Convincing eloquently teaching from the book of the Old Testament, and he did such a wonderful job But they did not believe I want to be clear to you this morning Acts 4 12 says there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved There’s only one way to heaven. It is through Jesus Christ. I Want you to understand this morning that those who reject Jesus? For whatever reason that may be beyond what I have already shared with you They will face an eternity in outer darkness in a place that is called hell and The Bible teaches us there’ll be weeping and there’ll be gnashing of teeth Some people say I’m gonna go to hell with my friends so we can party.
There’ll be no partying in hell They’ll be weeping and The reason people will weep is because they knew they had a chance They knew they had an opportunity But you know what they did they disbelieved They would not receive Christ It is not with joy that I say this to you It is with a heavy burden that I plead with you If you do not know Christ this morning come to Jesus and receive him as your Lord and Savior My final principle that I want to share with you out of this text is that the gospel should be proclaimed to all We look at verse 30 and 31 Then Paul dwelt for two whole years in his own rented house remember he’s under house arrest and Received all he received all Who came to him? preaching the kingdom of God and Teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence. No one Forbidding him or hindering him He did not discriminate With the gospel he did not discriminate with who he shared Christ with whoever crossed his path The Apostle was glad even though he was under house arrest and he was not able to get out there and get in the marketplace He shared Christ with all who came think about that person different people on different shifts had to come and be the security Guard and make sure the Apostle didn’t take off as he was waiting to stand before Caesar We’ve already witnessed from the life of the Apostle Paul that he was not ashamed to tell Kings and Queens and political figures about Jesus Christ He was not ashamed to reach out to the poorest of the poor He was not ashamed to reach out to the healthy and the unhealthy He was not ashamed to reach out to those who are educated and those who are uneducated Those who are wealthy and those who are poor it didn’t matter the Apostle Paul took the gospel to every Person that crossed his path and church. We have a responsibility To take the gospel to every person on the planet You remember I told you at the beginning to be Continued I told you that you said I don’t like to be continued pastor.
Well, you’re gonna regret saying that Because here’s what it means When I say to be continued I believe that Luke under the inspiration of the Spirit left it just right here and I believe he did it for this reason that the mission must continue today through God’s people That we look at the life of the Apostle Paul and we remember the words of Romans 1 16 I am NOT ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation To everyone that believeth and to the Jew first and also to the Greeks meaning that we are to take it to every person We are the to be continued You wanted the sequel to the book of Acts? You wanted the book of Acts part 2 to come out in a book You’re it You are the continuation of the book of Acts. You are the continuation of the gospel being spread To every person now, what should we learn? from the Apostle Paul the life of Paul I Think that there’s just a few things real quickly and I’ll let you go and I promise I mean, I only have a little bit of notes here But I want you to see this church first is that he was bold look at verse 31 Okay, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things That concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence Some translations put bold because that’s really the word he was bold about it. I Know some of you your personalities.
You don’t like to talk to people Matter of fact, you don’t even like people and you miss those days of Kovat where you were isolated from people But I want to tell you something. It doesn’t change whatever your personality is. I love to talk to everybody Okay, that’s just my personality.
I go into somewhere and I’ll shake hands and I’ll hug babies and do whatever we can But I know it’s not your personality, but you still have to be bold and Maybe your boldness is that I invite somebody to a special activity and maybe your boldness is I give out a track And maybe your boldness is I give out an invite card Maybe you’re not like pastor Mike and that’s okay because we certainly don’t need another Mike Sanders in this world. I Mean the world can only handle one That’s why God created each one of you uniquely But let me tell you something there are ways that you can be bold for God You can be bold within the scope of how God created you and How he designed you I would encourage you to be bold in your witness The other thing I learned from the Apostle is that he made the most of every opportunity He made the most of every ministry opportunity. Did you not forget that he? Was under house arrest He is waiting on the government.
How many of us know what it’s like to wait on the government. I Hope you’re not getting ready to be 65 and switch over to Medicare because you’ll be waiting Right. We have to wait The Apostle waited two whole years Did he pout? Did he quit? No, he made the most the Bible says verse 31 preaching the kingdom of God Teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence.
No one forbidding him Paul the Apostle made the most of every opportunity. I don’t know what your circumstances are But I don’t want you to ever forget this whatever challenge you have Whatever job you have whatever family you’re in and whatever circumstance you’re dealing with and God’s sovereign plan is designed That it would be a platform for you to tell others about Jesus Christ And I know we don’t like that sometimes But I need you to think in that mindset. I Need you to be like the Apostle that whatever adversity he found himself in he made the most Whatever challenges were before him.
He made the most for Christ. I Also want you to learn from Paul that he isn’t complaining But he’s proclaiming He isn’t complaining write that down. It’s not a ritual of Mike, but I just want you to know it.
He isn’t complaining He is proclaiming He is proclaiming Yesterday we had a special celebration of life Gathering for Barb Connor and one of the things that they said about Barb Eddie was that she never complained She never complained. She went through a lot of adversity, but she never complained Church, that’s what a testimony you want You want that kind of testimony? I’m not a complainer. I’m not a whiner.
I’m a proclaimer. I Proclaim the gospel through my life. I Proclaim it through my lips Be that kind of Christian learn that from the Apostle Paul Here’s the final thing.
I want you to remember church and we will pray The gospel triumphs over Every worldly and political barrier. Did you see that? No one forbidding him No one No one stopped the Apostle Paul. Why? Because the gospel overcomes all barriers of this world Well, we’re coming to the end of the book of Acts chapter 28 these final few verses and we’re certainly Remembering that Christians definitely face storms in their lives But we remember that the hope of humanity is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ And we’re going to continue to keep our eyes on him and follow him faithfully I want to encourage you to check out our newsletter You can go to our website hope worth having calm and all of our newsletters are uploaded to the website Or if you’d like you can sign up for it We can email it to you or we can mail it to you.
Whatever works best, but check us out. Hope worth having calm This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ. There is hope worth having
The post The Hope of Humanity Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Hope of Humanity Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 28: 17-31.
And I want you to note that Jesus taught from the Old Testament, the Apostle Paul taught from the Old Testament, and who are we to listen to these charlatans out there who would tell us that the Old Testament is irrelevant and we no longer need to teach from it? They are false prophets. Hello, this is Mike Sanders and I am the host of Hope Worth Having and I am glad that you are here today and we are bringing you the Word of God from the book of Acts chapter 28 verse 17 all the way to the end of the chapter. I want to talk to you about the hope of humanity.
You know, the world is looking for many answers, but the only hope is really Jesus Christ. You and I both know that. So let’s get into Acts chapter 28 and start studying that together.
Amen. If you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 28. And yes, we’re at the end of the book of Acts.
And yes, we have finally made it to the last section of the book of Acts. And yes, on this journey for a few years, we’ve been going through the book of Acts. We are finally coming to the end.
So we’re pretty excited, not that we’re finished, but that it’s just another opportunity to share God’s Word. But I have a question for you to consider this morning. Do you like happy endings? Do you want complete closure when you reach the end of a novel or a movie? Certainly.
Does seeing the words, to be continued, begin to cause you to be insane? Well, I have good news and bad news for you. We are at the end of book of Acts. And in some kind of unique way, it is an ending of to be continued.
It’s an interesting final section of this book. You know that we have been tracking the apostle Paul in these final chapters of the book of Acts. And we know that he is headed towards Rome and he is to be brought before Caesar.
And he is to have a trial of whether he is innocent or guilty. His only crime is that he has preached, he has taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. But this has upset the religious crowd.
It has upset the political crowd. And so they have made every effort to try to push back or oppose the apostle Paul’s teaching. And so in this process, in their effort to try to even have him killed, he has appealed to Caesar.
And as a Roman citizen, he has this right. And so we’re on this journey. But as we come to the final section of the book of Acts, we’ve been reading and anticipating what’s gonna happen when he stands before Caesar.
But nothing is said about that particular matter. And there is nothing to be said about how things finished out and concluded in the life of the apostle Paul. We know from church history that he would eventually be released from prison.
We know that he would continue to write letters and preach the gospel and then eventually brought back before Nero, who was the Caesar of the Roman Empire. And he would have his head chopped off. And he would die as a martyr for Jesus Christ.
But nothing, Luke gives us nothing in Acts chapter 28 about these matters. It’s almost as if Luke is saying to us, to be continued. We’ll come back to that, but I’ve entitled my message, The Hope of Humanity.
And as we examine this section of the book of Acts, chapter 28, verse 17 through 31, I want you to first see that the gospel is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The hope for Israel, we pick up in verse 17. And notice what the scripture says.
It came to pass after three days that Paul called the leaders of the Jews together. So when they had come together, he said to them, men and brethren, though I have done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans, who when they had examined me, wanted to let me go because there was no cause for putting me to death. But when the Jews or the religious leaders spoke against it, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar, not that I had anything of which to accuse my nation for this reason.
Therefore, I have called for you to see you and speak with you because for the hope of Israel, I am bound with this chain. Then they said to him, we neither receive letters from Judea concerning you nor have any of the brethren who came reported or spoken any evil of you. But we desire to hear from you what you think for concerning this sect.
We know that it was spoken against everywhere. Now here the Apostle Paul is meeting with a group of Jewish leaders in the city of Rome. It was just two years ago that Claudius, who was the emperor at that time, had caused all the Jewish people to be banished from Rome.
So they are now beginning to filtrate back in because that has changed under new leadership and they are allowed to live in the city of Rome. And they must have come back in large numbers enough to not only have synagogues but to have leaders to be able to organize the Jewish faith and their Jewish religion. The Apostle gets to Rome and he wants to make his case to them.
He is in the process of waiting, waiting for the opportunity to stand before Caesar and make his case as to why he is not a guilty man and that the only thing he is guilty of, as he shared with the religious leaders, is that he has proclaimed the hope of Israel. The Apostle Paul, we look in verse 23 of chapter 28 of the book of Acts, it says, so when they had appointed him a day, so they made a schedule. They wanted to hear what he had to say and they made a schedule, a time in which they would meet.
And the Bible says, many came to him at his lodging. He was under house arrest, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from morning till evening. And I find it so interesting that the Apostle is taking the Old Testament and he is helping the Jewish leaders and all those who would gather here, where he was lodging, and they are hearing this message and he is helping them to connect the dots from the Old Testament to the New Testament, if you will, from the prophets and even Moses himself, the lawgiver, and how that everything in the Old Testament was a foreshadowing and a foretelling of what would be fulfilled in the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Now the Apostle uses a phrase that we read earlier in this text, and if you will simply go back with me, you’ll note it there, that he talks to them about the hope for Israel, and he wants them to understand that Jesus is that hope. That phrase, the hope of Israel, is not a new terminology for the Jewish people. For we know that Jeremiah the prophet himself said, O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be ashamed.
Those who depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. They knew, the Jewish people knew, that there was a hope. They knew that there was a Messiah who is the hope of Israel, that he would come.
I’ve shared with you before that when I was in Israel, we met with the chief rabbi, and he said, the only difference between the Jews and the Christians is you believe the Messiah has come, and we are still looking for the Messiah. I’m so grateful that we know that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, and that he has come, church, and he has come to bring salvation, and redemption, and forgiveness to all who believe in Jesus Christ. Oh yes, it’s a beautiful story, but how is it that the apostle would take time to help the Jewish people to see, to understand that Christ is the fulfillment, that all those sacrifices that were made, that were spelled out on how to do it in the book of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, how all that was pointing to a final sacrifice, the Lamb of God, John the Baptist, was the last prophet, and he was the one who would proclaim, behold, the Lamb of God, referring to Jesus, that behold, he comes to take away the sins of the world.
And so, the apostle keeps helping them see from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Friends, it’s important for us that we ourselves see the framework on which God is working, that the Bible is a redemptive story that threaded throughout every chapter and every verse is the story of God’s grace and God’s forgiveness, and that it is constantly pointing us to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not only the author of the Bible, but I want you to know that he is the subject of the Bible, that he is the main point of the Bible, and so when we open our Bible, we must see that the Bible is pointing us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Old Testament, he is calling the people to look ahead. In the New Testament, he is calling us to look back to Christ. Why do we participate in communion as believers? So that we would look back to the cross and back to our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us so that we could have eternal life in Jesus.
How important it is for us to understand that framework, but it’s also important that we understand that the Old and the New Testament are connected, so that as we are out there witnessing and there are many questions that people have, as we’re having spiritual conversations with others, whether there are children, whether they’re family members, strangers, or individuals that we work with, that we help them to see the whole scope of what God is doing in this redemptive story. This will make you a more powerful witness for God, for this is exactly what the Apostle Paul did as he was explaining and persuading in verse 23 them concerning Jesus, both the law of Moses and the prophets. And note what he did from morning till what? Evening.
I know you didn’t want to say that. Well, back then, they had some really long services. But we know that you’re Americans and your attention span, I mean, I’m already boring some of you, and you’re already checking out and you’re already doing your Christmas shopping on Amazon while you’re at church this morning.
Well, you and God will have to work that out and see where that fits in his plan for your life. But the most important thing for you to understand is that God has a beautiful, sovereign plan and it all points to Jesus Christ. And it’s the Old and the New Testament together.
And I want to say to you, church, this morning that I want you to be alert and careful of these foolish people who are running around telling you that the Old Testament is unnecessary. They are telling you that the Old Testament does not apply anymore. They are telling you that we should not teach from the Old Testament anymore.
These are false prophets. They are false teachers. They’re even in our communities.
And I have literally talked to individuals who say, no, we only teach from the New Testament in our church. We don’t teach from the Old Testament. My friends, I want you to know something.
In the Old Testament, we have the beautiful story of pointing us to a Messiah who’s coming. And in the New Testament, we have the beautiful story of looking back and see that the Messiah has come and how beautiful that is. And that’s why we celebrate Christmas and what it’s all about.
I want you to take your Bible real quickly. Don’t lose ax. But I want you to see something here that is very important to understand.
And I want you to get back to the Gospel of Luke. Just go back for me, Matthew, Mark, and what comes after Mark? Luke. There you go.
Stay awake. Stay awake. You’ll be alright.
And in Luke chapter 24, I want you to look with me at verse 13. Luke chapter 24, verse 13. The resurrection of Christ has already taken place.
Obviously, the crucifixion of Christ has taken place. You probably heard and maybe have read about the Emmaus Road, the story of the two men on the Emmaus Road. We pick up in verse 13.
Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. What just happened? Well, what had happened was the crucifixion of Christ.
And unbeknownst to them, the resurrection of Christ. But they were discouraged. The Bible says in verse 15, so it was while they conversed and reasoned that Jesus himself drew near and went with them.
Jesus shows up on this seven-mile journey, but the Bible tells us in verse 16 that their eyes were restrained so that they did not know him. They didn’t recognize Christ. They didn’t have the understanding.
They were so stooped into their discouragement that they didn’t see that Jesus was right there walking with them. Look at verse 17. Here’s what Jesus said.
What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad? Then one of whose name was Cleopas answered and said to him, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem? And have you not known the things which happened there in these days? And he said to them, What things? They said to him, The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified. But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Do you see they already had a framework? Do you see they already had a working knowledge? Do you see that they already understood that a Messiah, that a Savior was coming? And they were hoping that Jesus was that person.
Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company who arrived at the tomb early astonished us. When they did not find his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said he was alive.
And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see. Listen to what Jesus says to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. You see the Old Testament there? Verse 26, Ought not the Christ, the Messiah, that the Christ, the word Christ is Greek for Messiah, to have suffered these things to enter into his glory? Look at verse 27.
This is what I wanted you to see. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. You see, friends, the Old Testament points to Jesus.
And I want you to note that Jesus taught from the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul taught from the Old Testament. And who are we to listen to these charlatans out there who would tell us that the Old Testament is irrelevant and we no longer need to teach from it? They are false prophets.
Do not embrace them. I wouldn’t address these things if these things were not so serious to you. But I want you, as a believer and part of the fold of Christ, to not be deceived or led astray.
And I want you to see the great value of the Old Testament and how it points us to Jesus Christ, the hope for Israel. The second thing I want you to learn from our text in Acts chapter 28, verse 17 through 31, is that the gospel is the only hope for Gentiles. Now as the Apostle is explaining from the law of Moses and the prophets, and he is explaining from morning till evening.
I don’t know, somehow us pastors, we just love those phrases. But verse 24 says, And some were persuaded by the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved. Remember, this is a group of Jewish people that have met with the Apostle.
So when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word. The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through. Now notice the Apostle is quoting the Old Testament again.
The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our father, saying, Go to this people and say, Hearing you will hear and shall not understand. And seeing you will see and not perceive. For the hearts of this people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them.
As this group of Jewish people were gathered and they began to leave, the Apostle said, I want to give you one more scripture. And it was particularly for those who had disbelieved, rejected the gospel. And he said, I want you to hear what the prophet Isaiah says.
And he’s not talking about physical hearing or physical seeing. He is talking about spiritual hearing and understanding. And seeing and believing the gospel of Jesus Christ, he gives them this warning from the prophets.
But look at verse 28, because this is a conclusion that the Apostle makes. Therefore, let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it. Friends, I want you to know, remember Acts chapter 1, verse 8? Remember that Jesus gave a commission to his disciples? Remember that he said take the gospel, that they were to take it unto Jerusalem first, and then to Samaria, and then to the uttermost? What we see in the book of Acts is this unfolding of taking it to the Jews first, and then unto Samaria, and then unto the uttermost parts of the world.
Why would Jesus be so particular and specific about the scope of the gospel message? Because the Jewish people believed that they were the only ones worthy to have salvation from God. It’s so unfortunate, because it’s not what the prophets taught. It’s not what the law of Moses taught.
But they believed that they were exclusive, and that there was no one else, no other ethnic group, no other society, no other people group that was to hear the gospel and to know God in a personal way. And that was the majority of the thinking of the Jewish people, and particularly the leadership. So when the Apostle looked at them boldly and quotes Isaiah to them, and then he says to them that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and he says they will hear it.
Explanation point. They will hear it, meaning that A, he is going to do everything in his power to get the gospel to every person on the planet, and B, they will respond. They will hear the gospel, and they will respond to God, and they will turn to Christ, and you are part of that proclamation.
Every one of you that has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, you see friends, hearing the Word of God always influences people. The Bible tells us that God’s Word will not return void. It doesn’t mean that everybody who hears the gospel will be saved or automatically believed in Christ, but it does mean this.
Even in this congregation, even those listening on the internet and watching live, or those who are on the radio or television later on, they will hear this message, and they will either be responsive, receptive, and return to the Lord, and give their lives, and dedicate their hearts to God, or they will reject God. God’s Word never returns void. There is no in-between in a response to God.
It’s either one or the other. It is the same sun that melts the ice that also hardens the clay. His Word does not return void.
Either people melt and are moved by Jesus Christ in their hearts and receive him as their Lord, or they reject him, and they increasingly become hard-hearted towards Jesus. This is why, parents, it’s so critical to have your children under the sound of the gospel, the teaching of the gospel. So important to have them in Sunday school, and Iwana Bible Clubs, and different opportunities, certainly at home, having a family time of sharing the gospel and teaching the gospel.
It’s so important because the older people get, and this is all proven statistically, but it’s already was declared biblically, people’s hearts get hard. They get hardened, and they push away from God. They want nothing to do with Jesus Christ.
But friends, the Apostle makes a bold declaration that the Jews refuse to listen, so Paul says, I’m moving on, and I’m taking this hope of salvation to the Gentiles. Paul had the passion to get the gospel out to every person. Now, what is spiritual blindness? I want us to consider that this morning.
To be spiritually blind, as Isaiah talked about, is to not see Christ as the Savior, is to not see him as the Messiah. The Apostle Paul, in Romans chapter 11, he prophesied. In Romans 11 25, he said about a spiritual blindness that would come upon Israel.
He said, for I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery. Whenever you hear the word mystery, the Apostle was teaching something new that has never been taught before, and he’s letting the believers have some insight on the mystery of God’s dispensation and providential unveiling of the gospel to around the world and the end times. He says, lest you should be wise in your own conceit that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles become in.
The gospel went first to the Jews, because Jesus told us that. He told us that. That’s why we’re pro-Israel at the open-door church.
That’s why we pray for Israel, because we are commanded to pray for Israel in the Bible. That’s why we support Israel, and we support ministries that are taking the gospel to the Jewish people, because the Bible says we’re to take it to the Jews first, and that’s what Paul did. But now he’s taking it to the Gentiles.
Why? Because there’s a spiritual blindness. It doesn’t mean a Jewish person can’t get saved, but overall in God’s scope of what he is doing, what he has taught us in the book of Daniel, that these Gentile kingdoms would rise up, and they would rule the world, and that you and I are in this process of that final Roman Empire coming to the forefront, and there being a tribulation period, and friends, there being this time which God, during that tribulation period, is reaching out to the Jewish people, because there’s been a spiritual blindness. For how long? Until the times of the Gentiles are complete.
When will the times of the Gentiles be complete? When all of their kingdoms will come to a finish? Well, it’ll be at the second coming of Jesus Christ, but that finality will begin at the rapture of the church, seven years before the second coming of Christ, according to the book of Revelation and 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 and 5, that I want you to know that the church will be called out. Now I know some of you like to debate, and I hear you. I’m with you.
All right? I understand. I’ve taken so many classes, and I’ve read so many books. I can show you them all.
My library is full of them, and you disagree on the timing of the rapture, but you cannot disagree that there is a rapture in the Bible, and I believe after all the studying I’ve done as a young man, as an old man now, as I’ve continued to search the Scriptures over and over again, I am more firm than I have ever been that the rapture of the church is imminent, and it is upon us, and it will be soon, my friends. And then after that rapture, there’ll be a seven-year tribulation in which God will reach out to the nation of Israel one more time to draw them back into true salvation. Zachariah says that when they finally realize that Jesus is the Messiah, that they will mourn of their sin, and they will repent of their sin, and they will be saved and receive Christ as Savior.
Amen. Go ahead and clap. Now if we had time, and we don’t because you’re not evening people, but you could go on to study the book of Romans chapter 11, and you could read further.
It says at the end that all Israel will be saved. Well, we’re coming to the end of the book of Acts chapter 28, these final few verses, and we’re certainly remembering that Christians definitely face storms in their lives, and sometimes it’s sickness, sorrow, suffering, all kinds of issues that we’re dealing with in this world. But we remember that the hope of humanity is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and we’re going to continue to keep our eyes on Him and follow Him faithfully.
I want to encourage you to check out our newsletter. You can go to our website, HopeWorthHaving.com, and all of our newsletters are uploaded to the website, or if you’d like, you can sign up for it. We can email it to you, or we can mail it to you, whatever works best.
But check us out, HopeWorthHaving.com. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post The Hope of Humanity Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on God’s Providence and Our Assignment Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 28: 1-16.
In your trouble, Church, the height of your healing is that through your trial that you serve others. And then you use that trial to minister to others in whatever capacity that you can, because God wants you to be a blessing. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and we are from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
We’re broadcasting all the way from Pennsylvania to your home or to your car, wherever you are. And we’re excited that you’ve joined us today, and we want to continue to study the Bible together. So we’re back in Acts chapter 28, and we’re continuing our study on God’s providence and our assignment.
So God works, he orchestrates, he’s always working within and through us, but yet we have this job and this assignment, and so let’s learn more about it. You can minister to people by being an example to them. People want the prestige.
They want the glory of ministering the gospel, but I’m telling you, there is no, there is no connection with your community, with people around you at work, unless you are kind and you are willing to serve them. Be that example, church, be that person. Now the Bible tells us, as we’re going through this, that the apostle, that as he is gathering this wood or these sticks and he’s laying them in the fire, that he gets bitten by a snake.
How about that? He came out, the Bible says the viper came out because of the heat and fastened onto his hand. That’s a nice way to say that he got bit by a snake. This snake fastens onto the apostle.
I want you to learn important principle today. We can’t even get through verse 3, but listen to me, church. The apostle was bitten by the snake when he was doing good.
He was doing good, and doing good does not exempt you from affliction and trials and problems in your life. Are you with me? You see, some people do good because they get the pat on the back. Some people do good because they get the certificate.
Some people do good because they get a plaque on the wall. Some people do good because people will talk about their goodness and the things that they have accomplished. Let me say that if there’s any goodness in you, if there is any kindness in any of us, it is because of the wonderful work of God’s common grace that he has blessed us with, and that all goodness emanates from God, and all kindness emanates from God, and so we must keep that in mind.
But even as you and I are doing good, we have to ask ourselves, why do I do this good? For if I’m doing this good so that I can make sure that I would never face a trial in my life, that I would never have an affliction in my life, that I’d never, well, let’s just be practical, have a snake bite me. Well, friends, you’re in for a rude awakening, a rude awakening. The psalmist said, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
It is that God does not prevent affliction in our life, but he promises that he will deliver us out of those afflictions. He will get us to the other side, just as Jesus promised the disciples that they would make it to the other side, but in the midst from going from one place to the other through the sea, there was a great storm, but Jesus met them on the other side. And Jesus will get you through your affliction.
He will get you out of your affliction, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have an affliction. This false narrative that permeates so many in the Christian life that think that if I just do certain things that I’ll never have a problem in my life is not found in the Bible. Jesus had problems.
The apostle Paul had problems. Do you think that they were less spiritual than you? Do you think that they somehow were less connected to God than you? No, my friends, we must understand that even when we do good, there will be trials. They just will be.
You think the devil’s going to sit on the sidelines and that he’s going to just say, hey, I’m going to just let the gospel go freely? You think the devil’s happy that the apostle has showed up, that he has providentially showed up on this island, and these people are getting ready to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you think that the devil likes that? The Bible tells us in John chapter 10 that the devil is a thief and a liar. My friends, he has come to kill and destroy. He wants to destroy your family.
He wants to destroy every person. He wants every person on this planet to go to hell. Do you know that? And now here in God’s providence, the apostle has a shipwreck.
He shows up on this island. You think the devil’s just going to say, hey, let’s sit back and see how this unfolds? He’s like, no, let’s start the fight. And when you start doing good and you start making a difference for God and you start making an impact and influencing others for the gospel of Jesus Christ, the devil wants to discourage you.
He wants to defeat you. He’s going to find every possible way to stop you from telling others about Jesus Christ. But yet God uses, and here’s the third thing I want you to see, this platform of the gospel.
I already told you kindness. Those of you that are taking notes. And I already told you servant leadership, being a servant.
But I want you to see the third way that God providentially gives Paul a platform for the gospel is through afflictions. Because the Bible says in verse 4 that when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, no doubt this man is a murderer. They quickly judged the apostle and said the reason this happened to him is because he must have been a murderer.
And now, even though he has not escaped the sea, yet justice. Circle that word justice. You’re thinking of in terms of justice and right and wrong.
But this is a Greek goddess called Justice. And what they believed on this island is that the Greek goddess was punishing the apostle because he was a murderer. They believed that even though he had escaped the sea, that the Greek goddess Justice was not going to allow the apostle to live.
But what does the apostle do, like most of us would, when a snake bites you? He just shakes it off. Friends, if a snake bites me, I’m out of here. I’m going to be screaming and hollering and panicking and falling apart.
And all the venom and the poison is going to run to my heart and my brain and I’ll be dead in minutes. Just want to pre-warn you. Me and snakes don’t get along.
Amen. The only good snake is a dead snake, minus a head, right? But what does this great courageous man of God do? He shakes off the creature, the snake, into the fire and he suffers no harm. The people are like, well, once the poison gets to him, he’s a goner.
Just a little bit, he’ll be swelling and he’ll be dead. But you know what? That doesn’t happen. In verse 6, we see that it doesn’t happen.
And notice at the end of verse 6 that they changed their minds and they said, he was a God. Man, he was a God. What the islanders saw was a visible display of the power of God.
Power greater than all the false idols, all the false goddesses that they were already worshiping by the apostle experiencing immunity from the poison of a snake. And by the way, don’t think, you know, that you can just go out there and randomly be immune. I don’t want you to be crazy.
But I want you to know that God uses this affliction to give him a platform to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Your afflictions are not purposeless. We first and foremost know that every affliction we go through should always be that we would glorify God even in the hurt and the pain and the struggle.
But second of all, it should be our intention that as people are watching our life and we’re giving praise to God through the tears that they can be reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And third of all, the apostle said in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 6 that he had hoped that his afflictions would bring encouragement and comfort to the people of God. That as others see you deal with suffering and you suffer so well and you suffer so godly and you suffer in such a way that brings praise and glory to God Almighty that he would encourage the brothers and sisters in Christ to stay at it and be faithful to Jesus Christ.
That even as they will one day suffer, that they will learn an example from you on how to handle the problems of our health, the problems of our trials, the problems of our difficult relationships. Now, this little story here in verse 6 proposes a question that I thought would be interesting for you to consider this morning, and that is should we be handling snakes in church? Should we be handling snakes in church? Well, Jesus said in Mark 16 verse 18, he said, they will pick up serpents, talking about his apostles, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them, and they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. Now there was a gentleman, I guess he’s a gentleman, his name is George Hensley, and George Hensley read Mark chapter 16 verse 18, and in 1910 he introduced to his congregation snake handling techniques.
And from that moment on it spread, if you will, no pun intended, like wildfire, and all of a sudden there was a group of Appalachian churches in that area that began to handle snakes. Friends, if you show up at church, and they’re handling snakes, my recommendation, get out before they get to you. Now, I want you to know, I don’t want you to be fearful, Pastor Mike is not being misled to handle snakes, amen, thank you.
But I want you to understand something, you know, this is out there, and some people think this, but Jesus did say this, and he said they could pick up serpents, and no deadly poison would cause them harm. Now people are quick to pick up a snake, but are they quick to drink the poison? Here’s the point, I want you to remember this church, that everything in the book of Acts is not designed for you to go out and repeat. And that is where some of our brothers and sisters in Christ have been misled by the book of Acts.
They think every event in the book of Acts has to be repeated every Sunday, or it has to be repeated at every special revival service, and so they are out to do the repetition of what they have read in the book of Acts, but that’s not what the book of Acts is all about. I want you to know that the miraculous signs, and the miraculous events that we see taking place in the book of Acts are simply unique credentials for the apostles and their gospel message. If you understood this, you would not be all excited about handling snakes.
You would not plan on bringing your snake to church next Sunday, and cast it before the altar, and say, now pastor, handle this snake. You would say, no, I understand that this was a unique event that took place, that Jesus even prophesied would happen in Mark chapter 16, and that as the Old Testament was concluding, and the New Testament, or the New Covenant was emerging, and the gospel was going forward, and Jesus was the fulfillment of all that was taught in the Old Testament, and now as Jesus was planting his new church, and sending out his gospel message, his good news, that he wanted to validate that message, and he wanted to verify his messengers, and he granted them great sign gifts in which they could perform miraculous things, and this would only help them to see that the message was true, and so was the messenger. Now how do you know this, Pastor Mike? Well let’s look at verse 7. Remember, we’ve already seen, we’ve already seen the people are referring to the apostle as a God.
So the second thing I want you to learn this morning is that God’s providence supplies ministry opportunities, not just a platform for the gospel, but opportunities for you to minister, and notice in verse 7 that in that region there was an estate of the leading citizen of the island, most likely the governor, or some kind of a mayor, or some kind of a leader of the people on this island, whose name was Publius, who received us, and he entertained us courteously for how many days? Three days. Now you and I, from chapter 1 all the way to chapter 27, and now in chapter 28, we’ve kind of got to know the apostle Paul. What do you think he’s telling them for those three days? What do you think he’s doing? You think the apostle’s just sitting back enjoying everything? No, I think he’s telling this leader, he’s telling this political leader about Jesus Christ.
He is ministering to them. This is something you’ll see in the life of the apostle in the book of Acts. It’s a pattern that the apostles are always establishing relationships with the leaders of the community, with the political figures.
We see this in chapter 13, 16, 17, 18, and 19, and now in chapter 28, because when the apostle finally gets to Rome, he will stand before Caesar, and he will stand before Roman guards, and he will tell them about Jesus Christ, and how is it that God turned this world upside down with the gospel through these men of God, these apostles that stood strong and preached the gospel. It is because all of Rome, which was anti-God and anti-Christianity, was flipped on its head and became a Christian empire because God, through the apostles, reached the political leaders with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that’s not just Pastor Mike up here randomly letting you know that.
It is really clear in history, and it’s written in the history books. So the apostle Paul was able to not only proclaim the gospel throughout the island, but he was able to minister to others. Look at this.
I want you to see this as we continue on in verse 8. And it happened that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and dysentery. Paul went into him and prayed, and he laid his hands on him, and he healed him. It’s not just that the apostle ministered this physical healing.
It’s even deeper, church, that these people are hearing about the God Jehovah Rapha, who is the healer, who is the one that strengthens the apostle to be able to do this wonderful task of ministering. We see this in Acts 3.12. Remember the Bible says, so when Peter saw it, he responded to the people. They were calling Peter a god because he had touched a man, grabbed a man’s hand, and it made him walk.
A man was lame. And what is Peter’s response? Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us as though by our own power or godliness we made this man walk? He goes on to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. He goes on to point the people to the power of God.
If God does any healing on this earth, if God does any work on this earth, if God manifests his great strength and power in any particular way, we should give all credit and glory to Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen? Amen. And we give thanks to God for those who work and serve in the health industry, and they are the extending hands, the healing hands of God on this earth, and doing what they can to accomplish this great work.
Any wisdom, any knowledge, any ability, any procedure is the direct result of a God who is supplying ministry opportunities for you in your life. That’s what the apostle is doing. He is serving God, and he is worshiping God.
And so even though he is a prisoner, remember that he is a prisoner, even though he still has this burden upon him, and he is a prisoner unjustly, he has been accused falsely, and all he is guilty of is telling people how to get saved. Even though this is true in his life, what does he do? The apostle still ministers, and he is a blessing. In your trial, in your trouble, church, the height of your healing is not to close the blinds and lock the doors and isolate yourself from others.
The height of your healing is that through your trial that you serve others, and you use that affliction and you use that trial to minister to others in whatever capacity that you can, because God wants you to be a blessing. And you know, you think about this. These people were so enamored by what the apostle had done.
Look at this in verse 9. So when this was done, the rest of those on the island who had diseases also came, and they were healed. That’s the difference between a charlatan and a true power of God. It wasn’t just a one-time incident, but the people came and the apostle ministered to them.
And what did they do in verse 10? They also honored us in many ways, and when we departed, they provided such things as were necessary. They blessed. The apostle came.
He could have been bitter. He could have been angry. He could have just shut down, but he said, I’m going to bless you.
I’m going to minister to others. And what do they do? They bless him. They honor him.
They thank him for what he has done. And when people bless you and when people minister to you and when people encourage you, do you take the time to thank them? Do you take the time to say, thank you? Your words meant a lot or your ministry touched my life. Just listening and praying with me really helped me.
Third and final thing, church. Don’t worry. There’s only three points you can rejoice, but God’s providence supplies a safe route and housing at the destination for the apostle.
I want you to see his providence in this in verse 11. Now, I want you to start out there. It says in verse 11, after three months, we sailed in an Alexandrian ship.
See, church, you can’t rush through the Bible. I know some of you’re on the track. You’re going to read the Bible in a year, and I’m all for you.
And I’ve done it many, many, many times. But don’t be in such a rush to finish the Bible that you miss out on some of the great deep truths of the Bible. And the more you understand what the Bible is saying, the more God is going to speak to you, the more you understand the circumstances.
Now, I just read a verse to you and some of you saying, what’s he talking about? Well, look, hang in there after three months. How long were they on the island? For three months. For three months, they were on that island because the apostle was kind, because he was a servant, because in his affliction, he was not selfish, but he started ministering to others.
God used him for three months to tell others about Jesus. That’s what I want you to see. That’s why Luke put it in there.
He wants you to be blown away by that. That after three months, we sailed in an Alexandria ship whose figure’s head was the twin brothers, which is a two gods that protect sailors, they claim. But anyways, it says, which had wintered at the island and landing at Syracuse.
We stayed three days, not Syracuse, New York, by the way. From there, we circled round and we reach Regium. And after one day, the south wind blew.
And the next day, we came to Petuli, where we found brethren and we invited to stay with them seven days. And so we went towards Rome. And from there, when the brethren heard about us, they came to meet us far, as far as Apia, Forum, and three inns.
When Paul saw them, he thanked God. And what does the Bible say? Took courage. Now, when we came to Rome, the centurions delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard.
But Paul was permitted to dwelt by himself with the soldier who guarded him. Now, God provided safe travels for the apostle, provided all the means that was necessary for them. When they finally get to their place, you say, man, how did you read all those words? I’m like you.
I make it up. I don’t know how to pronounce those words. Okay.
And you go from one translation to another and they’re all different. Okay. But I just make it good because, you know, sometimes you got to fake it till you make it.
Don’t worry about it. Don’t get caught up in the pronunciation of those words. Here’s what I want you to get caught up in.
I want you to get caught up in how God providentially provided for the apostle. And what was he in need of? Courage. Even the strongest among us need encouragement.
Even the strongest among us need the fellowship and the friendship of God’s people. What does God providentially do? They show up and there’s Christians waiting for the apostle. Then others travel a far way to come and encourage the apostle.
Listen to me, my friends, this is a two-sided coin and I could preach all day, but don’t worry, I won’t. It’s a two-sided coin. It is first of all, for you to understand the value of being with God’s people.
Or fellowship is not only sweet, but it is empowering. It is encouraging. And I’m telling you that when you’re not with your Sunday school class or your Bible study group, when you’re not in the fellowship of the church, when you’re not where there are Christian friends and you are authentic with one another and you are encouraging one another and you’re supporting one another and you’re praying for one another, you are being drained by this world and you are being set by the demands of ministry and you need encouragement.
And I don’t care how long you’ve lived for Jesus Christ. And I don’t care how strong you are in your faith. And I don’t care how many times you’ve read the Bible through.
We all need encouragement. Can God’s people say amen? But I want you to understand something. It’s the other side.
It’s a two-sided coin. Who are you encouraging? These people traveled a far way. They came great distance.
There are times you just need to go see your brother and sister in Christ and you need to encourage them. There’s times you need to pick up the phone. You need to send a letter.
You need to show your presence and you need to be there so that you can encourage your brothers and sisters in Christ, whether they’re in our community, in our local fellowship of believers, or they are great distance away. Church, go out there and wake up every day and say, Lord, use me to bless others. And to encourage others.
What can I say to you? I can say through this story, church, that you can trust in the providence of God. You can trust in the providence of God and that you can be assured that God is working all things out for our good and to his glory. It doesn’t mean only good things are happening to you, but God is working in your life, in your circumstances, and he wants to give you a platform to reach others, to bring glory to his name.
What can I say to you? Rejoice in the saving grace of God. Church, do you see through the book of Acts how hard it was to get the gospel to people? Do you see what all God’s servants went through to get the gospel? Do you realize that you are among those that the gospel has reached? And I wonder what was sacrificed by many of our forefathers and those before us so that we could hear about Jesus Christ. Some of you were born into Christian homes.
You are so blessed. I cannot understand it, honestly, that moms and dads and grandparents worked so hard to get the gospel to you. And yet, sometimes, that second and third and fourth generation of Christians are the least thankful for it.
But I think they ought to be the most because they ought to look back and see what their parents endured so that the gospel would come to them, to their children, so that their children would know about Jesus Christ and hear. The kids ought to be the most on fire for God. They ought to be the ones that are really tearing it up for God and the most sold out for Jesus Christ because Jesus said, to whom much is given, much is required.
You were born into a Christian home. Your parents gave up so much so you could hear about Jesus. You may not even know all the blood, sweat, and tears that were done so that you could hear about Jesus.
They brought you to Sunday school, Iwana, with splitting headaches, not feeling well, but they didn’t want you to miss one youth program because they wanted you to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Church, rejoice. What can I say? Align yourself with the mission of God.
Man, we’re on assignment. We got a job to do, church. We got to go across the street and tell others about Jesus.
We got to get it around the world. God is providentially putting things together. You’re scared.
I’m excited about the world. You’re worried. And I’m full of great confidence that God is shaking up this world in the last few years so that more people would turn to Him and receive Him as Jesus Christ.
Hey, church, God is in control. Church, God is providential. All that has unfolded in these last few years, let’s not be shaken.
Let’s go in with a mission. Let’s go within an assignment from heaven, and let’s align our assignment with His providence and say, let’s tell more people about Jesus Christ. Amen? Amen.
Yes, thank you. In the Christian life, there will be problems, and our problem really is not our problem, but it’s how we respond to our problems. And God’s providence helps us, knowing that He is at work, gives us the strength.
We’re reminded what the psalmist said, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers Him out of them all. And so every challenge you have, every problem, God’s going to deliver. You just got to keep your focus on Him and remember that He is at work, even if you can’t see it.
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The post God’s Providence and Our Assignment Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on God’s Providence and Our Assignment Part 1 . He will be reading out of Acts 28: 1-16.
And that greater goal is to take the gospel across the street and around the world. And through God’s providence, he puts you in circumstances and situations and relationships with people so that you can show kindness and tell them about Jesus Christ. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders and we are delighted to bring to you Hope Worth Having radio broadcast today and we’re beginning a new series on God’s providence and our assignment.
Acts chapter 28 is where we’re going to be today as we begin this new chapter together and we’re going to study it and continue to understand how God works even as we are on assignment for him. If you have your Bibles this morning, join me in the book of Acts chapter 28 and the psalmist said, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And even when we go through hardships, we know that his goodness is there.
His grace is ever evident. And this is really what we’re talking about in Acts chapter 28. We have made a long journey through the book of Acts as a church family.
We finally made it to that final chapter, chapter 28. We’ll try to get through chapter 28 before 2025. Is that possible? No, I’m just teasing you.
But we definitely will take a few times to look at this chapter and we want to help you out a little bit. And again, because we’ve had so many different breaks from the book of Acts to once again, kind of refresh our minds and our memory of what is really taking place in this great book, you know, at the outset that Jesus gave a great command. It is often referenced as the great commission.
It’s Acts chapter 1 in verse 8 and we are told that we are to take the gospel and we are to take it to the ends of the earth unto Jerusalem and to Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth. And it is from that moment that Luke, who is the human author under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, begins to detail a narrative of all that has been done and was happening to fulfill that commission by the people of God. In Acts chapter 1 all the way through chapter 8, there is a lot of attention upon the ministry of the apostle Peter.
Then in chapter 9, the apostle Paul is knocked off, if you will, his high horse. He was a persecutor of the church. He was a very passionate and zealous Pharisee and religious person.
And he was determined that he would get rid of what he considered a cult or some kind of a sect of Judaism and that he was going to destroy Christianity. But little did he know that Jesus Christ himself, after his resurrection, would appear to the apostle. And he would have a great vision and he would hear the words of his Savior, why are you persecuting me? Reminding us that when you persecute the church, you are persecuting Jesus Christ.
And he takes it very personable. And so it is that the apostle gives his life to God. And from chapter 9 on, we witness this life-changing power of the Lord in the life of the apostle and how he is a faithful witness for God.
At the heart of the Christian movement that is undertaken after Jesus Christ commissions his disciples and he plants the local church, we see the work of the apostle Paul from chapter 9 all the way to chapter 28. Now when we come to chapter 28, we understand that the apostle has a great passion to get the gospel to Spain. But his desire is to get to Spain through Rome.
We know this through his other letters that he has informed the people of God of what his plans are. Now the apostle did not plan on going the way that God had orchestrated it to come to happen. And that is that the apostle wanted to go in freedom.
But he was a prisoner. He is now a prisoner. He is on a ship.
And if you’ve been following along, you know that Paul was a prisoner because he preached the gospel. Because he told people how to get to heaven. And so the religious crowd is upset with him.
The political crowd is upset with him. But now the apostle has been on this ship and chapter 27 is kind of the narrative of how all that drama unfolded. And now they have had a shipwreck.
And they, all these prisoners along with the apostle, are swimming to shore. And they are making it to land. And so what is it that we need to understand as we launch in? What is the theme of chapter 28? Write this down if you’re taking notes.
And I know so many of you have good memories. So you can do that as well. And that is that even though we cannot always see God, we can always be confident that God is working to accomplish his purpose.
Even though we cannot see God, he is always working in various ways to accomplish his purpose. So I’ve entitled the message, God’s Providence and Our Assignment. What is our assignment? Acts 1A, take the gospel to the ends of the earth.
And what is God’s providence? God fulfilling his great purpose of getting the gospel to every person on the planet. Using the circumstances of your life and my life. Using history itself, which is really his story of getting the gospel out to other people.
And so what we’re going to see in chapter 28 is that God is demonstrating his providence and fulfilling his purposes. But he is doing it patiently. The providential hand of God is seen at work in this great passage of chapter 28.
So what is the first thing that we must learn that I want you to hang on to this morning? Is that God’s providence supplies a platform for the gospel. We see this in verses 1 through 6. We come to verse 1 of chapter 28. Now when they had escaped, they then found out that the island was called Malta.
Now don’t think of it in terms of their escaping from their captors, but they are escaping from the waters, the shipwreck. They’re escaping and they’re making it to land. They avoided the danger of losing their own lives.
But Paul had already promised them in chapter 27, in midst of this horrendous storm that had come upon them, that God had given him the truth and the promise that they would all make it safely to land. But there was the shipwreck. And there they were floating out on the sea.
And they finally made it to land. The Bible says in verse 1 that they made it to the island was called Malta. Malta is an island that is 17 miles long.
It is 9 miles wide. It is just south of Italy. And so here we find the apostle in this very small place, an island, where there are over 200 prisoners.
And they all of a sudden show up on this island. And notice what verse 2 says, that the natives showed us unusual kindness. For they kindled a fire and they made us all welcome because of the rain that was falling and because of the cold.
But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, he laid them on the fire. A viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, no doubt this man is a murderer, whom though he has escaped the sea, yet justice does not allow to live.
But he shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. However, they were expecting that he would swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had looked for a long time and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a God.
Remember that I told you the point that I want you to see in verse 6 is that God’s providence supplies a platform for the gospel. How is it that the apostle, even through this trial in these first six verses, would be able to share the gospel? The first thing is that he experiences and he reciprocates kindness. Again, you saw that in verse 2, that here they show up, they’re cold, it’s wet, it’s raining, it’s probably early winter or late fall at this time, and they are freezing to death.
And the Bible says that God providentially moved these people to show unusual kindness. Probably not a really developed little island of people, probably not a very civilized group of people. Yet God providentially moves in their heart to extend kindness to the apostle, and to all the prisoners, and all those who had shipwrecked.
And they show this kindness to the apostle, reminding us that all of us are called to show kindness. For the scriptures teach us that we are to be kind to one another. Now, you say, Mike, that’s a simple thing.
But friends, I have to be honest with you. In the times we live in, kindness seems to be out of style. That people are getting upset about some of the craziest things.
People are getting upset because you took their parking spot. People are upset because you said this or you didn’t say this. People are getting upset because you support this group or you don’t support that group.
And so we see this happening even in our communities, and in our culture, and in our nation. We see it happening in our families. We see husbands and wives not showing kindness to one another.
We see sometimes that the children are not showing kindness to one another. It seems to be something that is absent from the home. And why is it? I am fearful that we have neglected the basic teaching of some of the virtues of the scriptures, and that we have not taught our children to be kind to one another, that we are not exemplifying it as a mom and a dad, that we somehow have decided that kindness is not necessary, that it is better to just kind of run over people and leave them on the side of the road.
But God is calling us to be kind to one another, certainly in the family of God. I have to be honest with you. We’re not all going to agree with one another.
Can we say amen? Because I know the reality of it. But it doesn’t mean just because we disagree in the family of God that we have to be unkind to each other, that we should not only strive right here in the family of God. Why should we expect the world to be kind when the people of God cannot be kind? Why should we anticipate kindness from others when we ourselves do not show kindness when we disagree with one another? Friends, disagreement is just part of life.
It’s part of maturing. It’s part of growing. There are rock-solid truths that we unite together as believers, like the fact that we’re getting ready to celebrate the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ, that he was born of a virgin, and that he lived a sinless life, that he went to the cross and died for our sins, that he resurrected three days later, ascended into heaven.
He’s at the right hand of the Father, even making intercession for you. Now, we can wave that flag, and we can all fly under that flag. Amen? Or maybe we might not only disagree about sports, but we might disagree on music styles, or we might disagree on different programs or ministries in the church, or we might disagree whether the lobby needs to be updated or it shouldn’t be updated.
But here’s the bottom line, that no matter what, we should always show kindness to one another, that we should strive as brothers and sisters in Christ. A husband and wife might disagree. We have our differences, but we can always be kind about it, church.
And let me say this about kindness, because I want to just take this moment to say that here, these folks were natives, and they showed unusual kindness to strangers. I may not know everybody, but I can still be kind to them, can’t I? People come from all walks of life and different backgrounds and ethnicities, but we can still show kindness to each other, can’t we? Let’s strive to be kind to strangers. Let’s strive to do that.
Why? Why is this so important? Because I believe in the providence of God, and I believe that through your kindness, God is going to give you a platform to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. You cannot, in your home, show hate, anger, and bitterness to your spouse and think that you’re going to have a platform to share the gospel with your own children. You cannot go out there and argue and fight and be bitter and mad at every person and think that you’re going to have a platform to share the gospel with strangers.
That’s what I want you to see, church, is that the impact of your kindness is not just that you check that off on your list of things that God wants you to do, but that you have a greater goal, and that greater goal is to take the gospel across the street and around the world, and through God’s providence, he puts you in circumstances and situations and relationships with people so that you can show kindness and tell them about Jesus Christ. I want you to see something else that helped Paul to have a platform. We’re going to see this unfold here in the chapter here.
How is it that Paul was able to share the gospel and have this platform through the providence of God? It was not only kindness, not only receiving it, but giving it, but Paul was a servant leader. I want you to notice back in verse 3 of chapter 28 when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks. Remember that the folks were already putting together, and verse 2, they had kindled a fire and made us all welcome.
Made us all welcome. That ought to be the theme of every church, made us all welcome, amen? Made us all welcome. So let me just, sorry to jump back a little bit, but some of you come in and you plop in your seat and you shall not be moved.
But what you ought to do is be the last ones to be seated. You ought to come in here looking for people who are by themselves, shaking their hands and getting to know them. And people say, well, I don’t want to know anybody else.
I understand, but listen, friends, when you come to the house of the Lord, it ought to be a place that all feel welcome. Amen. Let’s work hard on that church.
You can’t just depend on Pastor Mike. I’m doing the best I can, but I want you to get out there and do it. And make all feel welcome.
But in this filling them welcome, would you note in verse 2 that they kindled a fire? They kindled a fire. What is the apostle doing? Well, the Bible says in verse 3, he’s gathering sticks and not just a stick, but a bundle of sticks. And he laid them on the fire.
What I see in the apostle is a servant leader. I see him humbly serving others. That he could have just sat there and just received all the attention and received the warmth and been blessed by it and encouraged by it.
Certainly he was and he could have just sat there. But no, he recognized the fire was going down and he got up. He took the initiative and he was intentional and he went up and he said, let me help out.
Let me help put some wood in the fire. Let me help keep the fire burning strong. Now the apostle could have said, you know, I am the apostle.
And I have spoken to the Lord and received visions from God and I have this special title. I cannot be caught up and with this small details of stuff. But no, he is so different.
He is a servant leader. He’s not afraid to move a box. He’s not afraid to help with a door.
He’s not afraid to serve others. He’s not afraid to reach out to others and show acts of kindness through his humble service. What are you doing my friends to keep the fire burning to keep the fire burning in the church? What acts of service are you doing? It doesn’t have to be grand.
It doesn’t have to be glorious. It doesn’t always have to be on the platform. But what are you doing behind the scenes? Keeping the fires burning in the church and what are you doing to keep the fires burning in your home? Do you show acts of kindness of serving humbly serving your family helping out not thinking that hey, I’m too good for this and I’m better than this and I’ve been at this for so long and therefore I don’t have to do it anymore.
My friends when you get to that moment, hear me hear me. You’re done. You won’t have any influence on people.
You won’t have a platform to share the gospel. What are you doing? You want your neighbor to come to church? Are you serving your neighbor? What are you doing? To minister to your children and your grandchildren and your family what acts of service if the Apostle Paul could take time to gather the bundles of wood and put them in the fire? How much more should you and I be humble enough to find moments and opportunities to serve? There’ll be no platform without kindness and servanthood. You can minister to people by being an example to them.
People want the prestige. They want the glory of ministering the gospel, but I’m telling you there is no there is no connection with your community with people around you at work unless you are kind and you are willing to serve them be that example church be that person. Now the Bible tells us as we’re going through this that the Apostle that as he is gathering this wood or the sticks and he’s laying them in the fire that he gets bitten by a snake.
How about that? He came out the Bible says the Viper came out because of the heat and fastened onto his hand. That’s a nice way to say that he got bit by a snake this snake fastens on to the Apostle. I want you to learn important principle today.
We can’t even get through verse 3, but listen to me Church. The Apostle was bitten by the snake when he was doing good. He was doing good and doing good does not exempt you from affliction and trials and problems in your life.
Are you with me? You see some people do good because they get the pat on the back some people do good because they get the certificate some people do good because they get a plaque on the wall. Some people do good because people will talk about their goodness and the things that they have accomplished. Let me say that if there’s any goodness in you if there is any kindness in any of us it is because of the wonderful work of God’s common grace that he has blessed us with and that all goodness emanates from God and all kindness emanates from God.
And so we must keep that in mind. But even as you and I are doing good. We have to ask ourselves.
Why do I do this good for if I’m doing this good so that I can make sure that I would never face a trial in my life that I would never have an affliction in my life that I’d never well, let’s just be practical have a snake bite me. Well friends you’re in for a rude awakening. A rude awakening the psalmist said many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
It is that God does not prevent affliction in our life, but he promises that he will deliver us out of those afflictions. He will get us to the other side just as Jesus promised the disciples that they would make it to the other side. But in the midst from going from one place to the other through the sea there was a great storm, but Jesus met them on the other side and Jesus will get you through your affliction.
He will get you out of your affliction, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have an affliction. This false narrative that permeates so many in the Christian life that think that if I just do certain things that I’ll never have a problem in my life is not found in the Bible. Jesus had problems.
The Apostle Paul had problems. Do you think that they were less spiritual than you? Do you think that they somehow were less connected to God than you? No, my friends. We must understand that even when we do good, there will be trials.
They just will be. You think the devil’s going to sit on the sidelines and that he’s going to just say, hey, I’m going to just let the gospel go freely. You think the devil’s happy that the Apostle has showed up, that he has providentially showed up on this island and these people are getting ready to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you think that the devil likes that? The Bible tells us in John chapter 10 that the devil is a thief and a liar.
My friends, he has come to kill and destroy. He wants to destroy your family. He wants to destroy every person.
He wants every person on this planet to go to hell. Do you know that? And now here in God’s providence, the Apostle has a shipwreck. He shows up on this island.
You think the devil is just going to say, hey, let’s sit back and see how this unfolds. He’s like, no, let’s start the fight. And when you start doing good, and you start making a difference for God, and you start making an impact and influencing others for the gospel of Jesus Christ, the devil wants to discourage you.
He wants to defeat you. He’s going to find every possible way to stop you from telling others about Jesus Christ. But yet God uses, and here’s the third thing I want you to see, this platform of the gospel.
I already told you kindness, those of you that are taking notes. And I already told you servant leadership, being a servant. But I want you to see the third way that God providentially gives Paul a platform for the gospel is through afflictions.
Because the Bible says in verse 4 that when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, no doubt this man is a murderer. They quickly judged the apostle and said the reason this happened to him is because he must have been a murderer. And now, even though he has not escaped the sea, yet justice, circle that word justice.
You’re thinking of in terms of justice in right and wrong. But this is a Greek goddess called justice. And what they believed on this island is that the Greek goddess was punishing the apostle because he was a murderer.
They believed that even though he had escaped the sea, that the Greek goddess justice was not going to allow the apostle to live. But what does the apostle do, like most of us would, when a snake bites you? He just shakes it off. Friends, if a snake bites me, I’m out of here.
I’m going to be screaming and hollering and panicking and falling apart and all the venom and the poison is going to run to my heart and my brain and I’ll be dead in minutes. Just want to pre-warn you. Me and snakes don’t get along.
Amen. The only good snake is a dead snake, minus a head, right? But what does this great, courageous man of God do? He shakes off the creature, the snake, into the fire and he suffers no harm. The people are like, well, once the poison gets to him, he’s a goner.
Just a little bit, he’ll be swelling and he’ll be dead. But you know what? That doesn’t happen. In verse 6, we see that it doesn’t happen and notice at the end of verse 6 that they changed their minds and they said, he was a God.
Man, he was a God. What the islanders saw was a visible display of the power of God. Power greater than all the false idols, all the false goddesses that they were already worshiping.
By the apostle experiencing immunity from the poison of a snake, and by the way, don’t think that you can just go out there and randomly be immune. I don’t want you to be crazy, but I want you to know that God uses this affliction to give him a platform to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Your afflictions are not purposeless.
We first and foremost know that every affliction we go through should always be that we would glorify God even in the hurt and the pain and the struggle. But second of all, it should be our intention that as people are watching our life and we’re giving praise to God through the tears that they can be reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And third of all, the apostle said in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 6 that he had hoped that his afflictions would bring encouragement and comfort to the people of God.
That as others see you deal with suffering and you suffer so well and you suffer so godly and you suffer in such a way that brings praise and glory to God Almighty, that he would encourage the brothers and sisters in Christ to stay at it and be faithful to Jesus Christ. That even as they will one day suffer, that they will learn an example from you on how to handle the problems of our health, the problems of our trials. We can’t help but see the hand of God working in the apostle Paul’s life.
He truly understood he was on assignment from heaven and that he had a job to do and God wanted him to take the gospel to the ends of the earth and Paul worked tirelessly to make that happen. But within the scope of all that he dealt with, you could see God’s providence in his life. You and I are going to have some ups and downs.
We’re going to have different chapters in our life, new seasons and different challenges. But we always can see God’s providence and I hope that that understanding of his providence becomes a sustaining force in your life as you continue to walk faithfully for Jesus Christ. We encourage our listeners to check out our YouTube channel.
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The post God’s Providence and Our Assignment Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on What Do We Do When Trouble Comes Part 3 . He will be reading out of Acts 27-1-44.
And you may not immediately see the results, but you know that God in heaven is standing up on his throne, and he is applauding every one of his servants, and he has not forgotten your good work on his behalf. And so let us, church, serve other people. Hello. This is pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church, and we are delighted to have you on Hopeworth having broadcast. And today, we’re gonna be in acts chapter 27, and we’re going to be finishing up our series, what to do when trouble comes.
So let’s grab our bibles, and let’s begin to study this morning. Want you to take your Bible and join me in Acts chapter 27 in the New Testament. We have been studying a series entitled, What to Do When Trouble Comes. The apostle Paul in chapter 27 ventures out onto a sea voyage. He is a prisoner on this ship, and he is being taken to Rome, Italy.
And there he is to stand before Caesar and to give an account and to give testimony of some of the accusations that are brought before him. What is it that the apostle has done that has upset so many in the world at this time? He has simply preached and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. But wherever he has gone to teach the bible, to teach the wonderful good news of Jesus, there have been riots. There has been pushback.
There have been those who’ve been very upset. And so he has stood before religious courts, political courts, and now he is to stand before Caesar and to give an account. And as we have been going through this chapter Acts 27, we have been learning what do we do when trouble comes into our life. On this voyage, he encounters a violent storm, and this storm creates tremendous problems for those that are in the ship. And so we’ve already learned, first of all, that we should always spend time with God.
You know, one of the mistakes we make when trouble comes in our life is we tend to neglect our faith. We tend to kinda back away in our spiritual life. But the most important thing you can do is not to see God as an enemy, but to see Him as your refuge. To run to Jesus and look to Him when you are in trouble. But the second thing that we’ve already learned is that we should lift up others.
The apostle was not a negative person. He was not a person who was always claiming that somehow the sky was falling and everything was falling apart, but rather just the opposite. He was a person who tried to lift up, to encourage, midst of trouble, in the midst of every challenging circumstances in your life is not to focus on self and woe is me and have a self pity party, but rather to begin to lift up others. To always dig deep in your heart knowing that somehow, some way God is at work, and that your job is not to be a person who discourages others, but someone who is always encouraging to others. Now the third thing that we had learned was that we are to listen to God’s wisdom.
When we face trouble, sometimes we turn off our listening skills, and we tend to only think about or listen to what we’re thinking about. And I want to remind you of something that’s very important in your life. So important I would encourage you to write it down, and that is simply this, everything that you think and believe is not true. Everything that you feel in your heart is not always true. There have been times that maybe I thought something, and that in my anxiety or in my frustration, certainly it was never true, but from the way that I saw it, it was.
Or maybe a feeling, an emotion that I had as a result of maybe a person or as a result of a circumstance in my life, and it turns out those feelings were not accurate. And I want you to know that the most accurate and truthful thing in your life that needs to speak into your life is God’s wisdom. It is God’s truth. Everything that Mike believes and thinks is not always true, And that is also true for your life. So always make sure that you vet or filter your thoughts through the word of God.
Make sure that you vet and filter your feelings through the word of God and listen to God’s wisdom. That’s exactly what the apostle did. Last week we learned that number four, we’re to believe in God’s promises. How wonderful are God’s promises? In verse 25 of this chapter, we are reminded that God gave a promise to the apostle, and he reminded the apostle that they are going to make it.
They’re gonna be saved from this disastrous violent storm that has come upon them in their voyage, And the apostle has shared that with all who are on this ship, and he has reminded them that we are to believe the promises of God. I want you to hang on to this, and that is simply this, that God keeps his promises, and we should always trust those promises. Now there are times in my life that the circumstances are so difficult, it’s hard. It’s hard to move forward in life, but let me encourage you to hang on to the promises of God, because in the promises of God, you will find strength and courage to move forward in your faith, and so let’s believe in those promises. Now today, I wanna talk to you about the last three principles of what do we do when we are in trouble, and we’re gonna be beginning in verse 27 in the chapter today, and we encourage you to take time to read through this whole chapter so you can get full context to everything that is being taught, but we want you to remember that we have to stay on track.
Now let’s look at verse 27 of chapter 27 of the book of Acts. Now when the fourteenth night had come, remember they are in a very disastrous situation, and when the fourteenth night had come, as we were driven up and down in the sea about midnight, the sailors sensed that they were drawing near some land, and they took soundings and found it to be 20 fathoms. And when they had gone a little farther, they took soundings again and found it to be 15 fathoms. Then fearing, lest we should run aground on the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come. And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship, when they had let down the skiff into the sea under pretense of putting out anchors from the prow, Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.
Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the skiff and let it fall off. Now let’s understand what’s going on here. Remember the apostle has received a promise from God, and God is saying that if you stay together, you’re going to survive, and you’re gonna be okay, and you’re gonna get to land, and everything’s gonna work out. And all of a sudden what we find is there is a group that begins to sense that they are nearing land. And for one group, it is an idea of fear because they’re thinking, man, what if we crash into the rocks?
And what if this ship is destroyed even further and we were to drown? And there’s another group on the ship that’s saying, hey, we’re near land. Let’s just bail out and swim to the shore and do our best to make it. So each of them are putting together their own plans and their own schemes to do what they feel like is best. The apostle Paul steps in and he reminds the centurion who is the leader, who is responsible for many of the prisoners that are on this ship that, hey, we gotta stick together and we gotta stay on track, and we can’t disassemble here and we can’t move away from the promise of God and the plan of God or else we’re not gonna make it.
And Paul reminds them that if you stay together, then you will survive. But if you disband and you begin to work in your own way or get off track and do your own thing, it will lead to disaster in your life. And so the centurion at first, here Paul is one of his prisoners. He has a lack of trust in Paul, but in the midst of this storm, Paul has stepped up and proven himself to be a man of courage and faith and leadership. And so now the centurion is listening to the apostle, and he begins to call the men to work together and to stay on track and to finish out what God is doing here in that he wants us to stay on track.
Now I thought about that in our own personal life. There are times we get distracted, isn’t there? And you might wonder why people get distracted. And I thought of a few things. First of all, people are going through transitions in their life, and it gets them distracted on the purpose and the plan God has for them, and even the promises that God has.
There are times you say, look, you know what? I’m gonna break away, do my own thing, and I’m going to just kinda figure this out on my own, but God is teaching us that we can certainly do a whole lot more together than we could ever do separately, and that if we would corporately stay together, and be a part of what God is doing, and bringing people into a relationship with Jesus Christ, if we would band together, stay strong as a team, together everyone accomplishes more. And that is so important for us that when we are going through different transitions in life that we not lose focus and get distracted from the purpose and the plan God has in in our life. But the second reason that we get distracted is because of our own triumphs. Yes, God uses our life, we have success, we get promoted, we accomplish a few things, we’ve got some experience under our belt, And it’s easy to forget that God has blessed us, and God has provided for us, and God has smoothed the way for us that we might achieve what he has called us to do.
But yet so often we get our focus on ourself and we begin to pound our chest and we say look at me, look what I did, look what I accomplished. How many times have I as a pastor seen someone come to Christ who hardly had 2 nickels to rub together and they could barely make it in life, but all of a sudden God blessed them in many ways, and they began to do very well. And as soon as there was a little bit of money in their bank account, they forgot about God. They forgot about His blessings, and they forgot how he gave them the skills and the health to be able to think through and do all that they have accomplished through his grace. And so friends, let’s not forget that God is the source of all that we have, and God is the strength of everything that has been accomplished in our life.
And we don’t need to give credit to ourselves, but we always need to give praise to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see? Some people can’t handle prosperity. They can’t handle advancement in their life because it becomes about them rather than bringing glory to God, and they get distracted in their faith. Another way that we get distracted is through our troubles and our trials.
Trials come into our life, and all of a sudden we begin to look inward instead of upward. We begin to think about our emotions and our struggles and all that we’re dealing with in our life, and as a result, we no longer are looking to God as a refuge and a strength, and we get distracted, and we get off track, and we begin to go our own way instead of looking to Jesus Christ. I wish as a pastor that I could somehow convince all of those who love Jesus Christ and follow Him faithfully that trouble will come your way, but do not let it pull you away from your relationship and your fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Church, you’re gonna have trouble, you’re gonna have trials. I wish I could protect all of you from all the sorrows and the sufferings of life, but it’s impossible.
We live in a flawed world. We live in a world that is sinful. We live in a world, and I hate to tell you this, but it’s filled with people who are selfish. But friends, we cannot give up. We have to keep moving forward, and we can’t be distracted.
What are ways that’ll help me to stay on track? Number one, I would write the word patience. I would encourage you to be patient. As I’ve told you before, I’ve often been asked, should I pray for patience, pastor? Well, it’s the fruit of the spirit.
And patience is not the idea that I simply tolerate everything, but patience is the idea that I continue to endure even under pressure. That I just won’t quit. God teaches us that we’re to be faithful. And I always tell people it’s too soon to quit. And the Bible promises us that we will reap if we do not faint.
And we don’t even have to look to the Bible to see great examples of people who endured, even in mistakes, even in their failures. They kept going, they kept taking a step, and they were blessed, and they were able to accomplish much. I would also encourage you to write down the word flexible. We talk about how do I stay on track? Well, be flexible.
You know the bible says that the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. You see friends, I have to be flexible, and everything doesn’t work out the way you planned it. You sit down and you write your goals down, you write out your plans, what you wanna do, what you wanna accomplish, you have your next steps already put together. Now, I know some of you, you’re just trying to figure out what you’re gonna do in the next moment, amen? And you’re not even sure what you’re gonna do tomorrow, but here’s the key.
I gotta make sure that I’m flexible to the way God works Because man plans his ways but the Lord directs his steps. And you know your plans are not always his plans, did you know that? And sometimes what you put together is not the way God wants to work it. And you say, Well, I want God to fit into my plans and I want him to fit into my calendar. No, no, no, no, that’s not the way it works church.
We are called to fit into the plan of God. And if his plans are different than your plans, if he changes directions on you and he sends you a different way, then you must be willing to be flexible in staying on track for the Lord Jesus Christ. But I would also encourage you to be cautious. To be cautious. If I’m gonna stay on track, I need to be cautious because you see, the devil is always trying to tempt me to get away from God’s will for my life.
The devil wants you to live a disobedient life. He wants you to live a selfish life, he wants you to live for what you want, but God is saying, I want you to deny self, take up the cross, and follow me. You see, to be a disciple of Christ is not always a life of pleasure. It’s not always a life of ease. There are many challenges before you, and there are many times that you need to deny self.
The greatest marriage advice I could give to each and every one of you that if you want a successful marriage, you have to be willing to deny self. You can’t be selfish in a marriage. I didn’t realize how selfish I was until I got married. We have to learn to deny self. Quit being lazy, Mike.
Quit being selfish, and work together as a team with your spouse, and let’s work together to stay on track on what we’re all about. Now I wanna present a question to you this morning that I want you to think about. As you drift down the ocean of life, are you ready for the storms that will come into your life? It’s not will they, it’s when will they. You need to know that you will face storms.
And as you consider this question, will these storms cause you to get off track for God? Will they cause you to retreat in your faith? Or will these storms draw you closer to the Lord Jesus Christ? Stay on track. The next principle I’d like you to learn is to serve other people.
When I’m in trouble, I not only need to stay on track, but I need to serve other people. We already talked about how the apostle was such a person who lifted others up, and that he encouraged others. I want you to note that he was also a man who looked out for others. Look at verse 33. The bible says, and as the day was about to dawn, Paul implored them all to take food.
He was telling them. He was admonishing them. Take some food, saying today is the fourteenth day. You have waited and continued without food and eaten nothing. I want you to think about this.
They’re in this storm, it’s so traumatic that they’re not even thinking about their need to eat, they’re not even thinking about nourishment, they’re so distraught with what they’re encountering that the apostle, rather than thinking about himself and say, man, look at all this food. I’m just gonna eat it myself and make sure there’s plenty for me. He goes to all the people on the ship and says, look, you need to take care of yourself. You need to make sure that you are nourished. He begins to serve others by helping them to nourish themselves.
The opportunity was before the apostle to minister to others, and rather than sitting down, he stepped up. And I wanna say to you that opportunities to minister will come your way every day, And the question is, will you serve others? You say, well, right now I’m hurting, pastor. Friends, do you wanna heal? The height of your healing is not only to be an encourager, but the height of your healing in your hurt is to serve others.
You’ve been there. You know what it’s like. You understand when you’re dealing with grief. You know what it’s like when you’re struggling with losing a job. You understand when your spouse walks out on you.
You understand. And though these things may not have been caused by God, here you are in the midst of them, and the question is what will be your response? Will you use this as a platform to help others who are hurting? You don’t have to go far before you’ll find hurting people. People are all around us hurting.
There are people who are struggling. There are people who are lonely. There are people who feel very hopeless. You have the opportunity to minister and to serve others. I love John Wesley’s motto.
He was the founder of the Methodist denomination, and he said do all the good you can, by all the means you can, by all the ways you can, in all the places you can, and at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can. Isn’t that great? And I wanna encourage you to say, Lord, help me to be a blessing to someone today. Help me to serve someone. The Bible tells us in Philippians two four, let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
If you and I really believe in the hope and the promise of the return of Jesus Christ, then our lives should reflect that. And we can reflect that by living our lives with hope, humility, and a servant attitude. I love what the scripture says in first Corinthians 15 verse 58, therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Over and over again as a pastor, I interact with so many people. And sometimes I’ll say, well, how did you find out about us?
And they’ll tell me stories about our members planting a seed years ago, and now that seed is bearing fruit in their life. You never know the impact and the influence that you’ll have on someone as you continue to serve others. And you may not immediately see the results, but you know that God in heaven is standing up on his throne, and he is applauding every one of his servants, and he has not forgotten your good work on his behalf. And so let us, church, serve other people. The final principle that I want you to learn this morning as we think about what to do when we are in trouble, it is to choose a thankful attitude.
I want you to look again at verse 35. Having already encouraged them to eat, we note in verse 35, the Bible says, and when he had said these things, he took bread and he gave thanks to God in the presence of them all. And when he had broken it, he began to eat. Church, do you understand that here in the midst of this ship, the apostle has not only served in making sure that everybody is getting something to eat, and by the way, how many people were on this ship? 276.
And what does he do? Having gotten them all set up to where they are nourishing themselves and helping themselves having not eaten for fourteen days, he takes time to be thankful and to give thanks to God for the provisions. The Bible tells us in first Thessalonians five verse 18, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Now he didn’t just say in the good times give thanks, but he said in everything give thanks. In everything, give thanks.
In your life, there will be good times and bad times. But I wanna ask you, will you give thanks to God? It’s a simple act that the apostle did. Before he ate the meal, he gave thanks to God. But no matter what, when, or how, may it be true of all of us that we take moments and times to give thanks to God for his blessings, for his provisions.
Thank you, Jesus, for what you have provided for us. Now there are two effects of being thankful that I want you to remember this morning, And number one is that our attitude determines our approach to life. You see, the apostle’s disposition in the midst of his trouble, in the midst of this violent storm that had come upon this many members on the ship, his disposition was one of thanksgiving. What is your disposition? You say, well, it determines how I feel.
Well, friends, it’s gonna be a roller coaster. When our children would get up, I would always go into their room to wake them up, and I would sing songs to them. And you know I’m not a singer, and so you know how difficult and miserable it was for our kids. But I loved getting up, and I love the new day. Now when it gets late in the evening, I start crashing, but I’m so excited for the day and ready for what the Lord has for us.
And I wanna ask you, what is your disposition? Do you have a negative attitude, or are you being positive and thankful that even in the midst of your trials you still are a thankful person? Philippians four four, rejoice in the Lord always, and again I will say, what does he say church? Rejoice. Could you say that word one more time for me?
One, two, three. Rejoice. I love that. I’m looking forward to more rejoicing in your hearts. The second principle I want you to learn about is that a thankful attitude affects other people.
Did you notice that the apostle gave thanks to God in the presence of them all? He was not ashamed to recognize God. He was not ashamed to give credit to God and give thanks to God. That was his testimony. That was his attitude.
Would you look at verse 36 for me of acts chapter 27? This is after having given thanks, then they were all what? Then they were all encouraged and also took food for themselves. I would like for you to jump down to verse 44, the last verse of the chapter. It says, and the rest, some on boards and some on parts of the ship, and so it was that they all escaped safely to land.
You see, Paul’s thankfulness impacted other people. That as he was a thankful person, they were encouraged. And as they were encouraged, their confidence grew, and they knew that God was gonna get them safely to land. And so it is my friends that as you and I get up every day and we rejoice in the Lord and we give thanks to God even through the hard times and even through the tears and even through the trouble in our life, you are impacting other people. Consider this church, we live in a world that is hopeless yet this world is watching you.
Family and friends are watching you. Oh, you profess to believe. You’re a person of faith. But as they watch your life, they say, yeah, it’s easy to believe when everything’s wonderful. But what will be your attitude when trouble comes your way?
Will they witness faith, love, and hope? Will they see within your heart that even as you walk through the valley, that you will be a person who is thankful to God and a person filled with the joy of the Lord. Would you pray with me this morning? Well, this section contains a detailed account of Paul’s sea voyage to Rome and Paul is sailing in some dangerous waters. He’s a prisoner, and he finds himself in a mess.
They get in a wreck and, well, he’s in trouble. And we learn some valuable lessons and principles on how to handle trouble when it comes our way. And we just pray that you and I can continue to apply these principles and that they could continue to help us as we walk through the different adversity that comes into our life. I want to remind you and encourage you to check out our website, hopeworthhaving.com. And on hopeworthhaving.com, you can see a lot of good stuff relating to our ministry and opportunities to communicate, opportunities to read, learn, and check, some of the archives out.
And so we hope that you’ll go to the website and take advantage of the resources there. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post What Do We Do When Trouble Comes Part 3 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on What Do We Do When Trouble Comes Part . He will be reading out of Acts 27-1-44.
Isolation will not help you impact the world for Jesus Christ. The key is insulation. I’m talking about insulating your life with the word of God, insulating your life with godly Christian friends, insulating your life by getting active and serving Jesus Christ. Hello. This is pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church.
It’s the Hopeworth Having radio program, and we’re excited to have you as part of our program today. We’re gonna be in the book of Acts chapter 27, and we’re continuing our study on what to do when trouble comes in your life. So let’s definitely grab our Bible, and let’s learn together. If you have your bible, I want you to turn to Acts chapter 27, and the last message that I preached in Acts chapter 27 was what to do when trouble comes. Now when you come to the book of Acts to the end of it, there are a lot of narratives that Luke, the physician under the inspiration of the spirit of God is writing down what the apostle is experienced.
You recall that he has already been before the religious courts, he has been before the political courts, and they have been trying to mischaracterize him, and they have been trying to bring judgments against him falsely and accuse him of causing riots or perhaps even to try to dethrone the king or Caesar, but yet none of these are true. The apostle has a great desire to get to Rome, and God uses these circumstances, the pushback, the trials, and all the persecution and oppression that he was dealing with to get him to Rome. And that is where we pick up in chapter 27. He is getting ready to get onto a ship, and there is gonna be this immense storm. And what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna look what the apostle Paul did and how he reacted and handled things, and it’ll give us wisdom and guidance on what to do when trouble comes.
We think of this personally in our life. We understand that there are going to be storms in our own personal lives. There are going to be storms of sickness and sorrow, and that we even as believers will endure sufferings in our life. But the one thing, the overarching thing that I want you to see in this chapter, and I want you to make sure that you take careful note of it, and that it is hovering over your thoughts as you are reading through chapter 27 and eventually chapter 28. That God has a plan, and that the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ that was declared all the way back in chapter one of the book of Acts verse eight, where Jesus gave that commission to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, beginning in Jerusalem, unto Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
That there is no circumstance, there is no violence of nature, there is no human being that can hinder the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that even though many will attempt to try to stop the plan of God and his redemptive work in the hearts of many throughout the world, that God’s will and god’s purposes will always be advancing. So let’s pick up in verse one again of chapter 27, and just to recapture where and what we’re dealing with. The Bible says in verse one, and when it was decided that we should sail to Italy, remember his desires to get to Rome, they delivered Paul and other prisoners to one named Julius, a centurion of the Augustan regiment. So here is the apostle, he is a prisoner, he’s now being put on a ship, and that ship is ironically going to Italy, which eventually will lead to Rome.
And so God is working even in our first verse. We see God at work in the midst of the difficult circumstances. Verse two, so entering a ship of Adramatiam, we put to sea, meaning to sail along the coast of Asia. Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, was with us. And the next day, we landed at Sidon, and Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him liberty to go to his friends and to receive care.
And when we had put to sea from there, we sailed under the shelter of Cyprus because the winds were contrary. And when we had sailed over the sea, which is off Sicilia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia, and there the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing to Italy, and he put us on board. And when we had sailed slowly many days, and arrived with difficulty off Cenidus, the wind not permitting us to proceed, we sailed under the shelter of Crete Of Salmone. Passing it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near the city of Lascia. Now when I read these first eight verses, and I’m not done reading yet, but I just had to interject this.
I know that maybe some of you have flown on a plane, or maybe you’ve had to travel in your car, and every time, everywhere you get there’s difficulty. You show up, and all of a sudden there’s a backup, you get to security at the airport, and somebody accidentally brought a gun, and now the entire place is shut down, alright? And the entire place is shut down. Alright? Or they just announced that your plane has been delayed, and now you gotta find other arrangements.
So it is that the apostle as he is traveling, he is facing a lot of headwinds, and difficulty, and problems that’s all being explained. Luke wants you to get a sense of that. He wants you to feel the frustration of it. He wants you to capture what is happening. We pick up in verse nine.
Now when much time had been spent, and sailing was now dangerous because the fast was already over, Paul advised them saying, men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster, and much loss, not only of the cargo and ship, but also our lives. Look at verse 11. Nevertheless, the centurion was more persuaded by the helmsman and the owner of the ship than by the things spoken by Paul. Now, we’re not gonna have time to read every verse here in this chapter, you’re gonna have to do that on your own. I’m gonna highlight some things for you to help you.
But what do you do when you find yourself in trouble? What do you do when you’re dealing with difficult circumstances? The first thing that I noted about the Apostle was that he spent time with God. We talked about that last time when we were with you, and that is in verse 20 through verse 23. The Apostle is spending time with God, and God has given him a message that he is to share.
How important it is for you and I as we walk in this world where there are challenges and there are circumstances that can be difficult, and we find ourselves on detours, and and we find ourselves going down a path that we did not intend to be on, that we spend time with God. That we are accessing the wisdom of God. That we’re keeping our relationship with God strong. What I see in many believers’ lives, as soon as a tragedy enters their life, as soon as a trial comes into their heart, as soon as they face some difficulties, they run from God. But I’m here to tell you my friends, get closer and spend time with Jesus.
The second thing that we see in the life of the apostle is that he tried to lift up others, that even in this difficulty rather than just thinking about himself, he’s thinking about other people. I want you to look at verse 22. He said to those that were on the ship, and now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only the ship. We look at verse 25. Therefore take heart men, for I believe God that it will be just as he has told me.
How would the apostle hear and know what God has told him? Because he has spent time with God, and he has been under the hand and the voice of God, and now he is taking that message of encouragement, and he is letting these other prisoners know, and others despair. They don’t have to come to that point where they’re ready to give up because he knows God has communicated to him, and he is trying to lift up others. The third thing we learned a few weeks ago is that we need to listen to God’s wisdom. We need to listen to God’s wisdom.
We think about those that were in charge of this ship, and how they refused to listen to the wisdom that the man of God had given them, that the apostle had shared with them, a man who walked with the Lord, a man who was in step with the spirit, a man who was truly knowledgeable and understanding because of his own experiences in traveling and crisscrossing the known world with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and planting the churches, but they were stubborn, they were resistant, and they were determined to do what they wanted to do. I wanna remind you that as you go through difficulties, God will put people in your life who will speak to your heart, and they will give you the wisdom of God. And do not be that kind of person that is defensive and resistance, but be teachable and open and listen to God’s wisdom. Now the fourth thing that I want us to learn and where I want us to pick up where we did not get to last time we were together on this chapter Acts chapter 27. Therefore take heart men.
Take heart, which means to be encouraged or take courage for I believe God that it will be just as he has told me. You see, God keeps his promises, and the apostle knew that, and so he is challenging us to put our faith in God’s promises. We are to trust God, and we are to give him thanks. Paul was a man of great faith, and in this passage, we see his faith in action. What is this promise?
Well, let’s go back to verse 21 and begin to see. The Bible says, But after long abstinence from food, then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, ‘Men, you should have listened to me.’ There it is, Should have listened to me and not have sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss. Now I urge you to take heart for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. Look at verse 23, for there stood by me this night an angel of God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying, do not, here’s the promise, do not be afraid, Paul. You must be brought before Caesar.
And indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you. Therefore take heart men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me. However, we must run aground on a certain island. So he is laying out the promise and he’s saying we gotta trust God, we gotta believe in him. You know, the Bible tells us in Hebrews eleven six that without faith, it’s impossible to please God.
Now friends, your faith is not in darkness. Your faith is not in uncertainty. Your faith is not in the circumstances of the world, or even the thoughts of a philosopher, but your faith is in the promises of God. And what are the promises? They are clearly spelled out in the Bible.
Now we read the promises of God. We read our Bible. We see these promises emerging. We must always be alert to these promises, because many times a promise is all you got to hang your hat on, but keep in mind that as you’re reading the promises of God, that not all the promises are for you particularly. Some promises were unique to the circumstances that were given, and some promises were designed for the nation of Israel, and other promises are designed for us as believers that we can trust in God, and this is what the apostle is saying, that God has given me a promise.
He has shared with me that promise, and he is saying, we’re gonna make it through this storm, and that every one of you is going to be saved relating to the disaster that is upon them. And Paul is putting his faith in the promises of God. Now, Hebrews ten thirty six says this, for you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. What does he mean? Is that you and I are called to run the race of faith.
We are called to live a life of faith. The Bible says, the just shall live by what? Faith. We are called to live by faith. Hear me.
We do not live by explanations. We do not live by what we see, but we live by faith that is rooted in the promises of God. That’s why it’s essential that every one of you get you a bible promise book, and that you read that Bible promise book, and every day of your life that you claim a promise, you pray a promise, and you stand on that promise. Believe that promise knowing that God is at work in your life. Now as you are understanding, notice in Hebrews 10 verse 36, he says you have need of endurance.
The only way you’re gonna see the promises of God ultimately fulfilled in your life is through endurance. Now we live in the microwave generation, the instant drive through, get what I want right away, right now. But friends, when it comes to the promises of God, he wants you to be faithful and endure for him. Endurance, it’s the idea of persevering. It’s the idea of being under the weight.
Under the weight, but keep pressing forward. The pressures of life push down upon us. But what do we do? Do we retreat? Do we curl up into the bed and say, I give up?
Or do we keep taking a step? But I don’t feel like it, pastor. I’m there with you. I don’t always feel like it. I mean, let’s just be honest.
We always don’t feel like getting out of bed and going to work, but you know what? We do the right thing because you do the right thing by faith, believing the promises of God, enduring, keep moving forward. Notice again in Hebrews ten thirty six, for you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God. The second key of seeing the promises of God fulfilled in your life is not only endurance, but obedience to the will of God. You see, that’s the key if you wanna see the promises of God fulfilled in your life is being obedient to God.
It is being obedient to what His plan is, His purposes in your life. God has a universal will for all of us that applies to every person on the planet, and that universal will is that we would know him, that we would be saved, that we would trust Christ as our Lord and savior. Are you writing this down? You need to know him, second of all, you need to grow in him. God wants all of us to grow in our faith.
He doesn’t want you to be a stagnant Christian, he doesn’t want you to be a limited Christian, he wants you to thrive for him. He wants you to grow in his knowledge, and to grow in his grace in in your life. He wants you to be thriving for Christ, becoming more like Jesus every day of your life. But the third universal will of God is He wants you to serve Him. God doesn’t want you to just come, sit, and soak, and do nothing for Jesus.
God doesn’t want you to just come and then go home and do nothing for Christ. He wants us to serve Him, get involved, get engaged, find your place, find your spot in the church family. We’re created unto good works, the Bible says. You are saved to serve. How about that one?
God wants you to serve, that’s His universal will. His universal will is God wants you to share Him with others. He wants you to tell others about Christ. Who are you talking to about Jesus? Who are you having spiritual conversations with?
Who are you inviting to bible study? Who are you inviting to your classes and to your events and activities that you’re having? Who are you reaching out to? You say, well they’re not events and activities that you’re having? Who are you reaching out to?
You say, well, they’re not responding to me. Friends, you don’t give up, do you? And I want you to consider this question, who are you talking to about Jesus? Who are you inviting? Who are you reaching out to?
And if that’s a big zero or no one, you need to get on your knees and say, God put somebody in my path. Forgive me for not being intentional, and forgive me for not taking the initiative. So we’re to be obedient to this universal will, but also we’re to be obedient to the unique will of God. What is the unique will of God? But I’m saying we all have a unique will, don’t we?
That’s unique to us. God has given us that peace. God has given us that understanding of this is what he wants us to do. So he says again in Hebrews ten thirty six, you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. Then he jumps into Hebrews chapter 11, he begins to talk about the great men and women of faith.
At the beginning of the chapter, it’s a lot of rah rah, excitement, and amazing miracles. You get to the end of the chapter, he reminds us that all the faithful people of God weren’t resurrected, that all the faithful people of God did not overcome on this earth. Some were cut in half, others were persecuted under death, others were burned at the stake. This is all in Hebrews chapter 11. We love the first part of Hebrews chapter 11, the hall of faith, these dynamic people that we read about that are such an inspiration to our life, rightly so.
But those who did not see the promise fulfilled on this side of heaven, they didn’t see it fulfilled until they entered in to the pearly gates before the presence of Jesus. The promises of God are for you, but you must also be faithful and know that sometimes those promises may not culminate until you get to heaven. Abraham didn’t see all that was promised to him. He was promised this great nation. Think about Abraham and Sarah and how long they waited for a child that was promised to them.
And so you must understand that God wants us to believe those promises whether they flesh out immediately or they flesh out later in life or they flesh out when we are standing in the presence of God before the throne of God. Do you have that kind of faith? Or do you have the kind of faith that only believes God when he does what you want? And he does it the way you want it. And as long as that happens, then you’re cool to believe in God.
But do you believe in God when you don’t understand? Do you believe in God when you have doubts? Do you believe in the promises of God when you can’t explain and you can’t articulate all that is happening and all that you’re experiencing in life? Are you there? Or are you only believing God when you know that somehow, someway God is gonna fulfill his promise?
Here or on the other side of heaven. We pray for our loved ones. We pray that God would heal them. We pray that God would raise them up. We pray for the sick.
And sometimes God doesn’t fulfill that on this side of heaven. Did you know that? But he raises them up in his presence to stand before God and when they get to heaven, they are fully healed. Nobody goes to heaven and walks with a limp. Nobody goes to heaven and says, I need my asthma medicine or I need my medications.
But I’m just telling you, what if God promotes you to heaven and that’s his answer? Do you have that kind of promise? Now what does it mean when we say believe in God’s promises? Well, let me give you four things that’ll help you to understand to believing and practically what that means in your life. First of all, when you are lonely, you need to know that God is your companion.
The psalmist said, turn to me and be gracious to me for I am lonely and afflicted. You see, I love the Psalms because they’re real. The psalmist is transparent. He’s honest. He’s sharing his heart.
He’s not a pretender. He’s not acting self righteous. He’s just being real with God, and he is saying, God, turn to me and be gracious to me. I am lonely. I am afflicted.
We live in a world that has never had more people living in it. There’s over 8,000,000,000 people, but yet we have never met so many people who are so lonely. We have so many people who are lonely, but as was already shared, we hang on to the promise that was given to us. I will never leave you nor forsake you. You see, God doesn’t always get you out of the mess, but He will not leave you alone in the mess.
Keep that in mind. And I want you to note second of all, when we think about the promises of God, that when we are worried, God is our confidence. I think of Isaiah 40 three:two, what a wonderful passage, one that you want to keep in your heart and mind and often read, is that when you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overflow you, And when you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched nor will the flame burn you. You see, we are talking about even as we walk through the trials, even as we walk through this imagery that is given by the prophet as a way to help us understand that as we walk through these challenging times, that God Friends, I want you to know that God is our confidence, and he helps you to know that God is our confidence, and he helps Friends, I want you to know that God is our confidence, and he helps us. He is with us as we walk through the storms of life.
Now the next I want you to see is when you’re tempted, God is your counselor. When you are tempted, First Corinthians ten thirteen, there has no temptation taken you, but such is common to man. But God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it. God gives us the promise that even as we face temptations, that He will show us the way of escape. Temptations are a part of all of our lives.
There is none of us that are not tempted. Temptation is not the sin, it’s that when we succumb to the temptation. And that’s why you’ve got to train your children, and you’ve got to develop in your own heart, not a heart of isolation, so that you’re never tempted. You know the monks, they would hide out in the caves. They would build these large monasteries, and they would stay away from people because they didn’t want to be tempted.
That’s not the answer. Isolation will not help you impact the world for Jesus Christ. The key is insulation. It’s insulation. Insulate your children, insulate your spiritual life.
You say, what do you do? What are you talking about pastor? I’m talking about insulating your life with the word of God, insulating your life with prayer, insulating your life with godly Christian friends, insulating your life by getting active and serving Jesus Christ. Friends, if you’re just sitting around doing nothing, it’s no wonder the Devil draws you away. Get active for God.
Stay involved for the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t let your mind wander. Stay focused on Christ. God will always provide a way out. As you face temptations and as you are in the word, God knows what you’re struggling with.
He knows what you’re dealing with, but he has prepared a way for you to escape. Willpower will never be enough. You will need the power of the spirit of God in your life. You’ll need the power of the word of God in your life. If you’re gonna fight temptation, you need the support and accountability of God’s people.
You’ve gotta stay connected into the family of God. These are the things that help insulate us and help us overcome temptation in our lives. How else do we understand and live out believing in the promises of God? Here’s my final one, when you’re discouraged, God is your comforter. Now if you’re discouraged, there’s one thing I can tell you with all confidence, it is that God will encourage and comfort you.
The psalmist said, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted. He is near and saves the crushed in spirit. God knows what we’re struggling with. He knows about our doubts and our questions. None of them surprise him.
You’re not the first Christian to have questions to God, and you’re not the first Christian to be mad at God. How about that one? People say, pastor, is it okay to be mad at God? Sure. He can handle it.
Be grateful through the grace of Jesus Christ and the cross that God’s not mad at you. But friends, it’s okay. Share your heart with Jesus. Tell him what you’re upset about, and I’m telling you that he will use all that to work in your heart, to bring comfort to your life. God understands.
He knows what you’re going through. He knows what you’re walking through, and he is very personable. That’s what I want you to note is that God is not a distant force out there that you’re trying to activate through some magical formula. God is not up there saying, I’m too busy to listen to you. Come back later.
He’s very sympathetic to our discouragement. He’s very sympathetic to our struggles, and the Bible says to be anxious for nothing. But in everything with prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God, and the peace of God will guard your heart and your mind. When is the last time you took your discouragement and you took it to God? You see, the apostle spent time with Jesus and he got a promise from God And he believed that promise even though he was dealing with problems in his life, even though his travels were going chaotic, and even though the people around him wouldn’t listen to what he had to say, he continued to believe in God because he knew that somehow, some way, God would fulfill his promises in his life.
And friends, I’m here to tell you that God keeps his promises and that they are guaranteed. And the greatest promise that Jesus gives us is that whoever believes on him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. If you are here this morning, I want you to know first of all, if you’re a believer, do not be discouraged about the things that are going on in your life and the challenges you are facing, whether they’re health or circumstances or even maybe family problems. And I want you to be encouraged knowing that God is gonna right every wrong when we get to heaven. The Bible teaches us that when we have trouble, that we should learn to pray.
So many times as Christians, we try to handle it our way, but God is telling us that we need to pray. And so make sure that when trouble comes knocking at your door, that you are a person of prayer, and that you are standing strong in your faith, and you’re not letting the devil get the victory, and you’re not succumbing to the flesh, and you are honoring Christ in every possible way. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post What Do We Do When Trouble Comes Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on What Do We Do When Trouble Comes Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 27-1-44.
They say champions are born in the ring, but I tell you, they are revealed in the ring because those that are disciplined to practice outside of the ring, when that moment comes where the challenge is before them, their discipline, their strength, their courage is revealed. Hello. This is pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church, and we are broadcasting from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. We’re excited to have you today with our radio program, and we’re gonna be in the book of Acts chapter 27, and we’re gonna be learning what to do when trouble comes. Hey.
It doesn’t matter who you are. Trouble is coming. And so what do you do when trouble comes into your life? Well, let’s get our bibles and study together on this passage. If you have your Bible this morning, join me in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 27.
I wanna talk to you about what to do when trouble comes your way. When we come to Acts chapter 27, this section contains a detailed account of the apostle’s sea voyage to Rome. You remember that as we have tracked through the different chapters of this book, that the apostle has been having to defend himself before politicians and courts, and they have tried to accuse him falsely. His only crime was preaching and teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, helping people to come to the saving knowledge of the Lord. And in their effort to try to shut him down and to silence him, the apostle used his rights as a citizen of Rome to have an opportunity to go to Rome and to have his case heard before Caesar.
And so we come to chapter 27, and they are now sailing in dangerous waters headed to Rome. The apostle was a prisoner. We come down to verse nine of chapter 27. The Bible says, now when much time had been spent and sailing was now dangerous because the fast was already over, Paul advised them saying, men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss not only of the cargo and ship but also our lives. And the apostle is warning them saying, hey, we are headed towards disaster.
We are putting our own lives in danger. You will note in verse nine, he makes reference because the fast was already over. This is in reference to the day of atonement, which would identify the season because it was always, dangerous to travel in the open seas from mid September to mid November. The apostle knew this because he had been on the seas before. It wasn’t that he had received some kind of revelation.
He just understood the weather patterns and so he was letting them know that, look, it’s gonna be dangerous out there. We’re not gonna make a lot of progress on the sea and we’re putting our lives as well as our cargo in danger here and we need to probably rethink this. Well, that’s exactly what took place. This threatening storm caused tremendous problems, but you can read about that storm and the disaster that it caused. Reminds us that each and every one of us, we are going to face storms.
As believers, there’s going to be problems. There’s no child of God that’s gonna just simply skate through the journey of faith and never have to encounter any kind of storm in their life. Sometimes the storms that we face are storms of correction. God is correcting our hearts because maybe we have drifted, maybe we have gone down a path that is not honoring and glorifying to God. And so he uses a storm in our life to align our hearts with his.
But then there are storms of perfection. It has nothing to do with us or anything that we have or have not done. But here we are in this storm, following the will of God, obeying God, doing what God has called us to do, putting everything on the line for him, but yet we have what is often referred to as a storm of perfection. Meaning God is not using the storm to correct us, but to perfect us. That God uses the storms in this world to draw us closer to him and to help us to grow in our likeness to Jesus Christ.
You say, well I don’t like the way God does that and I don’t want him to do that. I hear you. But we’re not in charge. God is. Christians face storms of sickness.
People often ask me why. Why am I going through this sickness? Sometimes I visit some of the older saints of our church family and they say, you know, I’m ready to go. Why is God allowing me to still be here? To go through some of these physical health problems that I have?
Friends, we don’t know all the reasons of why we go through the storms of sickness. But we do know that he is our Jehovah Rapha. He is the God who heals and he is the God who works even in our sickness and he works through our sickness And that he is shaping our lives to be like him. There are storms of sorrow. There are many sorrows in this world.
There are many things that weigh heavy in our hearts. There are things that leave indelible marks upon us. Perhaps even change the way that we think or process the events and circumstances of life. But God uses these sorrows that we may look to him as our hope. Remember what was read to you, that many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.
And that we are promised that he is near to the brokenhearted. Understand that God does not always take away our problem or our storm, but he always promises to be with us through the storm. You remember that the apostle prayed three times that God would deliver him from this particular thorn in the flesh that he was encountering. And he prayed and the Lord said, my grace is sufficient. Yes.
There are times that God can deliver us from the storm and out of the storm, but recall also that he delivers us through the storm. The psalmist said, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. God’s presence is always with us in our storms of sorrow. There are storms of suffering.
There are times that we are persecuted for our faith. There are times that there is resistance because we believe. That can take place in the family. It can take place on the job. It can take place in our own community or even in our nation.
But however it comes, we must remember that all that we sacrifice for God, all that we suffer in his name, all that we endure for the cause of Christ will be rewarded to us, the scripture says, a hundredfold. There is coming a time, and there is coming a place and a day, church, when you and I will be absent from all of this suffering and sorrow in this world. And that we will be in the constant presence of God. And the psalmist said, in thy presence is fullness of joy. Not half joy, but full joy in the presence of God.
In thy presence is fullness of joy. And at thy right hand, there are pleasures forever more. Friends, there is a day of hope for us who love the lord, who believe in Jesus Christ. When we come to this chapter, it is a very detailed and lengthy narrative from Luke under the inspiration of the spirit of God of what took place in this voyage to Rome. But I want you to see the overarching message that the apostle wants us to know, that God wants us to know.
And what you need to walk away with today is that God’s plan of salvation and the plan of spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth that we learned about in Acts chapter one verse eight will not be thwarted or hindered by the violence of nature nor even the actions of other human beings, that the gospel will continue to march on. There is no political government. There is no natural disaster. There is no person that can stop what Jesus Christ has set in motion. In that, he is wanting to reach every heart and he wants to reach every home for the scriptures teach us.
That he is not willing that any should suffer, but that all should come to what, church? Repentance. You need to memorize that verse. God wants you to repent of your sins. He wants us to come to Christ to receive him as our lord and savior.
And, friends, there are many challenges, obstacles, but they will not stop the ultimate plan of God. And when you read acts 27, I want you to keep thinking about that as you’re reading those verses. Now what do we do? Let’s learn this morning on what we can do when we’re in trouble. The first thing I want you to see is that we need to always spend time with God.
We need to always spend time with God so we’re in verse 20 of chapter 27. Now when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, we’re not talking about Upstate New York, we’re talking about here in our life. No small temptus beat on us. All hope that we would be saved was finally given up. Would you get there?
Perhaps you have been there. Perhaps you are there. All hope was finally given up. They had encountered this dangerous storm. It had caused them to throw all the cargo over.
They were in a mess. And the Bible tells us that there was no sun, there was no stars, there was no light. It was just darkness because of all the clouds and the storm and the wind and the waves were beating down on those in this ship. They had given up and they said there was no hope. Verse 21.
But after long abstinence from food, then Paul what does Paul do? Then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, men, you should have listened to me and have not sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss. And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night, an angel of the God of to whom I belong and whom I serve. Some translations say that an angel that stood to whom the God I worship, and the apostle is reminding us that he was a man who spent time with God, and it was his time with God that infused him with courage and strength for God when he was in trouble.
You know, they say sometimes champions are born in the ring, but I tell you that they are not born in the ring, they are revealed in the ring because those that are disciplined to practice, those who are disciplined to do the little things in their time outside of the ring, that when that moment comes where the challenge is before them, their character, their discipline, their strength, their courage is revealed. And so it is in the Christian life that each and every one of us are going to face storms. There will be storms in your life that’ll lead you to the point of hopelessness, and you will sense in your heart that it is time to give up. The apostle even said in second Corinthians that he despaired even life. His heart was so heavy that he didn’t even wanna live.
But friends, I tell you the one thing that made this man in the midst of this storm, the Bible says that he stood in the midst of them. He stood up in the midst of them. What is it that’s gonna help you to stand strong for God when you are in trouble? It is your time with the Lord. It is your time that you spend with God.
If you are rushing through your day and you are putting God on the back burner and you’re saying I don’t need God, I can do this in my own strength, then friends, when that moment comes when everything collapses and the rug is pulled from underneath your feet, you will be found anemic in your spiritual life. What I say to you this morning is spend time with God so that you can stand strong for God, so that you can be courageous for God. The psalmist said, as a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, oh God. Do you have a heart? And do you have a hunger?
And do you have a thirst for God? Like the deer is panting and thirsting for the rivers of water, the streams of water. Are you thirsty for God? Are you hungry for him this morning? If there is no passion in your heart for Jesus Christ, if there is no hunger for God in your heart, then you need to get on your knees and repent and ask God to forgive you and to give you a heart that longs for him, that loves him, that thirsts for him every day of your life.
Bible tells us, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God, his righteousness. Are you with me? I know many of you are passionate and I’m right there with you. You’re hungry and thirsty for football. Understand that as much as you’re looking forward to that game, I need you to be that hungry for God almighty.
I need you to be that thirsty for Jesus Christ and his righteousness in your life. So how do we spend time with God? It always begins with prayer. It’s easy, church, to become apathetic in your prayer life. It’s easy to become methodical in your prayer life.
It’s easy to go through the motions of your prayer life. I’m challenging you to get plugged in to one of these prayer groups and let God work in your heart and revive you. Let us pray that God would revive our church in the power of prayer. Would it be wonderful if God would anoint this church with a new sense of prayer? A new hunger for prayer?
That’s how we spend time with God. It doesn’t matter where you’re at. It can be a special place. It could be as you’re going through your day. It could be as you’re winding your day up.
It could be as you’re encountering different circumstances and people. But you and I need to be always shooting up arrows of prayer to God, and we need to be spending time with God in prayer and seeking Him in our prayer life. The second thing that helps me spend time with God is just good old fashioned Bible reading. Good old fashioned just reading His word. Just opening the Bible up and reading it.
Picking a chapter, perhaps a book in the Bible. I know that some of you like to just open it up and just randomly pick a spot and claim that verse, and I hope that the Lord doesn’t tell you to do anything that you shouldn’t do, because the Bible records the good the bad and ugly of all his servants. So let’s be wise in reading the Bible, but we should open the Bible up and we should spend time. When I was a young Christian, a new believer in Christ, my pastor told me every day read one chapter of the book of Psalm and one chapter of the book of Proverbs and one chapter of the gospels. And so that’s how I began reading the Bible.
And then he taught and trained me how to read the bible through in a year. And we did that. And then he taught me how to study. And so for some of you, you’ve never really studied the bible, you’ve never really been engaged, and the bible’s just something on your little phone or your device that you have and it really doesn’t have priority. I mean you’ve got fantasy football apps that are on the front of your phone and you don’t have the Bible app.
Hello? Let’s prioritize and take time to read our Bible every day. Whether you’re old or young. I’m not against fantasy football. Okay?
If you wanna live in la la land, that’s fine. Alright? If it helps you. Deal with the stress of this world. I understand.
Okay? But all I’m trying to say is I want the bible to be more important to you. I want you to read it every day of your life. Did you know the Bible gives you a promise? And that promise is that if you read the Bible, you will be blessed.
And you think, well, it’s so insignificant. It doesn’t make the front page. It’s not newsworthy. Friends, in heaven, all of heaven is cheering you as you read God’s word. Another way to spend time with God is meditation.
In Joshua chapter one verse eight, we’re called to meditate on God’s word. And when you think of meditation, sometimes it can be very confusing. What is meditation? Well, it’s just focused thinking. It’s not that you’re drifting.
It’s not that you’re so open minded that you’re empty minded. That’s not meditation, it’s that I’m focused thinking about what God is saying. And I’m thinking about how it applies to my life. I’m thinking about what it means to me. I’m just kinda reveling as it is revealing who God is to me.
As I’m rejoicing in the greatness and the glory of our God. I wanna encourage you that if you wanna be ready for that storm that is coming, that you spend time with God. I like what a w Tozer said in the preface of his book, the knowledge of the holy, which you have not read yet, please get it. We have lost our spirit of worship, he says. And our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence.
We always need noise. We always need something going, but God calls you to know him. The bible says be still and know that I am God. Someone once said that the complaint that church is boring is never made by people who are in awe of god. When you come, you might want to be entertained in the flesh.
Our goal is not to appeal to your flesh this morning. Nothing was designed to appeal to your flesh this morning, but everything was to appeal to your spirit, to awaken your heart to god, to use the spiritual means by which God has given us the tools to speak into your life, your need of not only knowing Jesus Christ, but growing in Christ and going out of this place and serving Jesus Christ. Church is never boring to those who spend time with Him and are in worship with Him, and they are in awe of God. The second thing I want you to learn, what do I do when trouble comes my way, is I need to learn to lift up others. You know, I know you’re saying to me, Mike, look.
Hey, we’re struggling. We’re going through trouble. Why would you call on us to lift up other people? Did you see what the apostle did again? I love this section of scripture because what I see is this dynamic man of God that in the midst of what we’ve already read about, that they were discouraged, the weather was not in their favor, there was no hope, Attitudes were down.
Everybody was ready to give up. And what does Paul do in verse 21? He stands up in the midst of them, and he said, men, you should have listened to me. I was trying to tell you. He already had revealed that in verse nine and ten that he was warning them that they were headed for disaster.
But here, look at verse 22. He says, I now urge you to take heart. I want you to be courageous for there will be no loss of life among you. Now that’s a promise that he is doing. He is declaring to them that they will not lose their life.
How does he know this? Verse 23. He stood by me, meaning that there was this angel that came to him and revealed himself in his time of worship, and he says, verse 24, do not be afraid, Paul. You must be brought before Caesar, and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you. You know, sometimes it’s good to hang around godly people.
Amen? It was good to be around godly people, but Paul stands up and he encourages them and he tells them to take heart, and he’s not like the power of positive thinking guy. He’s a guy who’s saying, look, I’ve been with God. I’ve been worshiping him, the God I serve, and he sent an angel to me, and the angel revealed to me that we’re all gonna make it. Now this ship is not gonna make it, but we are gonna make it.
And he encourages them in the promises of God. That is the key, is that you and I find encouragement in the promises of God. Sometimes the promises of God are all that I have to hang my hat on because my circumstances aren’t good and my heart is struggling, and the only hope I have is not in this world, but it is in what God has promised to me. That’s why you need a promise bible book. Go get you one.
And every time you find yourself distraught and in trouble, you wanna make sure that you’re hanging on to the promises because you will never be able to serve beyond what you are receiving, and you’ll never be able to lift up others unless you are being lifted up by the Lord and his promises, and you’ll never be able to help others unless you are under the fountain of his grace and his hope that is being poured out into your life every day, and the apostle could stand up because God already stood up for him. Jesus gave his life on the cross for the apostle, and he gave his life for you. And he sent the apostle an angel and said, tell him the promise that I have given them. Friends, we need to lift up others. And the way that we do that is in our personal time with God, but also we need to remember that God wants us to encourage one another as believers.
I want you to back up for me just a second in verse one and verse three. I want you to see the apostles supporting. Look at verse one of chapter 27. And when it was decided that we, circle that word in your bible, we should sail to Italy. For several chapters, Luke has not referred to himself nor of the team that is with Paul.
But all of a sudden, knowing that they’re getting ready to face disaster, he reminds us that the apostle was not out there isolated fighting the storms of life by himself. But he says, we and friends, god didn’t call you to be a Christian lone ranger. Look at verse three of chapter 27. And the next day, we landed at Sedan. And Julius treated Paul kindly, and he gave him liberty to go to his, what, friends and receive care.
The great apostle Paul, what a dynamic, godly man. Courageous, willing to take on the devil, look him in the eye, and take on the world for the gospel. But even he needed friends and even he needed care. But let me tell you something, all of us need care. We all need Christian friends.
We all need to learn to care for one another and lift each other up. The apostle was not isolated. The scriptures tell us in Romans fifteen one, we then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. Well, let me say this, that when the apostle uses this word weak, he’s not saying that there’s two categories of Christians, strong and weak. He’s just saying this, that there are times you might be weak in something and I’m strong in another.
And there might be times that I’m weak in something and you’re strong in another. But however it flows and rolls in our life, let’s help each other in our weaknesses. Let’s not beat each other up, let’s not hammer down on each other, let’s not burn bridges, let’s not separate each other, but let’s help one another and lift one another up in our weaknesses. In this verse, Romans fifteen one, he says an important statement, not to please ourselves. You see, friends, if you’re gonna help your brothers and sisters in Christ, if you’re gonna care for them, you are going to have to be willing to sacrifice.
It’s not always convenient to care for one another. Have you noticed that people’s problems and storms don’t always come right when you want them to? People’s problems and storms come when you least need it. Your schedule’s packed and you got to do one more thing and, friends, let’s care for one another and not please ourselves. Let’s put ourself on the back burner and say, I want to honor Christ by ministering to my brother and ministering to my sister in Christ.
We need people in our lives who will check up on us. We need people in our life who will pray for us. We need people in our lives who will encourage us. And that’s why it’s important for you to be in a prayer group. That’s why it’s important for you to be in a Bible study.
That’s why it’s important for you to be in a Sunday school class. That’s why it’s important for you to be connected to the local church. In second Timothy one sixteen, the bible says, the Lord grant mercy to the household or the family of Onesiphorus for he often refreshed me. He was not ashamed of my chains. Paul was in prison.
But Onesiphorus was not embarrassed to go visit Paul. He was not embarrassed to go minister to him and so we all need that ministering. Christian friendships are important, church. And when you’re going through trouble, it’s not that you should isolate yourself. It’s not that you should avoid the church.
It’s not that you should avoid Christian friends. And I know sometimes Christian friends don’t always say or respond the way that always should. But we’re human here, people, and sometimes people haven’t been trained. They don’t know what to say or how to say, but listen to me. God does not want you to stay at home, and he does not want you to close the blinds, lock the door, isolate yourself from others.
He wants you to receive the ministry of his body into your life. I know that’s hard when we’re grieving, when we’re hurting, when we feel hopeless, but we need Christian friends, church, And I’m gonna tell you that some of you feel like maybe you don’t have any Christian friends. I would first remind you what the scripture says in Proverbs, that if we want friends, we need to be friendly. You gotta be friendly. You gotta get out of your shell.
You gotta talk. We need each other, church. The Bible tells us to bear one another’s burdens and friendships are a gift from God and God gives you a friend. You remember that David was being persecuted and Saul was hunting for his life, but he was blessed with a friend, Jonathan, who loved him more than his own soul. We need Christian friends.
And church, we need to be Christian friends. And so many of you have done a great job at that, but let’s all continue to strive. How can we grow And being a Christian friends and lifting up our brothers and sisters who feel hopeless. People say, how can you be a Christian and feel hopeless? Because we’re human.
Because life is difficult. And so that’s why we need to support of each other. And I wanna encourage you to support one another and lift each other up. The third and final principle I want us to learn, I want you to listen in your time of trouble to God’s wisdom. I want you to listen to God’s wisdom.
Paul was a man of God, and he spent much time with God, and God was revealing his truth to the Apostle. And he had given the apostle already five other visions of what was to take place. And so God had blessed the apostle with great insight. What do we find is they didn’t listen. And the apostle Paul said to them, you should have listened to me.
As we walk in this life, we understand that even as a follower, there’s gonna be troubles. But even just because we live in a flawed world, there’s gonna be troubles. But how do we respond? Do we trust God? Do we look to him for wisdom?
Or do we react in the flesh? Well, I hope what you’ve been learning today has been a blessing in helping you to react in a way that honors Christ. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post What Do We Do When Trouble Comes Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Faith In Action (Fathers Day). He will be reading out of Hebrews 11:23-29.
And every story is not a David and Goliath. And sometimes you’re at the point of a sword, and sometimes you’re at the point of loss, and sometimes you’re in the midst of suffering and persecution. But yet, in that crisis, will you stand strong? Happy Father’s Day. This is Mike Sanders, and I am the senior pastor of the Open Door Church, and I’m glad to bring to you this broadcast today.
And it is Father’s Day, and we wanna be an encouragement to all dads. And so I’ve entitled my message faith in action. Every dad ought to have a faith that is active. So we hope that you’ll be encouraged and challenged in this message. We’re gonna be in Hebrews chapter 11, looking at verses 23 through 29.
So let’s grab our bibles, and let’s begin to study. If you have your Bible this morning, I want you to turn with me in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 23 through 29. It’s gonna be our text. This Father’s Day, I would like us to learn about faith in action. Faith in action.
When you come to Hebrews chapter 11, you come to the great faith chapter of the Bible. Hebrews 11 has been called the roll call of the heroes of faith. And when we come down to verse 23 through 29, we are introduced to one of those heroes of faith and his name is Moses. And Moses exemplifies for us a faith in action. He is a man of God who stands as a model for every man, every father, and yes, every person present today on making sure that our faith is moving forward in action.
You know the story, how God delivered Israel from Egypt during the time of Moses. He led the people through the desert for forty years, providing for them miraculously along the way. After forty years, God led them to the promised land where they settled in the land that God had given to them. Acts chapter seven, Stephen gives a narration, an overview of exactly what the Lord was doing. He said in verse 34 of Acts chapter seven.
I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt. That was the calling that was on the life of the man Moses. He was called to be an instrument of God to deliver the people out of slavery, out of bondage, into the land of the promise that God had given them.
Where they would experience the true freedom that is only found in their Messiah. This moment of the calling was so holy and so momentous that Moses took his sandals off. For he recognized from the angel that the land and the ground that he stood on was holy ground. And Moses began that journey of leading the people. And there was a lot of detours.
There was a lot of struggles. There was a lot of ups. There was a lot of downs. There was frustration. And even one time Moses was so angry that he smoked the rock out of his anger.
But yet in all of that journey, God used the life of Moses to influence and an impact a whole generation for God. A generation that would march in to the promised land with the man Joshua that Moses had mentored, that Moses had discipled, and Joshua then would lead the people to take on the different battles of this land that was given to them. So when we come down to verse 23, we see that Moses makes the Hall Of Faith, and we recognize the scripture says in verse 23, by faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king’s command. By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. By faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
By faith, he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith, they passed through the Red Sea, as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians attempting to do so were drowned. Now I want us to see in the life of Moses, as well as his parents, faith in action. So let’s first look at the parental faith in verse 23. It says again that by faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents.
As soon as Moses breathed his first breath, his life was in danger because Pharaoh had sent out an edict. He had given a, if you would, an ordinance or some kind of a command from the government. And the command was that every firstborn child should be put to death. And this certainly would be a sign of Moses’ life to come. How that his life would always be in danger and that God would call Moses to be courageous and to take risks and to step out in faith all of his life.
But where did it begin for Moses? And this is what I want all dads to get, and this is what I want all moms to get, that Moses’ parents’ faith kept them from killing Moses as they have been instructed by the Egyptian government. How important it is for us to understand that Moses’ parents were people of faith in Yahweh. They understood that he was no ordinary child, that he was a unique child, that he was blessed of God. Favor was upon his life.
When you come down to verse 23, and it says that the reason that they hid him was because they saw he was a beautiful child. In the Hebrew, he’s not talking about appearance, but there was a uniqueness to Moses. There was a glory upon Moses. There was something special, a favor from God upon Moses. And this is something that was so startling to the parents that the Bible tells us that by faith, they hid Moses and they hid him for three months.
Now this very act of disobeying the government, of disobeying the pharaoh would cost them their lives if it was discovered. And yet, these parents demonstrated great faith in the midst of a crisis, and it’s easy to imagine that this one act of faith that they took as mom and dad shaped their son’s life forever. And I want you to know moms and dads that our children are watching us, and that they are watching how we respond in crisis, how we handle situations, how we handle difficulties and problems in our life. And it is our responsibility that even though we may not understand it, that we are always called to be a people of faith. And as a result of the strong faith of Moses’ parents, they were able to impact the life and influence their son, who would go on to be a great man of God, and a great person of faith, and a instrument in the hand of the holy God, our righteous God, our savior, Yahweh, Jehovah, however you wanna term His name in relating to giving praise and honor to Him.
And today, moms and dads, you as well can influence your kids. You can influence them for Christ. And I know some of you say, Well, you know, I got a little bit started late, pastor, and maybe I haven’t had the chance, and maybe I haven’t had the opportunity. Well, listen, friends, start where you’re at. Make a commitment in your heart today.
From this moment on. I’m gonna live a life of faith. I’m gonna live a life of courage. And my children are gonna see faith in action in my life. In every aspect of my life, they are gonna watch my life and they’re gonna see that I’m gonna stand up for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, I want you to note something. I want you to know that the government is not always right, that there are times that the government is wrong. And listen to me, we have a higher calling. The head of the church is the Lord Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen?
Amen. And we are to follow Christ. Now, we do everything we can. The government says, Mike, you need to have exit signs at the entryways. They all worked the last I checked.
And if they don’t work, you let me know, and we’ll get on top of it tomorrow morning. But let me tell you something. We wanna make sure that we follow the ordinances, the guidelines, the codes, everything like that. But when the government tells us to do something that violates the word of God, when the government says, hey. You cannot gather together.
When the government says, hey. You have to do something against what the Bible teaches. That’s when in the moment of crisis that God is calling on his people to stand up in courage and to stand for Christ and say, we have a higher authority in our life. It’s higher than the government of this world. Amen.
And that’s what I’m talking about. You see, well, I took my kids to church, but the key influence on the life of your children is in the moment of crisis. Are you retreating? Are you stepping in? Are you stepping up?
Are you being that man of faith? Are you being that person of courage? And your children get to see faith in action. Now, we’re all gonna have problems. There’s never gonna be a day in your life that you rise up and you’re problem free.
How about that one? Now, a lot of people hope they’re gonna have a problem free day, and as soon as they have a problem as their day begins, they have a meltdown because they thought that they were gonna have a problem free day. But if you would get up every day and say, Lord, I know there’s gonna be some challenges. I know there’s a lot of flawed people around me. It’s not me God, it’s everybody else.
Amen? And, but I want you to know this, that you’re gonna have challenges in your life, but what are you gonna do about it? How are you gonna handle it? And what kind of faith is going to be demonstrated that your children can see? Faith is obeying God when I don’t understand it.
You know, there’s a lot of things we’re not gonna understand in life. Okay? I don’t have all the answers. And I want you to know many times people have asked me why. And I said, I don’t know.
I wish I did. I wish I did. But you know what? Faith is obeying God when I don’t understand it. The evidence of faith in my life is always obedience.
Will I obey God? Unfortunately, for too many, they build their faith on their feelings. They build their faith on their circumstances. That every time their circumstances change, they’re all messed up. And every time their feelings are down, they’re down.
Friends, we have feelings that are up and down. It’s just part of the human nature. Right? Okay? And there are gonna be things you’re excited about, and there’s gonna be things you’re gonna be frustrated about.
But you know what? Don’t ever stop living for the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t ever stop being a person of faith and courage. Now, how does faith produce courage in our life? How does faith produce courage?
Now, I want you to jump back in Hebrews chapter 11 verse one real quickly, because I think that gives us the answer. That helps us to understand. Faith, I’m in verse one of chapter 11, Hebrews. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Let me help you.
Faith emboldens us to be courageous, because it is the assurance of what God promises that is better than anything than the world can promise me. So I have an assurance of the promises of God. I have faith in God, things that maybe I cannot see or know that I cannot touch or even taste, but they are promises of God and I know the promises of God are better than the promises of the world. The promises of the world will fail you, and they will let you down, but the promises of God are as sure as the sun is shining today, and the sun will rise tomorrow in the providence of God, as every time you see that sunshine, you remember that our God is a faithful God who keeps his promises. And I want you to know that when you build your faith on the promises of God, you will be a person of courage today.
Now the second thing I want you to see this morning is the personal faith of Moses. So we saw his parents’ faith, now we’re back in verse 24, and now we’re transitioning to Moses’ faith, and we see that it says, by faith, Moses, when he became of age, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Moses’ faith included two critical things that are important for our faith. First, there was a refusal, meaning that he refused or we could put it like this, he renounced his status as a member of the royal household. Now there is a lot of misnomers about Moses among Christians.
There are many of you think that he was a stumbling fumbling idiot that could barely articulate his words. But Acts chapter seven helps us to fully understand that Moses many times in the presence of God was playing possum, and that he was trying to fool God that he could not communicate, that he could not fully speak. But Moses went to the finest schools of Egypt. And Moses was being groomed and he was being mentored to be the potentially next Pharaoh. He was gonna be a world leader.
He was gonna be the man who would take the place of the current Pharaoh. He was gonna be the person that was going to be stepping in and taking over the world and the kingdom of Egypt. But friends, remember the Bible says that Moses was beautiful. More than just his appearance, he was a man who was favored of God. And at his mother’s knee, he learned about the principles of God.
He learned about the word of God. He learned about everything that was involved in understanding the heritage of his faith. And the moment came where Moses had to make a decision. Would he follow the path of a world’s identity or would he go down the path of the identity in his Messiah and God’s people, and would he follow what he knew was in his heart, and what he was designed for, and what God purposed in his life? And the Bible tells us in verse 24 that when he became of age, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
That’s huge because the moment he walked away and said, I’m no longer identifying myself with this family, but I am identifying myself with the people of God. Moses understood there would be great sacrifice and there would be great loss. A willingness to suffer loss is evidence of your faith in Jesus Christ. Jump to verse 34 of Hebrews. Notice again, when we read let me give you this context before we read the verse.
But when we read Hebrews, we tend to stop, and we say, wow, that was awesome. There were some great people of God, And look at all that they accomplished. But friends, when you read Hebrews chapter 11, don’t forget the final verses. Because we read about great people of God who lost, who suffered, who dealt with opposition and persecution. Look again at verse 34.
They were quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Verse 35, women received their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trials of mockings and scourging, yes, and of chains and of imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword, they wandered about in the sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented.
And I love this verse. Verse 38. Of whom? The world was not worthy. Friends, part of your faith and action and showing courage is that there are gonna be times you’re gonna stand up for God and you’re gonna suffer loss.
You’re gonna have to sacrifice some things that maybe you’ve enjoyed, but God is bringing you to that moment, that crossroads in your life and saying, Are you willing to follow Me? Or do you wanna follow the world? And that’s exactly what was before Moses, and that was exactly what was before God’s people. Every story is not a story of resurrection. And every story is not a David and Goliath.
And every story is not a story that victory was seen on this side of heaven. Sometimes the victory is not experienced until the other side of heaven. And sometimes you’re at the point of a sword, and sometimes you’re at the point of loss, and sometimes you’re in the midst of suffering and persecution. But yet, in that crisis, will you stand strong? Will you stay strong?
May God help all of us that as we refuse the world’s identity and embrace the identity of Jesus Christ that we will stay strong even in persecution. There was not only Moses’ refusal, but there was his rejection, verse 25. So choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. In Moses’ refusal, he had to decide his identity. In Moses’ rejection, he had to decide whether he would enjoy the pleasures of sin or he would enjoy the stigma of following the Messiah.
To identify with the people of God, Moses rejected all the wealth, all the pleasures that came with being a part of Pharaoh’s household. Remember that the stigma of God’s people was like this, Exodus one eleven. Here’s what they did. Therefore, they did set over them taskmasters, meaning the people of God. The Egyptians were taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens.
And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Ramessesus. And what I’m trying to say to you is this, they bore this stigma of being in bondage, and the stigma of being in slavery, and the stigma of being a people who were looked down upon and were rejected by the world, and they were just used as stepping stones for other people to obtain their wealth and to obtain their desires. And Moses, who was at the top of the ladder, being ready to step into the position of Pharaoh, had to make a decision. Would he go back and identify with the people of God at the bottom, or would he stay in the palace and enjoy the pleasures and the wealth and the sin of the Egyptians? It was before him, and he learned from his mother’s knees that he was truly a Hebrew.
He was part of the family of God and that he was to follow Christ the Messiah. And so Moses gave up pleasure. He gave up pleasure to live a life of virtue and honor to His God. That’s why it’s so significant. That’s true faith in action.
And every day, you and I have to make a choice. Every day, choices stand before us. Will we glorify God, or will we glorify the world, ourself, and our own desires? Will we do what’s right, or will we follow the values of the Bible and the word of God and our savior or will we follow the values of the world? It’s all before us, little decisions.
And you say, what’s the big deal, Mike? What’s the big deal about these little decisions? Let me tell you what the big deal is, is that eventually, you’ll be in a crisis, and eventually, you’ll face a big decision. And those little decisions will only pave the way for whatever your big decision is going to be. And that’s why every day, you have to make that choice in your life.
Am I gonna do the thing that honors God? Am I gonna follow Christ? Because in choosing to identify with the people of God, Moses was rejecting the values of the world and of Pharaoh. And that very decisive action of Moses foreshadowed a future decision by our own Messiah. We see in chapter 12 and verse two, excuse me.
And remember this, the Bible says of chapter 12 of Hebrews, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, and notice despising the shame. It was embarrassing to die on a cross in the Roman culture. It was a shame to be put on a cross and crucified. Only the worst of the worst criminals faced the ultimate death penalty of the cross. In the Old Testament, it was a curse.
So no wonder that Jesus not only bore the curse of the cross, he bore the shame and the embarrassment of the cross upon him. But why did he do it? The Bible says, for the joy that was set before him. What was that joy? It would be your salvation and my salvation and the salvation of all who would come and receive Christ and turn away from this world and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior.
It was that joy. He was willing. He was willing to take on shame for you. He was willing to take on embarrassment for you. He was willing to take on the curse of sin and the wrath of God, and he did it all for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can the church give praise to Jesus Christ this morning? Amen. I mean, Jesus did all that for you. He did it for me. We ought to be shouting from the mountaintop what Christ did.
Moses was foreshadowing what was to come. Now, I want you to also see the perceptive faith of Moses in verse 26, and I want you to see what the Bible says here, that he esteemed, meaning Moses valued the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. He looked to the reward. You see, Moses had a conviction for a greater wealth, a greater treasure. Not the treasure of the world, but the treasure of the Messiah.
Now, it’s easy to misunderstand the text here a little bit, because when the Bible says that Moses esteemed or he valued the reproach of Christ, we certainly think in terms from the back end of everything because we’re always looking back. But Moses was looking forward, for Jesus had not yet come to this earth and He had not yet died on the cross. But what Moses had always heard from his mom and from his dad and from his family was that a Messiah was coming. And what was so beautiful is that the parents gave Him the full scope, like the prophets had taught, that in Isaiah that the Messiah would be a suffering savior, that He would be a savior who would not only just bring victory and He would one day rule and reign from the seat of Jerusalem and all the beauty of that, but that he would come and give his life for his people. And that it was that reproach that Moses learned from his parents, and it was that that instilled in the heart of Moses.
Look at verse 26. Greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. I wanna know, is your faith perceptive? Do you have the ability to discern and distinguish the greater riches? When we think think about the ills of society and all the problems in America, we can just bring it all right back to the home and the breakdown of the home and the lack of fathers having faith in action and being active in their lives of their families.
And so it’s important for dads to step up, be strong, be bold, be courageous for the Lord, and to be able to speak up for him when it is necessary. And that’s what faith in action is all about. And so, dads, I hope that you will continue to follow these principles and apply them to your life. We want to pray for you. So if you got a prayer request, go to our website, hopeworthhaving.com, and click the contact button.
Type out your request, and I will spend some time praying for you. So take advantage of that opportunity. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post Faith In Action (Fathers Day) first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Accepting Gods Providence. He will be reading out of Acts 23:12-35.
You see, friends, we need to remember that God is working even through those who do not believe, even through those who do not trust in Christ as their Lord and savior. We see that God can use unlikely means to accomplish his purpose. Hello. This is pastor Mike Sanders with Hopeworth Having, and we are delighted to have you with us today and thankful that you could join us as we begin to study God’s word. Today, we’re going to be in Acts chapter 23 verses 12 through 35, and we’re gonna talk about accepting God’s providence.
You and I go through trials, and we face many struggles, but yet somehow in the midst of all that, God is still in control. So I want you to grab your Bible, and let’s learn about accepting God’s providence. You have your bible this morning. I want you to join me in the book of Acts. Acts chapter 23 is where we’re gonna be at this morning as we study the scriptures together.
Now we have been going through the book of Acts for quite some time, And last week, we ran into that great verse of chapter 23 verse 11, where Jesus said to the apostle Paul while he was in prison, To be of good cheer, Paul, for as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, you must also bear witness at Rome. As we transition to verse 12 all the way through verse 35, a starking situation encounters the apostle as he is being dealt with and as he is seeing this promise that Jesus gave to him that he would bear witness to Rome. We reminded you last week that the apostle was under the understanding that this would be it. He would not go beyond Jerusalem and that his ministry was complete. It was finished, and this would be the end of not only his ministry, but his life.
But God gave him a promise. You will bear witness at Rome. And so he knew that God had a plan and a purpose. As we read verse 12 through 35, and we won’t be able to read every verse, but we’ll certainly highlight things in these verses. The thing that you’ll notice is the word God.
Jesus, holy spirit is not even mentioned in this narrative that Luke gives us about what is unfolding in the life of the apostle. It is a reminder to me of the book of Esther. Because in the book of Esther, there is no mention of God. There is no mention of Jesus or Holy Spirit, but yet it is the inerrant, infallible word of God. And in this section, as Luke writes under the inspiration of the spirit of God, it is no less his word.
But even though we do not see the words God mentioned in this section, just like the book of Esther, we see God’s fingerprints everywhere. And that’s a reminder to each of us this morning that even when we cannot see God, we must remember that God is working in various ways to accomplish his purpose. We get discouraged. We sometimes see things that are happening nationally, perhaps even personally in our own lives, and we think, man, where is God? God is not there.
He’s not responding to my prayer, but I want to encourage you this morning that our God is always accomplishing his purpose. And he is always at work, and even behind the scenes, our God is in control. The apostle reminded the Corinthians in first Corinthians one verse nine that God is faithful. By whom you were called unto the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our lord. The main idea of this passage, if you like to take notes, I want you to get this down.
The main idea of this passage is that god is sovereign. God is sovereign in the life of the apostle, that even though he is facing some dark days as he is in prison, he is getting a tremendous amount of opposition and pushback according to the scriptures as he is just simply trying to share the gospel and witness to people. But we cannot forget that as we see this narrative unfold that our god is sovereign. And as you are living your life, as you’re dealing with the different problems and struggles of life, do not forget that god is sovereign, that there is the irresistible progress of his purpose happening in your life. God is even in control when we’re going through trials.
He has not forgotten us. He is in control. And as long as God is in control, we can be like the apostle as we see here. We can remain calm. We can remain confident.
We can remain courageous in these days. We live in some unique times, don’t we church? But we are confident that God is with us and that God is going to use his servants even in difficult circumstances. The psalmist said, be gracious to me, God, for man tramples on me. All day long, an attacker oppresses me.
And as you read through Psalm 56, we see the confidence of the psalmist. We see his courage. We see his trust in God, and it continues to be a pattern for you and I that we’re not quitting, we’re pressing on, and our confidence is not in this world, but is in Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen? Now, in this first section, we see that God uses an unnamed nephew to stop a plot that has been planned against the apostles.
So I want you to pick up in verse 12 with me, and we’re gonna look at a few verses. And when it was day, some of the Jews banded together and bound themselves under an oath saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. Now there were more than 40 who had formed this conspiracy. They came to the chief priests and elders and said, we have bound ourselves under a great oath that we will eat nothing until we have killed Paul. Now you therefore together with the council suggest to the commander that he be brought down to you tomorrow as though you were going to make further inquiries concerning him, but we are ready to kill him before he comes near.
Look at verse 16. Here’s the providence of God working effectively. So when Paul’s sister’s son heard of their ambush, he went and entered to the barracks and told Paul. Then Paul called one of the centurions to him and said, take this young man to the commander for he has something to tell him. So he took him and he brought him to the commander and said, Paul, the prisoner called me to him and asked me to bring this young man to you.
He has something to say to you. Verse 19. Then the commander took him by the hand, went aside and asked privately, what is it that you have to tell me? And he said, the Jews have agreed to ask that you bring Paul down to the council tomorrow as though he were going to inquire more fully about him. But do not yield to them, for more than 40 of them lie in wait for him, men who have bound themselves by an oath that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed him.
And now they are ready, waiting for the promise from you. So the commander let the young man depart and commanded him, tell no one that you have revealed these things to me. More than 40 angry religious people were plotting to kill the apostle. This was not the first time because we see in Acts chapter nine in verse 24 that the bible says that they plotted and it became known to Saul, who at that time was before his name had changed to Paul, and they watched the gates day and night to do what? To kill him.
Now why did they wanna kill the apostle? For telling people how to get to heaven? For telling people how to be saved? For telling people how they can have their sins forgiven. This is what they were so upset about.
But here we find that these angry individuals, these 40 individuals had made an oath, an oath to God. They were essentially saying that they would be judged by God if they did not kill the apostle Paul. But the Bible teaches us in verse 16 that Paul’s sister, her son, heard this discussion. We don’t know if he was a teenager. We don’t know if he’s a young adult.
We don’t know exactly how old he is, but he certainly was a young man, and he was able to articulate the plot against the apostle. Amazingly, that this nephew would be an advocate for the apostle, that this little young man would be used of God to foil plans of the religious leaders to kill the apostle and to hinder the gospel and to stop the plan of God. Again, I can’t help but keep relating this passage back to the book of Esther, and you remember that Esther was reminded for such a time as this. For such a time as this, you see the life of the apostle Paul was saved because someone was willing to get involved. Someone was willing to say, I’m not gonna have a I don’t care attitude, but rather I’m gonna do what I can because God has placed me here in this moment to hear these words, to pass this message on to the people who can do something.
And for such a time as this, this young man, Paul’s nephew, was used in a great way to make a difference to save the life of the apostle Paul. I think about our lives. I think about how God is calling us to be involved. It’s easy to just be here in life and just kinda take a back seat and we’re just gonna let happen whatever, but rather we need to understand that we cannot be passive in our faith. We cannot just retreat in our faith, but God is calling us to engage a culture.
He is calling us to engage people, our friends, and our family, and to take the gospel to them. And to not only take the gospel to them, but to be an instrument of righteousness, to be a light, to be salt in a world that so desperately needs examples and needs people to speak the truth and stand up for the truth, and to be a key role in what God is accomplishing, not only in this world, but what he is accomplishing in our own personal lives. Too many parents are passive in raising their children. I remember one time I was at where do you think pastor Mike would go to eat breakfast? Cracker Barrel.
That’s right. And I was witnessing to one of the waitresses trying to get her to come bring her children to church and all that. She said, oh, I just I let them decide. Now friends, it takes everything I got not to just really say what I need to say, but I’m gonna tell you something. I can hear say what I need to say, and what I need to say is that there isn’t a one of you, at least I’m not aware of, that when your children needed a bath, you said I’m gonna let them decide.
When your children needed to eat dinner or lunch or breakfast, whatever, you didn’t say, well I’m gonna let them decide what they want. You see, when it was time for dinner at the Sanders household, we had three children. We never took a vote. I told our kids there is no democracy here. This is not a republic.
There is no representation, and I know you don’t like it, but it’s a mom and dad dictatorship. Because if I’d let my kids vote on what we’re gonna have for dinner, it’d be ice cream every night. And I just don’t understand why parents today are passive in raising their children, and training them in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and training them to love the Lord, and partnering with the church and local ministries in our community to do everything we can to influence them to love Jesus Christ. The truth is we’re not passive in other areas, but we’re passive when it comes to spiritual matters. And see, we need to step up.
How about you, husbands? You need to step up and quit being passive in your relationship with your wife. You need to step up and be involved and be a leader in your home. And a leadership does not mean dictatorship, and it doesn’t mean that you’re trying to bark orders to your wife, but you need to lead spiritually, and you need to be that example, and you need to pray with your wife, and you need to do what is necessary. Don’t be passive because for such a time as this, God is calling us to be active.
This nephew could have just sat back and said, I’m not gonna do anything. Hey, it’s no big deal. But no, he chose to get involved, and I wanna encourage you to stand up. Stand up for the gospel. Stand up for your family.
Stand up for the right things. You say, well, I’m getting a lot of pressure. Listen, friends. Our goal is not to isolate our kids from the world or to even isolate ourselves from the crazy in the world. It is to insulate ourselves, to insulate our children with the gospel, with the word of God, with the truth of God, to put the spiritual weapons in their hands that they can be able to continue to progress forward for God and to be able to combat the enemies of God and to make a difference for the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you wanna be isolated, not listen. If you got Amish in your family, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna say it anyways. Go be Amish. But if you wanna stay engaged in the culture and you wanna stay active in the culture with being passive, step up for such a time as this. The Lord often uses little things and even little children to accomplish great purposes.
And he used this nephew, his name is not mentioned, but he’s Paul’s nephew. He’s not mentioned, but God uses him. And it doesn’t matter how old you are, how young you are, God can use your life. The apostle told Timothy to let no one despise your youth. I began pastoring at 23 years old.
I know it’s hard to believe and I feel sorry for those folks. It’s a wonder they have even still survived. But here’s the thing, God can use young people, can he? He can use our children, he can use our grandchildren. Don’t ever despise the young people and say, well they don’t know anything.
God’s hand can be upon them and he can use them in a great way to touch the world for Christ. Let’s get behind these young people. Let’s walk up to them. Let’s put our hands on them, and let’s say God’s got his hand upon you, and he wants to use you. Now whether that’s in full time ministry, or whether that is out there in the job force, or whether that’s in the military, wherever God calls them.
I want God to use the young people for his glory. Can God’s people say amen? Now here’s what it’s gonna take, church. You’ve gotta be an encourager of the young people. You gotta be someone who steps into their life.
You can’t just run out of here so you can get to Cracker Barrels quick as possible. Don’t worry. The Presbyterians have already beat us. The Methodists are way ahead of us. Alright?
And so don’t worry about that. I don’t get to do the breakfast nor the brunch or even the lunch. I get to do the litter. But I want you to know, let’s be an encourager to these young people. Let’s be an encourager that God can use them for his glory and that wherever he sends them, that his hand is upon them.
And just like this young man, God used him in a very special way to make a huge impact. The second thing I wanted you to see in accepting God’s providence is that God uses Lysias to protect the apostle. So now we’re in verse 23, and here we have this commander, and he called for two centurions, the bible says. And he said prepare 200 soldiers, 70 horsemen, two hundred spearmen to go to Caesarea at the third hour of the night and provide mounts to set Paul on and bring him safely to Felix the governor. He goes on to write a letter to Felix the governor.
We’re not gonna be able to take time to read all that, but here’s what I want you to see is that God’s purposes are supported through unlikely means in your life. Who would have thought that a commander named Lysias, a commander who did not even believe in God, but God would use that commander to protect the apostle, that he would use the governor Felix to protect the apostle. So Lysias, he immediately responds to this threat that he’s heard from the young man, and he decides he’s gonna make plans to transfer the apostle to Caesarea, to get him to the place where he could eventually be at, where he needs to be. Lysias regarded the Jewish threat as a very serious threat. One that he said, I gotta protect this guy.
Now it was God working in his heart. It was God who was moving him. The Bible reminds us that the King’s heart is in the hand of the Lord and that he turns it whichever way that he wills. You see, friends, we need to remember that God is working even through those who do not believe, even through those who do not trust in Christ as their Lord and savior. We see that God can use unlikely means to accomplish his purpose.
I want you to look with me at verse 29, and notice what the scripture says. Here’s what Lysias says in his letter to Felix. I found out that he was accused concerning questions of their law, meaning the Jewish law, but had nothing charged against him deserving of death or change. You know what he’s saying? He’s saying this guy’s innocent.
This guy’s innocent, and I’m writing to you. I’m sending him to you because I need you to intervene. I need you to do something. How did it all start? It started with a young man who heard a discussion about some angry people who wanted the apostle Paul killed, and this young man rather than just sitting back and say, I’m not gonna do anything, he jumps in.
He gets involved. God uses his life. He tells the commander. The commander says, don’t tell these people that you told me. He steps up.
He could say, well, I’m just gonna let it happen. But he doesn’t. He steps up in a very big way, and he says, I need to let you know. He writes a letter, he puts together a team to transport the apostle, and he says, I’m going to write this letter to explain his innocence. This is what I love about the scriptures because we learn a lot of practical things is that there’s nothing wrong with us using the laws of the land to protect our innocence.
Amen? There’s nothing wrong with us fighting for the truth, and we understand that many of these truths that we have in our own constitution and the things that we have in our own laws and justice system, that they were put there and they were lifted up out of the scriptures and put there by godly people who understand biblical principles, and one of those biblical principles is that a man or a person is innocent till proven guilty. How about that? And this is what the commander is making the case for in verse 29. He said they are making accusations, but he’s innocent.
They haven’t made any charges, but there’s nothing deserving of death or chains in his life, and so he wants the governor to intervene. Let me say something about this as far as application. First of all, as believers, we should always be honorable citizens. We should always be the best citizens. When God looks at our lives, we should not be the rebel rousers, we should not be the rioters, but that’s not our purpose.
We’re to be the best citizens. We’re to be honorable, and we are to be the kind of citizens that we not only live honorably before God, we’re not rioters. The scriptures teach us that in first Peter. We’re not gonna sit there and have these big rallies against people or anything like that, but rather we’re going to follow what the law says, and we’re gonna use the laws. I praise God they struck down Roe versus Wade.
They called me and they said, pastor Mike, the radio station called me, so what do you think about it? And I was so rejoicing giving God praise because listen, how many lives have been saved? How many little children are living because of this great powerful work of God in the lives of the supreme court justices? God uses means to accomplish his purpose that are not always the way we would like them or do them how we want them, but we can always take comfort, church, in trusting in God’s sovereignty. And here’s what I mean, when I say the word sovereignty, some of you are like, what in the world are you talking about?
Here’s what I mean, just two simple words that I mean. That God is in control and God is in charge. Even though there may be chaos in this world, even though there may be challenges in this world, that we can trust God sovereignly, not just in our nation, but we can trust God sovereignly in our own personal lives. And when it seems like the rug has been pulled out from underneath you, you can have confidence that God is in charge, and he is working effectively. Every setback in your life, every trial, every tragedy, God is working effectively in those different circumstances in your life.
Now the third thing I want you to see is that God uses a Roman army to transport the apostle Paul. Remember that our main idea is that God is sovereign, he’s in charge, he’s in control. How is that manifested in these verses? It is in the final few verses that we look at this morning is God uses this Roman army to transport the apostle. Look at verse 31.
Then the soldiers as they were commanded took Paul and brought him by night to Antipitris. And the next day they left the horsemen to go on with him and return to the barracks. And when they came to Caesarea and had delivered the letter to the governor, they also presented Paul to him. And when the governor had read it, he asked what province he was from. And when he understood that he was from Sicilia, he said, I will hear you.
And when your accusers also have come, and he commanded him to be kept in Herod’s praetorium. Now what you’re seeing here is this. Let’s go back again to verse 11. You can’t disconnect these verses. Here is the apostle.
Remember, he is in prison in verse 11. He has been thrown in there unjustly. He has been falsely accused, and they are making every effort to destroy his ministry. He’s discouraged, he’s defeated, but the bible says the following night the Lord stood by him and said, be of good cheer. Or be courageous, Paul.
For as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome. And what you’re seeing in verse 31 through 35 is these soldiers are going to transport the apostle exactly where he needs to be. Now they thought maybe they were taking him to prison, that he had been a rebel rouser causing problems in the Roman Empire. But really what was happening was God was transporting his preacher safely to Rome so that the gospel of Jesus Christ could be proclaimed and more people would come to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, God has an infinite number of options when he’s working, and he is using those options to bring about his perfect will in our lives.
You see something happening in your life, you don’t like it. Have you given it to God? Have you taken it to God in prayer? Have you entrusted it to God and you said, lord, maybe your way is not my way. How about that?
Isaiah the prophet said that my thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your way. See, sometimes we fight against God because he’s not working the way we want. Some of us have control issues. We want everything to be like we want it to be. And if God doesn’t work the way we want it to be, we’re not gonna surrender our lives to God.
And if God doesn’t answer the prayer the way I want it to be answered, then we’re not surrendering our lives to God. But how about this, what if God worked in a different way in your life to accomplish his great purpose so that it wouldn’t be you that received all the glory because of your strategies, because of your methods, because of your programs, because of your process, but what if God worked in such a way that he received all the glory? That it wasn’t the methods of man, but it was the spiritual work of almighty God. Ephesians one eleven reminds us this, that in him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things. He works all things, church.
And all means what? All, and that’s all that all means. He works all things according to the counsel of his will. And I know that’s not easy, because when tragedy enters our life, it’s hard for us to agree to the all things. It’s hard for us to accept the providence of God, but all things according to the counsel of his will.
The triumphs in your life and the tragedies in your life. The transitions in your life. All things are working according to the counsel of his will. What is to be my response? We are to submit to God’s plan and God’s power because we have this promise from Philippians one, I think it’s verse seven, that he who began a good work in you will complete it or perform it or finish it.
What God starts in your life, he finishes. As you and I are submitting to him, as we are surrendering to him, what God begins, he always completes so each one of us can rest. We can rest all of our concerns, all of our burdens, all of our problems, and we can cast them on our father who holds the whole world in his hands. And we hang on to the promise that the apostle Peter taught us to cast all our care upon him. Why?
He cares for you. It’s not just that God answers prayer or that he hears prayer, but that he cares about our prayers. And you, my friends, can accept the providence of God in your life, because his fingerprints are all over your life, and he is working out his great purpose in your life. Our questions are many when it comes to suffering, and we’re kind of like the dog chasing its tail, trying to figure out why certain things have happened to us or around us. And we understand that God is in charge, and he’s in control.
But there comes a time where we just have to accept God’s providence and say, this is God’s will, and this is what he has caused or allowed in my life. And that’s really a hard pill to swallow sometimes, but we know the Lord, even in the midst of those trials, has a plan. And the key for us is to accept what God’s will is. May his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Encouragement in Dark Times Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 23:1-11.
Even though we don’t get the response we want, we need to be encouraged, and we need to know that in heaven, God is standing up from his throne, and he is cheering us on when he sees his people being obedient and faithful to him. Hello. This is Hope Worth Having, and I am your host, pastor Mike Sanders, and I’m looking forward to sharing the hope of Christ with you today as we explore God’s word. So I want you to join me today as we begin to study the bible. We’re gonna be in Acts chapter 23, continuing our study, encouragement in dark times.
Acts chapter 23 verses one through 11. Let’s begin. And he reminds the apostle that even in the darkness, that his ministry is not over yet. And there are four things that Jesus shares that I wanna share with you to help you in those dark times of your life, and so that you can be encouraged. The first thing we see is the presence of God.
I want you to go back and notice at the beginning of verse 11, underscore this in your bible. If you like to mark your bible, it’s okay. It’s good to make notes in your bible. It’s good to highlight things in your bible. Some people don’t like to do that, and that’s fine.
I don’t wanna do anything that bothers your conscience. But if you’d like to do that, would you please underscore the lord stood by him? The lord stood by him. There’s nothing more encouraging in a person’s life, a Christian’s life, than the presence of God. There wasn’t many people there to stand with the apostle.
You remember that the apostle, who was very familiar with jail, always being thrown in jail, that he told Timothy, no one stood with me. But here, when others had forsaken him, the apostle found that God did not forsake him. Remember the words of the apostle in second Timothy chapter four verse 17. The bible says that the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that the message might be preached fully through me and that all the gentiles might hear. Also, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
What I want you to see here is the presence of God was with the apostle even in his dark time in his life. There are times in our life that the darkness is so thick, and the weight of the trial is so heavy in our heart that we don’t often sense the presence of God in our life. But I want to remind you that God is always with us. No matter where we go, God is always with us. He is with us whether we are serving him, or we are in a space that we are not able to serve him.
God is with us when things are wonderful in our life, and God is with us when things are difficult in our life. Our Lord and savior will never leave us or forsake us. Can God’s people say amen? Now we see this illustrated in the life of Moses, when Moses was leading Israel, and they came to a point where they were wondering, would they have the presence of God with them? It was Moses who pleaded with God that his presence would be with him.
Moses so valued the presence of God that he would not go on without the presence of God. Exodus 33 verse 15. Then he said to him, if your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. You see, church, when we’re out there serving God and we’re trying to be that Christian, that person who is a disciple of Christ out there amongst our family and in the midst of our daily schedules and responsibilities that we have, we must always ask for the presence of God, not just that God is with us. Yes, we know he’s with us.
We know that he’s omnipresent, meaning that he is everywhere at the same time, but we want the manifested presence of God in our life. We wanna be able to sense that God is working. We want to know that God, his presence is with us, and that we will not go anywhere without his manifested presence in our life. The key to Joseph’s success in the old testament was the presence of god. Even though Joseph had been mistreated, he had been betrayed, he had been misunderstood, he desired the presence of god in his life.
Genesis 39 verse 21. But the lord was with Joseph, showed him mercy, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the promise. My friends, you and I need the presence of god, And we need the presence of God in those difficult days, and we need to seek his presence, and we need to desire his presence, and we need to pray for his presence, and we need to claim his presence. We talk about claiming the promises of God, but we also need to claim the presence of God in our life. Because, you say, what’s the big deal, Mike?
Your presence, and definitely God’s presence, makes a big difference. Sometimes people say to me, I don’t know what to do or say to a person who is grieving. I don’t know how to help them, Pastor Mike. I don’t know what to say. And I always remind them, you don’t have to say anything.
Because most of the time, 90% of what you’re gonna say is more hurtful than not saying anything. Because in our good intentions, we might misspeak. We might say something that is really not aligning with God’s truth. But let me tell you what is most important, is your presence. Just be there.
Just be available. Just be a listener. Just be someone who is present in their life. What I want you to know that that’s the way God is in your life. God is not up there judging you.
He’s not up there correcting you. He’s not up there trying to say, well, you should’ve done it this way, or I told you so. But rather, his presence is with you. When you feel discouraged, when you feel like you’re going through a dark time in your life, you have the presence of God, and you need to encourage yourself in the Lord that his presence is with you. God is with you.
And when God is with you, you can endure. You can move forward. You can take the next step for him. It doesn’t matter whether others are with you or not, as long as the Lord stands with you. It’s difficult for us to deal with the absence of people in our life.
Sometimes the Lord calls our loved ones to be promoted to heaven. Sometimes our loved ones are walking through the journey of life with us, and they decide they don’t wanna be a part of that journey anymore, And they abandon us, they betray us, or they break their vow to us. But listen to me, friends. No matter who forsakes you, no matter what relationship lets you down, there is one person who will never let you down, and his name is Jesus Christ. And his abiding presence is always with you, and you can be encouraged, and you can be comforted with that promise.
And Jesus taught us that he will never leave us nor forsake us in the book of Hebrews. I want you to stand on that promise, and I want you to claim his presence in those difficult times in your life. And that was so powerful in the life of the apostle is that the lord stood by him. The second thing I want you to see in how he encouraged the apostle was from the precepts from god. Now when I use that word precept, I’m just talking about the commands of God, that God gives us direction, that God gives us a directive.
And here is what he tells the apostle after having been there. His presence is with him, he stands with the apostle, he says, be of good cheer. That’s the command. Be of good cheer. Now when you think of that word, be of good cheer, it’s the idea of being courageous.
It’s the idea of being bold. And what he is saying to the apostle is, don’t quit. I want you to be courageous. I don’t want you to let this setback stop you. I want you to press on for the glory of God.
I want you to get up. You’ve been knocked down. Get back up. When our kids were growing up, we would often tell them, get up. They would fall in the living room, bump their head, and rather than everybody running to them and wanting to pick them up, we would just say, get up.
Get up. Why? Because we wanted them to learn. When you fall, you get back up. You say, Mike, that’s not profound.
We didn’t come this morning just for some little principle on when you fall, get back up, but let me tell you something. In today’s society, how many people need that? There are many times we get overloaded with the circumstances of life. We fall, we flounder, and we struggle, and we just continue to have a pity party. And we dig deeper into our discouragement, our depression, I want to tell you that the height of your healing is never to close the blinds, shut the door, and grab a bag of potato chips and sit on the couch.
That the only way that you will experience the full healing of God in your heart, in your emotions, in your spirit, and in your mind is to get up and take a step. I’ve told you this before, church. You know how it is. I could say, how many of you have had a a knee replacement, or how many of you have had your shoulder replaced, or you’ve had your whatever hip replaced. You know?
And next thing I know, they’re gonna be saying, pastor Mike, I’m getting my head replaced. Okay. I mean, pretty soon, they’re gonna attach a AI head to you. Okay? It’s gonna be all automated, and you’re gonna be artificial intelligence, and you’re gonna be smarter than everybody.
But you know what they tell you? Get up after surgery. Get up. You’re not laying in this bed all day. Get up.
You stay in this bed, you’ll get infected. You stay in this bed, you’ll get stiff. You stay in this bed, you won’t be able to have the flexibility that you need. And that’s what I’m saying to you spiritually, is that you have to get up. You have to remember.
Be of good cheer. We may be very surprised that encouragement comes from those directives and commands of God that we don’t always feel like obeying. Sometimes you say, well, I don’t wanna go to church. Well, the Bible says, don’t forsake it. You say, I don’t wanna assemble with God’s people because and you got all your thousands of reasons, and I’m not saying any of them aren’t legit.
But let me tell you something, friends. If you don’t re engage, you’re gonna spiral farther downward. When you isolate your life from others, when you seclude yourself from the opportunity for God’s people to bear one another’s burdens, and to minister to you, and to encourage you, and to help you to keep moving forward for God, then I’m telling you, you are going to have a major setback in your spiritual life. That’s what we do. We build walls, and we try to keep people out, and we say, boy, I’m I was hurt, and I don’t want to be offended again.
Listen. You can’t live your life like that. You have got to say, I’m gonna be of good cheer. I’m gonna take courage in God. Listen to what Jesus said to the disciples.
The bible says in Matthew 14, immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid. Take courage. God’s commands are given to us, not to be a burden to us, but to bless us.
And you say, well, I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to. That’s like the little kid who said, hey. I don’t wanna go to school. Yeah.
You let the little kid sleep it all day in bed. He’ll never go to school. He’ll never be educated. He’ll live with your mom until he’s 99. And I know some of you moms want that.
Right? You want your little one to stay with you till they’re 99. But here’s the problem. When they’re 99, mom ain’t gonna be there, and they’re not gonna be able to function without you. Take courage.
God is with you. Take courage. His commands are to bless you. His commandments are an avenue and a means of blessings and grace in your life. If God thought that it wasn’t important for you to follow His commands, He would have never given them to you.
He gives them to you so you can continue to flourish in your faith. It’s not easy to obey God, is it? I’ll be the first to admit, I know the rest of you are more spiritual than me, and I appreciate that, And I’m trying to catch up with you. I want you to know that. But let me tell you something.
I know it’s hard to obey God. But even though it is hard to obey God, we cannot fall into the trap of pouting and complaining and having pity parties. We must be courageous, church. We must press on. We must move forward for God.
And sometimes, it’s a step. And sometimes, it’s just taking a small step. But let’s keep moving forward for God in our discouraging times, and not be quitters, because it’s always too soon to quit, and to keep moving forward. Remember what the apostle taught us. Rejoice in the Lord always.
And again, I say what? Let’s do that again, church. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say Rejoice. Oh, I love it. I love it, church.
He didn’t say, when everything’s wonderful in your life, rejoice. He didn’t say, when your bank account’s full, rejoice. He didn’t say, when everybody likes you, rejoice. But he said, rejoice always. We rejoice always.
We make the choice to rejoice. We choose that we’re going to live on a higher plane through the power of his spirit, through the strength that he has given us. And he commands us, and he calls us to be courageous. And when he tells us to be courageous or to be of good cheer, he’s not gonna give us a command, that he’s not gonna equip us to be able to obey. You say, pastor, I could never do that.
I’d rather be negative all day, and I’d rather find fault with everything, and I’d rather just kind of fizzle out here and complain about everything. No, my friends. I want you to make a decision today. I’m gonna be courageous and rejoice in God Almighty. Now the third thing that I want you to see here in how God encouraged the apostle is that you will see the praise from God.
Look again at this text. He says, be of good cheer, Paul, for as you have testified for me in Jerusalem. I’m certain that the apostle may have felt that there were times man, am am I making a difference? Is anything happening here? I’m over here trying to be a witness for god in Jerusalem, and I’m I’m trying to win people to Christ, and I keep getting thrown in jail.
I mean, let’s just be honest. 99 percent of us would have already given up. I mean, if we went downtown and tried to pass out some tracks and they grabbed us by the throat and they threw us in the jail, we’d be like, you know what? I’m done. I’m not doing that no more.
I don’t know why pastor would ever tell me to do that. We witness to our neighbor. We invite them to come, and they never come. We try to get our grandchildren to come to vacation bible school, but they don’t come, and we’re ready to quit. Throw in the towel, and we’re ready to say, you know, woe is me.
Listen to me, friends. I want you to see the praise that God has given the apostle. He is saying to him, you have testified. You have testified of me in Jerusalem. You’re not a failure.
We define our success by numbers. We define our success by the responses of others, but God defines our success by our obedience to him and our faithfulness to him. You say, well, it doesn’t matter. Do you have vacation bible school? It doesn’t matter if you reach out to your neighbor.
It doesn’t matter if you help a stranger. It does matter, church. It matters to God. And listen, even though we always don’t get the response we want, and even though we don’t always see the change that we want immediately, it doesn’t mean that God has given up on us. We need to be encouraged, and we need to know that in heaven, God is standing up from His throne, and He is cheering us on when He sees His people being obedient and faithful to Him.
It’s like God is patting the apostles back, and he is saying, good job. You already witnessed for me in Jerusalem. Good job. He’s praising him. I want you to get into God’s word and let God’s word encourage you.
We kinda sometimes look at the Bible and we say, boy, look at what God is He’s beaten down on me. And I’m not saying that there aren’t times that we need to be confronted about our sin, and we definitely do. But I also want you to know, if you read the whole counsel of God, there are many times he’s encouraging us, and he is reminding us to stay at it, don’t quit, and you’re doing a great job. Stay faithful for me, and stay on track. And even though the whole world is against what the Bible teaches, we remain obedient and we remain faithful to God.
That’s something you need to think about. What is gonna be your legacy to your children? What is gonna be your legacy to your grandchildren? I want you to think about that for a second. Now, as a pastor, I have a funeral tomorrow.
I do funerals all the time now. I mean, I I don’t know what it is, but I mean, I used to do maybe six, seven, eight a year. And last year, I did 22 funerals. And I’m all ready. Tomorrow will be my fourteenth funeral for the year.
And it just Wow. A lot of people. But let me just tell you, I attend all these funerals. I have to be there. They tell me I should show up.
But I go to these funerals and I hear these people praise these wonderful Christians. And it’s so encouraging to see the legacy that they have left their family. It’s so encouraging to me to see that, man, they live such a faithful life to God that it impacted them. You see, church, here’s what you wanna remember, that when it’s all said and done, the legacy you leave to your family, and I’m not talking about riches, Okay? And hopefully nobody leaves debt to their family.
Amen? Don’t do that. But the legacy of your faith is most important. Now, I’ve laid that groundwork for you, and here’s what I wanna say to you. Whatever you want your children to say about you, whatever you want your family to say about you at your funeral, you better start living it now.
You can’t, like, turn it on at the last minute. You can’t do that. If you wanna leave a great legacy that they can give honor and tribute to your life, that it’s now that time. And I want to encourage you, don’t quit. Some of you are thinking about, man, is it worth it?
And I’m telling you, it’s more than worth it. And that God is not only gonna honor you, and he is not only going to reward you, but he is gonna continue to praise you because you have been a testimony. You have been a witness for him in whatever and wherever the circumstance may be. I want you to notice the fourth and final principle here that God uses to encourage the apostle, and that thou bear witness also at Rome. You must also bear witness at Rome.
You must also bear witness at Rome. You must also bear witness at Rome. You see, we must also bear witness at Rome. You must also bear witness at Rome. You see, we must also bear witness at Rome.
You must also bear witness at Rome. You see, we must also bear witness at Rome. You You must also bear witness at Rome. You see, why would God bring that up? Why would God even mention this to the apostle?
Because in the apostle’s mind, he’s thinking, man, this is it. I wanted to still get to Rome. I need to get to Rome. I need to get there to share the gospel, to reach out to others. I need to get there.
But you know what? He’s thinking, it’s not gonna happen. And what does God do? He gives him a promise. You must also bear witness at Rome.
I’m certain that this encouraged the apostle Paul. Here he was under Roman custody, and he thought, man, it’s over. But God encourages him with a promise. You’re gonna make it, and I still have a job for you to do. Yeah.
I still have a job for you to do. Psalm 31 verse 15. Here’s what the scripture says. My times are in thy hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from them that persecute me.
Our times are in his hands. Sometimes people say, Pastor, why am I still here? I mean, we got members that are hundred years old, hundred and two years old. I am just amazed how people live so long. It’s wonderful.
I love it. And they say, pastor, why am I still here? You know what I tell them? God has a job for you. You say, well, I can’t do as much.
I can’t come and volunteer for VBS. I can’t get involved and help with this. But let me tell you something. Can you pray? Think about it.
The greatest ministry is prayer ministry. It really is. Although it’s the smallest assembly of groups within the church, it is still the most powerful ministry. It is the most profound ministry within a church. It is the ministry of prayer.
And you say, man, how is it that God has blessed our church? How is it that God is moving this ministry forward? I tell you, it has nothing to do with a person, and and it has nothing to do with a philosophy, and it has nothing to do with a strategy, but it has everything to do with God’s people praying. That’s what makes the difference in people’s lives. That is what is moving the heart of God.
Your times are in his hand, and if God has left you here, he has a plan for your life. He has a purpose for your life, and you must commit your heart that you are gonna live out your life because He has more service for you to do. He has more work for you to do on this earth. And if it’s nothing more than praying, it is still very valuable to God. The bible says in first Peter chapter one verse seven, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
So often, this passage is misunderstood. And here we see that Peter is talking about, is your faith real? Is it genuine? And he says, I want you to know that God is gonna test your faith. He’s gonna have you to go through the fire.
You’re gonna be tested by fire, but that your faith is gonna come out more than gold. It’s gonna be very precious. It is gonna be something that is gonna be found to praise. It’s not that praise to God. Hear me.
And I know this is gonna be so difficult for us to swallow, but it’s in the Bible, so I believe it. But it’s praise to you. God wants you to know that he is one day gonna look at our faith and say, I wanna bless you. I wanna commend you. I wanna honor you for being faithful.
You say, I don’t know if I believe that, pastor. Remember what Jesus taught us in Matthew 25? That the master said to the servant, well done, thou good and what? Well done, thou good and faithful servant. There’s many people in our lives, we’d love for them to praise us.
There’s many people, some of you, you’re living your whole life as defined by whether your father or mother would affirm you. But there is nothing more important than to receive the affirmation and praise from our heavenly father who says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Paul knew Christ. He knew him in a real way, in a personal way. He had a great faith.
He understood that God had called him to a life of suffering and a life of difficulty, but he was not gonna let that stop him. That’s why he told Timothy, for this reason, I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him until that day. This faith caused him to be mistreated. This faith and boldness that he had caused him to suffer more than any other person in the bible except our Lord.
If he had not told the truth, the apostle could have lived an easy life. If he had not stood up for Christ, he could have coasted. But he chose to be courageous, and he chose to stand on the promises of God, and he chose to stand for truth. And he used these words of our savior to keep him motivated moving forward for Christ. Let’s pray it again.
Is there anything more encouraging to know that the Lord has stood with you and that his presence is ever near? We forget about the presence of God because we don’t always feel it, but but even though we don’t sense it, he’s still there, and God is everywhere at the same time, and he’s certainly with his people. And so I am praying that God will continue to manifest his presence and that you will stand strong in those dark times in your life. I want to encourage you to check us out on our Facebook page. We have Hopeworth Having, and you can go to that page and you can like us.
We stream live on it, and we put different posts each day. And it’s a great opportunity to get to learn and know more about our ministry Worth Having, and I know you’ll be blessed by that. So take advantage of that. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post Encouragement in Dark Times Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Encouragement in Dark Times Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 23:1-11.
There are times in our life that the weight of the trial is so heavy, we don’t often sense the presence of God. But I want to remind you that God is always with us. No matter where we go, God is always with us. Hello. This is pastor Mike Sanders with Hopeworth Having, and I’m delighted to welcome you to the Hopeworth Having radio program, and we’re excited to share God’s word with you as a source of inspiration.
Today, we’re gonna be in Acts chapter 23, and we’re going to be covering verses one through 11. And I’ve entitled my message encouragement in dark times. So let’s get our bibles and our pens, and let’s begin to study together. I wanna talk to you about encouragement in dark times. There are many times in our life that we feel like we are in a place, or perhaps a space that is very dark.
And that’s what we find in the apostle Paul’s life is that he has been facing many trials, many difficult days. You remember that as we have been studying the book of acts, that he was pre warned that he would face much tribulation and trials, and yet, he continues to move forward for God. And when we come to Acts chapter 23, we are reminded in the greater context of what is going on. In Acts chapter 21, all the way through Acts 26, the apostle is giving five different defenses for the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is defending the faith.
He is making the case for Christianity. It’s a tremendous study for anyone to take on these few chapters here in acts 21 through 26, knowing that it will equip you in being a better witness for God. Now, when we come down to chapter 23, Paul is before the Sanhedrin court. He is facing a religious trial. And of course, the Sanhedrin court has been very difficult towards him.
The religious leaders have mistreated him. And the reason that the apostle was before this religious Sanhedrin council is because back in chapter 22, when he was before a political or judicial council, it was found that his rights had been violated. I want you to back up if you will, just so again, you can understand context in chapter 22 and verse 27. Just a few verses before the beginning of the new chapter. And you will note that in verse 27 in chapter 22 says, then the commander came and said to him, tell me, are you a Roman?
The apostle Paul said, yes. The commander answered with a large sum, I obtained this citizenship. Meaning, how did you get this citizenship? And Paul said, I was born a citizen. Then immediately those who were about to examine him withdrew from him, and the commander was also afraid after he had found out that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him.
What has taken place is the apostle is leaning on his rights as a Roman citizen. And he has been unjustly brought before this council, and he has been falsely accused before them. And once they find out that he is a Roman citizen, the whole thing collapses, and they realize they’ve made a big mistake, and so they walk away from that. But that does not stop their effort of trying to hinder the work of the apostle, the ministry of the apostle. So we come to verse 23.
He is before the Sanhedrin court. And you’ll notice with me at the beginning of the chapter in 23, then Paul looked, looking earnestly at the council. I wanna stop there for a second because it helps us understand a few verses later. The apostle is looking earnestly. You remember that he had a hard time seeing.
He told the Galatians that he wrote in large letters his signature. The apostle apparently was dealing with some kind of a disease or some kind of health problem with his eyes, and so he is looking earnestly at the council. If you could imagine yourself in the midst of a large room with all these councilmen sitting there, and they’re looking at you. And here, the apostle was standing before them getting ready to give a defense, and he is looking at them. Not because he is admiring, but he’s trying to figure out, who are these people that I’m looking at?
And this will be important, but the Bible says that as he was looking earnestly at the council, he said, men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. And the high priest, Ananias, commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall, for you sit to judge me according to the law, and do you command me to be struck contrary to the law? Verse four, and those who stood by said, do you revile god’s high priest? You were never to question the high priest.
The Sanhedrin council consisted of Sadducees and Pharisees. These are just different religious groups that had different philosophies and belief systems, and they had merged together to create this Sanhedrin council. And as the apostle was looking at them earnestly, he can’t clearly see who they are, and so he begins to make his defense. And because he declares his innocence, that he has lived innocently before God, that he has not lived a life that is contrary to the law of God, to the will of God, to the word of God, all of a sudden, the high priest, Ananias, commands for one of the soldiers to slap Paul across the face, to hit him. And this is not just a little slap, you know, watch your mouth kind of a slap.
It is more of a blow to his face, is the idea of the word. And so here he is, he’s just been smitten, very forcefully stricken by this soldier. And, of course, when somebody hits you, you’re gonna get a reaction. Amen? And that’s normal.
It’s okay. We understand these things. And what does Paul say? He says, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall. Now he cannot tell that he’s talking to the high priest because he cannot see clearly.
The apostle was a man who was raised a Pharisee. He told the Philippians that he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Meaning that, I mean, if anybody was a Pharisee, it was the apostle, and he excelled all their expectations. He was in the top of his class. He was trained and equipped.
He understood, and he knew that it was wrong for him to rebuke the high priest, to say anything publicly offensive to the high priest. But out of his reaction of being smitten so hard, he looked at that person who commanded, who was the high priest. He said to him, he was a whitewash wall, which is simply the word whitewash wall simply means something that is unbecoming in appearance, and it’s something that they might use to cover the dirt or something to cover on the wall or even a tombstone to cover it from reflecting the dirt. And so really what he’s saying to the high priest is that you’re a hypocrite. On the inside, you are dirty.
On the inside, you are sinful. But on the outside, you have all this religious garb to cover up your mess, to cover up your sin. That’s why they were so shocked when the apostle said this. And again in verse four, those who stood by said, do you revile god’s high priest? Note the apostle’s response.
The reason we believe he could not clearly tell who was speaking and who was all sitting before him is because of this. Verse five, then Paul said, I did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest. For it is written, and he quotes the book of Deuteronomy, you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. Concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am being judged.
Now let’s stop there again. I’m just giving you context. You gotta know this introduction stuff, or you won’t be able to properly interpret the text. And that is in chapter 22, he uses his Roman citizenship to protect himself, to be able to defend himself. And here he comes, now he’s before a religious court, and he recognizes that in this Sanhedrin council that there are groups of and Sadducees.
The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. The Pharisees did. The Sadducees only believed in the law of Moses that was given. In Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Pharisees believed on all the scriptures, the Psalms, the prophets, major and minor.
They believed that all of the old testament was the authoritative word of God. So the apostle knows that there’s already an inherent division within this council, so he uses his religious training to be able to cause a division and protect himself. So let’s back up, And he says in verse six, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. Concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am being judged. The reason they have me here in front of you is because I teach and preach in the hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, because I teach in the hope and the resurrection of God’s people, and that’s why I’m standing before you.
Verse seven. And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. It would be like having Dallas cowboy fans sitting in a council and the Philadelphia Eagles sitting in a council together, and we were gonna try to work together, and somebody would get up and say, I think that Roger Staubach is the greatest quarterback ever. Oh, that would upset the Eagles. That would make them frustrated.
And all of a sudden, we’re attacking each other. We’re upset with each other. We’re going back to those old principles that we are divided on, and so that’s what’s going on. Verse eight. For Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, no angel or spirit, but the Pharisees confess both.
Verse nine. Then there arose a loud outcry, and the scribes of the Pharisees’ party arose and protested, saying, we find no evil in this man, but if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God. Now, when there arose a great dissension, The commander, fearing lest Paul might be pulled to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force from among them and bring him into the barracks, or bring him back to the prison, bring him back to the jail. And that’s where we find the apostle Paul, is that this commander, this political commander has been trying to find a way to get Paul to be guilty of something so he can get rid of him, and that he can apply a punishment to him, and that he would stop preaching and teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. He’s not allowed to do it on a judicial level because he’s a Roman citizen.
He’s not able to do it before a religious court because the apostle was smart enough knowing how to get them to fight against each other. And so he says, bring him back. And so here we find the apostle. He is in jail, and it is nighttime. And you know the apostle is isolated.
He doesn’t have the accommodations of today’s jails and prisons. There’s no weight room. There’s no TV. There’s no three meals a day. There’s no recreation time.
He’s just sitting in there in this filthy jail. And notice what verse 11, and this is the crux of my message I wanna share with you today. But the following night, the Lord stood by him and said, be of good cheer, Paul. For as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome. The apostle was in a very discouraging situation.
He was in the custody of the Roman soldiers. He was falsely accused, and it looked like evil had won, and that his ministry for God was over. But he comes to this moment and this time that he has a revelation, a vision from God, from Jesus Christ himself. God comes to the apostle in a dark hour of his life and encourages him, And he reminds the apostle that even in the darkness, that his ministry is not over yet. And there are four things that Jesus shares that I wanna share with you to help you in those dark times of your life, and so that you can be encouraged.
The first thing we see is the presence of God. I want you to go back and notice at the beginning of verse 11, underscore this in your bible. If you like to mark your bible, it’s okay. It’s good to make notes in your bible. It’s good to highlight things in your bible.
Some people don’t like to do that, and that’s fine. I don’t wanna do anything that bothers your conscience. But if you’d like to do that, would you please underscore the lord stood by him? The lord stood by him. There’s nothing more encouraging in a person’s life, a Christian’s life, than the presence of God.
There wasn’t many people there to stand with the apostle. You remember that the apostle, who was very familiar with jail, always being thrown in jail, that he told Timothy, no one stood with me. But here, when others had forsaken him, the apostle found that God did not forsake him. Remember the words of the apostle in second Timothy chapter four verse 17, the bible says that the lord stood with me and strengthened me so that the message might be preached fully through me and that all the gentiles might hear. Also, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
What I want you to see here is the presence of God was with the apostle even in his dark time in his life. There are times in our life that the darkness is so thick, and the weight of the trial is so heavy in our heart that we don’t often sense the presence of God in our life. But I want to remind you that God is always with us. No matter where we go, God is always with us. He is with us whether we are serving him or we are in a space that we are not able to serve Him.
God is with us when things are wonderful in our life, and God is with us when things are difficult in our life. Our Lord and savior will never leave us or forsake us. Can God’s people say amen? Now we see this illustrated in the life of Moses, when Moses was leading Israel, and they came to a point where they were wondering, would they have the presence of God with them? It was Moses who pleaded with God that his presence would be with him.
Moses so valued the presence of God that he would not go on without the presence of God. Exodus 33 verse 15. Then he said to him, if your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. You see, church, when we’re out there serving God, and we’re trying to be that Christian, that person who is a disciple of Christ out there amongst our family and in the midst of our daily schedules and responsibilities that we have, we must always ask for the presence of God, not just that God is with us. Yes, we know he’s with us.
We know that he’s omnipresent, meaning that he is everywhere at the same time, but we want the manifested presence of God in our life. We wanna be able to sense that God is working. We want to know that God, his presence is with us, and that we will not go anywhere without his manifested presence in our life. The key to Joseph’s success in the Old Testament was the presence of God. Even though Joseph had been mistreated, he had been betrayed, he had been misunderstood, he desired the presence of God in his life.
Genesis 39 verse 21. But the Lord was with Joseph, showed him mercy, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the promise. My friends, you and I need the presence of God, And we need the presence of God in those difficult days. And we need to seek his presence. And we need to desire his presence.
And we need to pray for his presence. And we need to claim his presence. We talk about claiming the promises of God, but we also need to claim the presence of God in our life. Because, you say, what’s the big deal, Mike? Your presence, and definitely God’s presence, makes a big difference.
Sometimes people say to me, I don’t know what to do or say to a person who is grieving. I don’t know how to help them, Pastor Mike. I don’t know what to say. And I always remind them, you don’t have to say anything. Because most of the time, 90% of what you’re gonna say is more hurtful than not saying anything.
Because in our good intentions, we might misspeak. We might say something that is really not aligning with God’s truth. But let me tell you what is most important, is your presence. Just be there. Just be available.
Just be a listener. Just be someone who is present in their life. What I want you to know that that’s the way God is in your life. God is not up there judging you. He’s not up there correcting you.
He’s not up there trying to say, well, you should’ve done it this way, or I told you so. But rather, his presence is with you. When you feel discouraged, when you feel like you’re going through a dark time in your life, you have the presence of God, and you need to encourage yourself in the Lord that his presence is with you. God is with you. And when God is with you, you can endure.
You can move forward. You can take the next step for him. It doesn’t matter whether others are with you or not, as long as the Lord stands with you. It’s difficult for us to deal with the absence of people in our life. Sometimes the Lord calls our loved ones to be promoted to heaven.
Sometimes our loved ones are walking through the journey of life with us, and they decide they don’t wanna be a part of that journey anymore, and they abandon us, they betray us, or they break their vow to us. But listen to me, friends. No matter who forsakes you, no matter what relationship lets you down, there is one person who will never let you down, and his name is Jesus Christ. And his abiding presence is always with you, and you can be encouraged, and you can be comforted with that promise. And Jesus taught us that he will never leave us nor forsake us in the book of Hebrews.
I want you to stand on that promise, and I want you to claim his presence in those difficult times in your life. And that was so powerful in the life of the apostle is that the lord stood by him. The second thing I want you to see in how he encouraged the apostle was from the precepts from god. Now when I use that word precept, I’m just talking about the commands of God, that God gives us direction, that God gives us a directive. And here is what he tells the apostle after having been there.
His presence is with him, he stands with the apostle, he says, be of good cheer. That’s the command. Be of good cheer. Now when you think of that word, be of good cheer, it’s the idea of being courageous. It’s the idea of being bold.
And what he is saying to the apostle is, don’t quit. I want you to be courageous. I don’t want you to let this setback stop you. I want you to press on for the glory of God. I want you to get up.
You’ve been knocked down. Get back up. When our kids were growing up, we would often tell them, get up. They would fall in the living room, bump their head, and rather than everybody running to them and wanting to pick them up, we would just say, get up. Get up.
Why? Because we wanted them to learn when you fall, you get back up. You say, Mike, that’s not profound. We didn’t come this morning just for some little principle on when you fall, get back up, but let me tell you something. In today’s society, how many people need that?
There are many times we get overloaded with the circumstances of life. We fall, we flounder, and we struggle, and we just continue to have a pity party. And we dig deeper into our discouragement, our depression, I want to tell you that the height of your healing is never to close the blinds, shut the door, and grab a bag of potato chips and sit on the couch. That the only way that you will experience the full healing of God in your heart, in your emotions, in your spirit, and in your mind is to get up and take a step. I’ve told you this before, church.
You know how it is. I could say, how many of you have had a a knee replacement, or how many of you have had your shoulder replaced, or you’ve had your whatever hip replaced? You know? And next thing I know, they’re gonna be saying, pastor Mike, I’m getting my head replaced. Okay.
I mean, pretty soon, they’re gonna attach a AI head to you. Okay? It’s gonna be all automated, and you’re gonna be artificial intelligence, and you’re gonna be smarter than everybody. But you know what they tell you? Get up after surgery.
Get up. You’re not laying in this bed all day. Get up. You stay in this bed, you’ll get infected. You stay in this bed, you’ll get stiff.
You stay in this bed, you won’t be able to have the flexibility that you need. And that’s what I’m saying to you spiritually, is that you have to get up. You have to remember. Be of good cheer. We may be very surprised that encouragement comes from those directives and commands of God that we don’t always feel like obeying.
Sometimes you say, well, I don’t wanna go to church. Well, the Bible says, don’t forsake it. You say, I don’t wanna assemble with God’s people because and you got all your thousands of reasons, and I’m not saying any of them aren’t legit. But let me tell you something, friends. If you don’t re engage, you’re gonna spiral farther downward.
When you isolate your life from others, when you seclude yourself from the opportunity for God’s people to bear one another’s burdens, and to minister to you, and to encourage you, and to help you to keep moving forward for God, then I’m telling you, you are going to have a major setback in your spiritual life. That’s what we do. We build walls, and we try to keep people out, and we say, boy, I’m I was hurt, and I don’t want to be offended again. Listen. You can’t live your life like that.
You have got to say, I’m gonna be of good cheer. I’m gonna take courage in God. Listen to what Jesus said to the disciples. The bible says in Matthew 14, immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take courage. It is I.
Do not be afraid. Take courage. God’s commands are given to us, not to be a burden to us, but to bless us. And you say, well, I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to.
That’s like the little kid who said, hey, I don’t wanna go to school. Yeah. You let the little kid sleep in all day in bed. He’ll never go to school. He’ll never be educated.
He’ll live with your mom until he’s 99. And I know some of you moms want that. Right? You want your little one to stay with you till they’re 99. But here’s the problem.
When they’re 99, mom ain’t gonna be there, and they’re not gonna be able to function without you. Take courage. God is with you. Take courage. His commands are to bless you.
His commandments are an avenue and a means of blessings and grace in your life. If God thought that it wasn’t important for you to follow His commands, He would have never given them to you. He gives them to you so you can continue to flourish in your faith. It’s not easy to obey God, is it? I’ll be the first to admit.
I know the rest of you are more spiritual than me, and I appreciate that. And I’m trying to catch up with you. I want you to know that. But let me tell you something. I know it’s hard to obey God, but even though it is hard to obey God, we cannot fall into the trap of pouting and complaining and having pity parties.
We must be courageous, church. We must press on. We must move forward for God. And sometimes it’s a step. And sometimes it’s just taking a small step.
But let’s keep moving forward for God in our discouraging times and not be quitters because it’s always too soon to quit and to keep moving forward. Remember what the apostle taught us, rejoice in the Lord always. When we come to Acts chapter 23, the apostle Paul is facing a religious trial, and he is making the case that he is a follower of Christ, but that it’s something that connects to the Old Testament. And as he is teaching, he is also receiving from God the promise that the Lord is gonna stand with him and how important that is for us to have that kind of encouragement. And when you find yourself in a dark time, just open your Bible and start reading his promises.
And I know that’ll be a great blessing to you and keep you encouraged and faithful to the calling God has on your life. I wanna remind you to make sure you check out our website. That’s hopeworthhaving.com, and there’s a lot of features on the website. Check it out, and you can learn more about Hope Worth Having ministry. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you, in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post Encouragement in Dark Times Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on A Biblical Response to Christian Nationalism Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 17:26-28.
But what we are saying, that the church has every right and has a responsibility and a mandate from God, that we would influence this nation to seek God, to love God, and to put God first in all of its decisions. Hello. This is pastor Mike Sanders, and we’re looking forward to sharing God’s word with you today. Hope worth having is our radio program, and today when we open our Bibles, we’re gonna continue a study, a biblical response to Christian nationalism. The bottom line is there’s nothing wrong with loving your country and loving the Lord Jesus Christ supremely in your life.
So let’s get into the word of God this morning, and let’s begin to study together. Throughout the scriptures, we are told that we are not to accuse anybody without two or three witnesses. In addition, we are taught that the evidence must be there to prove or to convict someone of either a crime or some kind of violation of the law. And so that’s just one particular. It’s easy.
We live in times that as soon as someone is put up to be a judge, they all of a sudden, one political side makes accusations, and all of a sudden, that seems to be the truth. We live in times where no one ever researches to see if what the internet says or the media says or anything that is said, is it even truthful? I find it interesting as a pastor that I have many fact checkers sitting out here in the auditorium, and I appreciate every one of you. It wasn’t too long ago before COVID that I had this one man who would come to me after every service and tell me every mistake I made. He loved to do it.
Thank the Lord, the Lord moved him on. Amen? And I know you don’t like me saying that, but you know it gets weary. Now, I’m not up here winging from the hip. I do research, I have footnotes, I have all the research that I can do.
I’m not saying that pastor is perfect, or that somehow something may be misstated. You know how sometimes you think you said something, but it came out the different way. Right? That happens sometimes to me, and that’s just because I get too excited, and I get going fast, and as a result sometimes things may come out the wrong way. But in essence, I promise you that I would never enter into the sacred pulpit and declare unto you anything that is false.
But I find it interesting that so many wanna fact check the pastor, but they won’t fact check the news media. They won’t fact check false accusations. They won’t fact check other things that are going on that are falsely claimed. All I’m trying to say to you is there are principles that are integrated within our justice system that are founded in the bible. That is where they got it.
That’s where the founding fathers learned all these principles about putting together laws and judicial systems. So when we say that we’re a Christian nation, we’re just saying that we are governed by Christian values. We are not saying that everyone has to be a Christian. We are not saying that everybody has to be a believer and follower of Christ. We are simply saying that we are governed by Christian Judeo principles.
Justice Joseph Story in 1833 as a supreme court justice said this statement, Christianity is not to be confined to the closets of our homes and the altars of our churches. It must be maintained in the courts of justice and in the halls of legislation. Can you think of any system that would be fairer, any system that would be honorable, any system that would be more of a blessing upon a nation than judicial laws and constitutional laws than the laws that are rooted and founded in the bible. No. You can’t.
Because the ways of the world will not lead to true justice. It is only through God’s truth. Jesus said, the truth will set you what? Free. And that freedom can only be found truly in Christ.
And it can truly be found in those who believe in Jesus Christ. So the constitution of The United States was signed and delivered on 07/04/1776. The great document only has 1,321 words. It takes just eight minutes to read. It’d be good for all of us to read it on July 4, by the way.
But in this document that only takes eight minutes to read, God is mentioned four times, twice at the beginning and twice at the end. Our founding fathers recognized that there is a God. Was every one of them a follower of Christ? Did every one of them commit their life to the cause gospel of Jesus Christ? Did all their lives always align with the word of God?
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Anybody who teaches you different is just not sharing the truth with you. But yet, there was enough Christians who signed that declaration and who were behind the putting together of that constitution that they had a biblical influence upon everyone that was a part of the constitution. So here is the question to you, church.
Is it wrong for a Christian to be patriotic? I believe that Christians should be loyal to their country, that patriotism should be the default for those who follow Jesus. Every Christian, no matter what form of government, is responsible and accountable to live submissive lives under the government for the sake of an effective witness for Jesus Christ. In first Peter chapter two, we are commanded to submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake. Whether it be to the king as supreme or unto governors, as to them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well.
I know that God is always to be first in our lives, that our love for Christ should supersede even our love for our country. Jesus taught us to seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. But please understand that in our love for God, we are called to be the best citizens of our country. God has instituted human government. There is no government that exists apart from the will of God.
Romans thirteen one says, the powers that be are ordained of God. Now I know that some of you, you struggle with sometimes who is in office or who is not in office, But we must remember that the government is often God’s instrument for carrying out His purpose, and that there are times that God judges a nation with bad leadership, because he is confronting a nation that has steered from those biblical values that have caused God to bless a nation. When the national leaders are following a path that dishonors God, what is our responsibility? We are to understand first that God put them there whether we like them or not, whether they’re of our political stripe or not, that God has a purpose for putting them there. And I know that’s hard to swallow, but you have to believe in the sovereignty of God.
Romans thirteen four reminds us that the government and those who serve in the government are ministers of God to you for good. They minister to you for good. So God has a plan. He wants us to be the best citizens. He wants us to understand that we should pray for our national leaders.
We should pray for all those who serve in different offices of our nation, and even our state, and even our particular boroughs and townships, we should be praying for everyone for they are ministers of God. Think about that. So the question that I want to ask you now is what is God’s purpose for America? What is God’s purpose for America? And I know what some of you are saying.
Well, America is not in the Bible. It is not directly in the Bible. But I want you to go back to our text in Acts chapter 17 and verse 26. What is God’s purpose for America? I want you to get this, church.
Verse 26. And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and has determined their pre appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings. So that they and here it is. Here’s the purpose. For it’s not only the purpose of America, it is the purpose of every nation.
That they should seek the lord. In the hope that they may feel for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him, we live and move and have our very being. As also some of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. God himself has determined how long a nation survives.
God himself determines the border of a nation. You see that in verse 26. God has determined their preappointed times. Most nations, most empires last for about two hundred years. They might go a little bit farther.
America is certainly well over two hundred years. But I want you to understand, however long America lasts is all in the hands of an almighty sovereign God. Did you know that, church? And the purpose for this nation, as well as every nation on this planet, is to seek the Lord. The bible teaches us that under God, we are one blood.
We are one nation. God does not look upon the color of our skin. He does not look upon our nationality. He does not look upon our ethnicity, but rather, we are all one in Christ, and we all come from Adam and Eve. And every nation of men who dwell on the face of this earth have not only been determined and preappointed by God, but they are called to seek God.
God is very near for those who seek Him. If the purpose of America is to seek God as it is with every nation, Anything that you and I can do as light and salt in this nation to help America achieve her purpose in seeking God, we should not be ashamed that we are doing it. We should not be discouraged from our task, for our God is a sovereign Lord over all humankind. He knows and loves each and every person. That any racial distinction are all superficial in the eyes of God, for we are all created by God, and God has put within us a soul and a spirit that connects with God.
And no matter who you are, Jesus Christ has given his life that you might believe on him and trust him as your lord and savior. Our responsibility as the church is not to build a theocracy, but we are to fulfill God’s purpose in America. We are called to lead as many people in our country to search and seek God. We are to be in spiritual conversations to lead people to turn their eyes upon Christ. We are to do whatever we can to promote the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so when people say, we don’t want a Christian nation, well, it’s too late. They should have been there in 1776. Amen? But they weren’t there. We’re a nation that is Christian because of our values that we started out with that are interwoven within our system that we have been given.
It is not that we’re saying everybody has to be a Christian, but what we are saying that the church has every right and has a responsibility and a mandate from God, that we would influence this nation to seek God, to love God, and to put God first in all of its decisions. Now, it is only the kingdom of God that will be permanent. It is only the kingdom of God. Daniel chapter two, go read it this afternoon, verse forty four and forty five teaches us that at the end of all the human kingdoms and empires of this world, they’re all gonna come crashing down. They’re all gonna come to an end.
That final kingdom will be the kingdom of the antichrist, the old Roman empire revived again that will be crushed by the very breath and voice of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ, when he comes again. All the kingdoms of this world will come to an end, and the only kingdom that will last is the kingdom of Jesus Christ. It is God’s power. It is his sovereignty that controls the course of history and nature. So my last question to you, what should I do?
What should I do? I’ve tried to make the case to you, there’s nothing wrong with being patriotic. There’s nothing wrong with loving your country. There’s nothing wrong with believing in the core values of this nation. There’s nothing wrong with believing in freedom.
There’s nothing wrong with celebrating that in no way are you going against the word of God in celebrating. And I would encourage all people of all nations to rejoice in their nation, and to be patriotic, and to be the best citizens that they can. But what should we do? And what we know now based upon our response to Christian nationalism, what do we do now? First of all, and I want you to write these down if you can’t remember everything.
It is on the app if you need it. First of all, pray for your country. Is there anything more powerful than prayer? Absolutely not. It is prayer that moves the heart of God.
Now, God doesn’t have to work through prayer, but he has chosen to. God is not limited by prayer, but he has chosen to work through the prayers of his people. Today at the end of our service, which is very near, and I know some of you are getting concerned, but it is very near. But pray for your country. We’re gonna pray for our country today as we come to the concluding of our service.
But let’s also pray for the lost. There are many that we meet in this community that need Jesus Christ. Amen? And remember that America’s purpose is to seek God. And I wanna do everything I can to help every person in this country seek God.
And so I want you to do that by beginning to pray for them. It’s easy for you to curse the darkness. It’s easy for you to say, well, back in my day, when you say those good old days remember those good old days, there was no air conditioning? You remember those good old days? Your car didn’t work as good as it used to?
You remember those good old days? Those good old days where you had different problems, you didn’t have all the nice conveniences of today, those good old days? Well, there were some things that were good. There were some things that were inconvenient. But don’t fall into that trap of trying to compare today to yesterday.
And focus on the culture, the generation that you live in, and pray for every person that does not know Jesus Christ. Which leads me to the second thing that we should do, and that is to share the gospel of Jesus. The apostle Paul was faithful to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible. That’s what he’s doing right here in Acts chapter 17. Those of you that remember when we walked through this chapter, that this was the chapter where he stood up before the educated elite, and he said, I wanna tell you about this unknown god statue that you have.
That this unknown god, he is the god of the fathers. He is the god who has raised the dead. He is the god who sent his only begotten son. He is the god who has sent us Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins. He is the god who brings salvation and forgiveness to all who repent and believe in him.
Now, he could have spent all his time criticizing every false god there. He could have walked him through some apologetic classes and said, look, I wanna tell you why that god’s no good, and that god’s no good. And he could have gotten on to them about their lifestyle, and he could have found every problem that’s wrong with the culture and the society, but what he did do is he stood up and he said, let me tell you about Jesus Christ. You see, church, Jesus gave us a promise. If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.
What’s that mean? He will draw every person. Not that every person would respond, but people from all walks of life. Jesus Christ, when he is lifted up. Our job is not just to say, hey, this is evil, that is evil, I can’t stand this or whatever, but our job is to share the gospel in spiritual conversations, to give out tracts, to use our social media, to use all technology that we can, not to promote self, but to promote Jesus Christ.
If one more person promotes what they had for dinner on social media, I think I’m going to fall apart. Nobody cares what you had for dinner last night. Do you understand that? Nobody cares. Would you please tell people how to get saved?
Would you please point people to Christ and not what you had for dinner? You gotta have a bigger purpose than what I had for dinner last night. Amen? Yes. Go ahead.
Thank you. Now, we gotta pray, we gotta share, and we gotta serve. We gotta serve, church. We gotta get active. We gotta be fully engaged.
Here’s what’s happened in Christianity. We’ve decided, you know what? We’re just gonna take a back seat. We’re just gonna let things happen. We’re just gonna sit on the sidelines.
No. We can’t do that. We can’t do that. Certainly because of the purpose of this country and this nation is to seek God. But think about your children, and think about your grandchildren, and what kind of a nation are they gonna grow up in.
If you want them to hang on to those core values that built this nation, those core values that were part of the beginning of this nation, then you’ve got to be serving others. How do I do that? By getting involved and get active. Here’s what I mean, church. I’m not trying to build a theocracy, but some of you need to run for school board, and some of you need to run for the borough council, and some of you need to run for township positions, and some of you need to get involved and get active so we don’t have crooks trying to steal elections, amen?
Now, people get exasperated. They say, I can’t change the nation, but let me tell you what you can do. You can get involved in Franklin County, and you can make this county one of the best counties ever, and you can have a Christian influence upon the county, and you can have a light and a salt impact upon this area right here. You say, well, I did my time. Listen, It’s time not to retire.
It’s time to refire. It’s time to get back involved and get involved in this this nation and this community. You know that many of you know I started a group called Moving Freedom Forward. And this rose out of the problem that was going on during COVID where our local borough wanted to pass an ordinance that if I misgender or you misgender somebody, we were gonna be sent to a group of people who were gonna reeducate us, and then they would determine whether we would be fined or not. You say, Mike, these are far fetched ideas.
They are not. Do you understand? We live in crazy times. Now how does that happen? It is that the people of God are sitting on the sidelines and letting the crazy happen.
Somebody needs to speak up. Somebody needs to stand up. Somebody needs to step in the way and say, we’re not gonna have that kind of mess. Yes, somebody does. And I’m gonna tell you, the early Christians, they got involved in every area they could so that they could have a Christian influence upon their community.
So you say, I don’t got time. You’re the perfect person. I mean, I don’t want somebody who has a lot of time. Amen? People who got a lot of time, they’re not getting anything done.
People who have no time, those are the kind of people I like. They’re busy. They’re making things happen. I want those people on my team. I don’t want the person who says, I’m just gonna sit around and do nothing.
I want people to get involved. How do we serve others? Not only by being active, but being kind to one another. Just because you and I are different, and just because our lifestyle is different and just because our faith is different and just because we see things different doesn’t mean I have any right to be obnoxious, hateful, and rude to you. In this fight for moving freedom forward, which we were able to accomplish in flipping the borough council along with many who worked with us back to a conservative borough that got rid of that silly ordinance, that if you misgender because I’d be the first one they’d be slapping the cuffs on.
And I’d be the first one they’d send to education camp, And when they sent me to education camp, they’d find out that I’m not gonna put up with the mess, and I’d push back, and then they’d be throwing me in jail. And you’d say, what happened to our pastor? Well, he misgendered somebody. That’s what happened to him. He should’ve been better at that.
Well, I was at the borough one time, and I was given my 2¢. Amen? I actually have more than 2¢, but they would only give me a few minutes, but that’s okay. But there was a young man there whose lifestyle was different from me. And there was a young man that he wore this shirt that he pretty much said that he hated God and that he hated the Bible.
I got up there and used that as my platform. I don’t wanna live in a country where he can’t express what he believes. I wanna live in a country where I can express what I believe and he can express what he believes, and I just always believe that the truth will win. Amen? And I didn’t like what his shirt said.
I was offended, but I tell you what, I was kind. I was nice. I was understanding. I’m not out to attack. I just made the case.
We wanna live in a country where there’s freedom. Don’t we, church? How do we serve others? Be a blessing. Be a blessing, church, everywhere you go.
Be a blessing. When you get up in the day, you need to be praying, Lord, how can I be a blessing to someone? I wanna be a blessing to someone. Sometimes a blessing can be a smile. Sometimes a blessing can be a listening ear.
Sometimes a blessing can be a thought. Sometimes a blessing can be a prayer. Sometimes a blessing can be a cup of water. It doesn’t have to be extravagant. It doesn’t have to be amazing.
It doesn’t have to be that everybody sees it, but would you imagine with me what it would be like if the army of Christ filtrated this community and was just showing gentleness and kindness, and they were being a blessing to everybody that it would have a powerful impact on those who do not believe, and they would say, what’s so different about you, and why do you have so much much hope in all of this crazy times we live in? And you could tell them, I have hope because my faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. There are times that it seems overwhelming out there, but don’t you give up, church. It’s too soon to quit. Our stamina is not rooted in our circumstances, but our stamina is rooted in our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Church, today I’m calling you to come to this altar and pray for our country. I’m gonna ask you to come right now and join me, those of you that are able, I know some of you physically can’t, but those of you that physically able come down to this altar. You do not have to kneel. You can kneel. You can stand.
If you say, pastor, I can’t, you can sit on the front row, the second row, the third row, whatever works for you. But let’s pray for our country today, church. And let’s thank God for the blessings He has given us in our country. Thank you so much for so many of you that are able to respond this morning. Christian nationalism is a hot topic in Christianity.
And if you wanna divide people and what they think about their faith, just bring up this topic Christian nationalism and you’re gonna get all kinds of opinions. But what I’ve been trying to share with you is God’s word and examples out of God’s word, illustrations out of God’s word, and I wanna continue to reaffirm to you it’s okay to love Jesus Christ, but it’s also okay to love your country. And you don’t have to be put into this box that it’s gotta be one or the other. No, my friends. We can love God, and we can also love our country.
And I hope the things that you have learned are gonna help you, reinforce you, and continue to root you in your faith. I’d like to hear from you. I want you to give me some feedback. Maybe you’re struggling. Maybe you have more questions about Christian nationalism.
And, maybe you have a comment. Maybe you disagree with me. All that’s good. So don’t be afraid to share those. You can go to our website and contact us at hopeworth having dot com.
You can go to our social media and just put it out there that, you have questions about Christian nationalism, and we’ll be glad to respond to those things. So let us hear from you, and let’s be encouraged as we continue to want to advance the kingdom of Christ and to move forward in bringing others to Jesus Christ. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post A Biblical Response to Christian Nationalism Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on A Biblical Response to Christian Nationalism Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 17:26-28.
I believe that Christians should be loyal to their country, that patriotism should be the default for those who follow Jesus. Every Christian, no matter what form of government, is responsible and accountable to live submissive lives for the sake of an effective witness for Jesus Christ. Welcome to Hope Worth Having. I’m your host, pastor Mike Sanders, senior pastor of the Open Door Church. Today, I have a special message, and it is simply entitled a biblical response to Christian nationalism.
I wanna help you to understand you can love the Lord and love your country. There’s not a conflict, and there’s not a contradiction. And I’m gonna open up the Bible and show you and give you a step by step through the word of God in helping you to see this important biblical viewpoint in God’s truth. So join me now as we begin this study. In America, we recognize that our rights come from God.
That they do not come from people, but rather they come from God. And if rights are given by men, they can be taken away by men. The declaration of independence says that our inalienable rights are given to us by God, and are to be guarded by our government. On this day, we are reminded as Americans about our core values, and that is our faith, our freedom, and our family. Christians are called to be active in their nation.
They are called as a church and as individuals to take a stand, to be willing to speak up, and to be willing to stand up. Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth. We are called to be those who preserve our values, those who continue to promote the good and the gospel of Jesus Christ. The answer to our nation’s problems are not going to be any particular political party, but rather the answer is gonna be found in a spiritual revival that would sweep across this nation and reverse the immoral tide that has taken over our country. The bible says that the council of the Lord stands forever.
The plans of his heart are to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he has chosen as his own inheritance. The greatest hope for America is a revival of true worship of the living God. It is for us to begin once again to acknowledging Christ as our lord and our savior. Now not too far in the past, June 14 to be exact, I read an article, and in this article by Fox News, a college professor on flag day had announced that the American flag was a source of anxiety.
That it was not only a source of anxiety, but fear for him. In addition to this interview by Fox News of this professor, the professor stated that patriotism quickly slips into nationalism. I thought about this article, and I thought first of all how there was a great misunderstanding about our flag, about our nation, about the core values of our country, how that there was definitely mischaracterization that was taking place by many in the elite or educated world, who are trying to push a narrative that somehow it is wrong to be patriotic, That somehow it’s wrong to love your country. And I want us to understand the context. To understand the context of our nation helps you to understand what this nation is all about.
To be able to understand what we are dealing with. And so I’ve entitled my message today, a biblical response to Christian nationalism. Because there are so many out there who are putting down patriotism, and they are attacking Christian nationalism as if it was some kind of evil thing. I want you to note in our text today, in acts chapter 17 verse 26, that the scripture says, and he, referring to God, has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth. And he has determined their pre appointed times, and the boundaries of their dwellings.
So that they should seek the lord in the hope that they might grope or feel for him and find him though he is not far from each one of us. For in him, meaning Christ, we live and move and have our being. As also some of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. When we think about the founding of our nation, when we think about how America came into being, we must understand that many of the earliest immigrants came to America seeking freedom. And they were not just seeking freedom, but they were seeking a freedom to practice their faith without persecution.
For many were living in countries and nations where they were told what they had to believe by the government. They were told not only what they had to believe, but they were told how they could worship god. And so many of our forefathers came to this country as pilgrims, puritans, and patriots with the desire that they would be able to live out their faith in freedom as the spirit of God and as the word of God was leading them. That rather than the government telling them how to worship God and what they could believe about God, they would be led by the authority of God’s word and the spirit of God that lived within all who believe in Jesus Christ. Now I recognize that not every patriot, not every person that came to America loved God.
I recognize that not all of them live lives that were honorable to God. And I recognize that they were flawed individuals in their humanity, that they had weaknesses, sins, and that they had issues that had to be dealt with. But who among us can stand up and say, hey, I’m a perfect person? Who among us can say, hey, I’ve got it all figured out? They lived in the context of their culture.
They lived in the context of their times. It doesn’t make some of the things that they did right, but it just is an understanding of what they were dealing with. When I was growing up as a young man, the few times that I did pay attention in class, and forgive me, I hate that I hurt some of those teachers by falling asleep, but I was taught in history that America was a melting pot. That it was a melting pot of different and diverse people groups who were coming to America under the understanding that they could live in freedom. That they could continue to live out their lives as they were led in their spirit, in their conscience, and for those who believe in Christ, in their faith.
Yet, we live in some unique times. And what we are seeing is that a narrative is pushed upon us that somehow it is evil to love America. That it is wrong and it is racist for you to be patriotic. So I am giving you a biblical response to Christian nationalism, and we do that by first asking the question, what is Christian nationalism? So let’s understand first of all what nationalism is.
According to one particular dictionary, that nationalism is the overriding commitment to one’s own country. First and foremost, nationalism is more than simply an appreciation for one’s country, it is an allegiance, a governing ideology to one’s nation that overrides other considerations, including interference or influence from other nations. Now I know that that definition is a little long, and maybe a little bit difficult to navigate through, But in essence, what it is saying is simply this, to be a nationalist is someone who has allegiance to their country. Someone who loves their country. Someone who believes in the core values and the founding principles of their country.
Now, in America, there is also not only nationalism, but there is often referred to Christian nationalism. And you might say, what does that mean? What does it mean to be a Christian nationalist? Some have defined Christian nationalism as a belief that America is a Christian nation, that is founded by Christians, that is intended to be a city on a hill, a beacon of truth to the rest of the world. Now, I tried to find fault with that definition, but I could not.
And I thought how admirable to think about the fact that whatever country that you believe in, and whatever you feel about America, to think that America is a Christian nation, and that it ought to be an example and a city on a hill, and that it ought to be a beacon of truth to the rest of the world, what would be wrong with that? And yet, we are told that it is wrong. Stephen Wolf, in his book entitled The Case for Christian Nationalism. Every one of you should get that book. You should go on Amazon, download it right now, and you should read this book.
And Stephen Wolf states as he understands what Christian nationalism is, Christian nationalism is a totality of national action, consisting of civil laws and social customs, conducted by a Christian nation, as a Christian nation in order to procure for itself both earthly and heavenly good in Christ. Now there are some who see Christian nationalism as a political ideology that views the nation or America as a Christian nation, and that somehow we are trying to build a theocracy. I want you to understand that there is a difference between believing in your country, and loving America, and being a patriot, and wanting Christian values, biblical principles to influence the government, and to influence the justice system, and to influence the laws of this land, and to want to build a theocracy. There will never be a true theocracy until Jesus Christ comes and establishes his kingdom on this earth. That is not gonna happen until after the rapture of the church and the tribulation period, in which we are learning about on Wednesday nights.
And that will culminate in the coming of Christ in the battle of Armageddon where Christ will conquer all those who have rejected God and refused to follow Christ. And then the bible tells us that we will transition into a millennial kingdom in which Jesus Christ will fulfill all of the old testament prophecies about a king who will come from the seed of David and will sit in the seat of David in Jerusalem and rule the nations, literally the world. Jesus Christ in his second coming is the fulfillment of those prophecies. But until then until then, church, the question before us, is it wrong as believers and Christians to believe in our ability to influence a nation, to seek God, to love Jesus Christ, and to use biblical principles in the governing of its people. I would say to you and submit unto you that it’s not wrong for Christians to be a light, and it’s not wrong for us to be salt, that we are commanded to be just those very things, to take the light to the darkness and to be that preserving salt in this culture that points people to Jesus Christ and makes a difference in the hearts of people.
Now under president Barack Obama, he had announced that America was no longer a Christian nation. As far as sometimes living out our morality in this culture, in this society of America, I would agree that the majority of Americans do not live by biblical principles. But in relation to the founding of this nation, and the justice system of this nation, and the laws of this nation, and how this nation has the constitution has been put together, how we are to be governed, I believe that we are without a doubt a Christian nation. Pew Research recently in 02/2022 did a survey that found that 45% of Americans believe that The United States is a Christian nation, and that the government should promote Christianity. Now, as a result of different theological viewpoints, some believers are hoping that through America that they can usher in God’s eternal kingdom through nationalism.
We are not of that strife, and we do not believe because of what prophecy teaches us that that is even possible, but we believe the nation will be blessed as it seeks God and makes God a priority. We understand that as a people of God, that as we try to influence our community for God, that using biblical principles is an important part and tool in our arsenal to be able to make an impact in bringing people to Jesus Christ. Now, some people believe that Christian nationalism is a threat. It is a threat to religious freedom. It is a threat to separation of church and state.
But others argue that it is a legitimate expression of religious faith, and that it is in line with the values of our founding fathers. You have to determine where you’re at. I believe that Christian nationalism is in line with the values of our founding fathers and what this nation was built upon. Now the next question I want to propose to you is, what do we mean when we say that America is a Christian nation? It’s important because as people are pushing out a narrative that somehow it’s wrong for you to love America, And they use terminology like nationalism and Christian nationalism.
And there was recently a seminar right here in our own community about what’s wrong with white Christian nationalism. As if to try to characterize that loving your country is racist, or somehow it is wrong and evil. That’s why I’m sharing this with you. This is why I want you to understand the definitions, Why I want you to know what we mean when we say that America is a Christian nation. What we are saying is that our founding documents, such as the declaration of independence and the constitution, are based upon Christian principles.
In the constitution, in the laws of the land, in the judicial system, all of them are founded on Judeo Christian principles. An example, we think of due process. Some of you may not even know what due process is, but it is simply this, that you are innocent until proven guilty. That you have the right to defend those who might accuse you. Throughout the scriptures, we are told that we are not to accuse anybody without two or three witnesses.
In addition, we are taught that the evidence must be there to prove or to convict someone of either a crime or some kind of violation of the law. And so that’s just one particular. It’s easy. We live in times that as soon as someone is put up to be a judge, they all of a sudden, one political side makes accusations, and all of a sudden, that seems to be the truth. We live in times where no one ever researches to see if what the internet says or the media says or anything that is said, is it even truthful?
I find it interesting as a pastor that I have many fact checkers sitting out here in the auditorium, and I appreciate every one of you. It wasn’t too long ago before COVID that I had this one man who would come to me after every service and tell me every mistake I made. He loved to do it. Thank the Lord, the Lord moved him on. Amen?
And I know you don’t like me saying that, but you know it gets weary. Now, I’m not up here winging from the hip. I do research, I have footnotes, I have all the research that I can do. I’m not saying that pastor is perfect, or that somehow something may be misstated. You know how sometimes you think you said something, but it came out the different way.
Right? That happens sometimes to me, and that’s just because I get too excited, and I get going fast, and as a result, sometimes things may come out the wrong way. But in essence, I promise you that I would never enter into the sacred pulpit and declare unto you anything that is false. But I find it interesting that so many wanna fact check the pastor, but they won’t fact check the news media. They won’t fact check false accusations.
They won’t fact check other things that are going on that are falsely claimed. All I’m trying to say to you is there are principles that are integrated within our justice system that are founded in the bible. That is where they got it. That’s where the founding fathers learned all these principles about putting together laws and judicial systems. So when we say that we’re a Christian nation, we are just saying that we are governed by Christian values.
We are not saying that everyone has to be a Christian. We are not saying that everybody has to be a believer and follower of Christ. We are simply saying that we are governed by Christian Judeo principles. Justice Joseph Story in 1833 as a supreme court justice said this statement, Christianity is not to be confined to the closets of our homes and the altars of our churches. It must be maintained in the courts of justice and in the halls of legislation.
Can you think of any system that would be fairer, any system that would be honorable, any system that would be more of a blessing upon a nation than judicial laws and constitutional laws than the laws that are rooted and founded in the bible. No, you can’t. Because the ways of the world will not lead to true justice. It is only through God’s truth. Jesus said, the truth will set you what?
Free. And that freedom can only be found truly in Christ. And it can truly be found in those who believe in Jesus Christ. So the constitution of The United States was signed and delivered on 07/04/1776. The great document only has 1,321 words.
It takes just eight minutes to read. It’d be good for all of us to read it on July 4, by the way. But in this document that only takes eight minutes to read, God is mentioned four times, twice at the beginning and twice at the end. Our founding fathers recognized that there is a God. Was every one of them a follower of Christ?
Did every one of them commit their life to the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Did all their lives always align with the word of God? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Anybody who teaches you different is just not sharing the truth with you.
But yet, there was enough Christians who signed that declaration and who were behind the putting together of that constitution that they had a biblical influence upon everyone that was a part of the constitution. So here is the question to you, church. Is it wrong for a Christian to be patriotic? I believe that Christians should be loyal to their country. That patriotism should be the default for those who follow Jesus.
Every Christian, no matter what form of government, is responsible and accountable to live submissive lives under the government for the sake of an effective witness for Jesus Christ. In first Peter chapter two, we are commanded to submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake. Whether it be to the king as supreme or unto governors, as to them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. I know that God is always to be first in our lives, that our love for Christ should supersede even our love for our country. Jesus taught us to seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
But please understand that in our love for God, we are called to be the best citizens of our country. God has instituted human government. There is no government that exists apart from the will of God. Romans thirteen one says, the powers that be are ordained of God. Now I know that some of you, you struggle with sometimes who is in office or who is not in office, But we must remember that the government is often God’s instrument for carrying out His purpose, and that there are times that God judges a nation with bad leadership, because he is confronting a nation that has steered from those biblical values that have caused God to bless a nation.
When the national leaders are following a path that dishonors God, what is our responsibility? We are to understand first that God put them there whether we like them or not, whether they’re of our political stripe or not, that god has a purpose for putting them there. And I know that’s hard to swallow, but you have to believe in the sovereignty of God. Romans thirteen four reminds us that the government and those who serve in the government are ministers of God to you for good. They minister to you for good.
So God has a plan. He wants us to be the best citizens. He wants us to understand that we should pray for our national leaders. We should pray for all those who serve in different offices of our nation, and even our state, and even our particular boroughs and townships. We should be praying for everyone for they are ministers of God.
Think about that. So the question that I want to ask you now is what is God’s purpose for America? What is God’s purpose for America? And I know what some of you are saying. Well, America is not in the Bible.
It is not directly in the Bible. But I want you to go back to our text in Acts chapter 17 and verse 26. What is God’s purpose for America? I want you to get this, church. Verse 26.
And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth and has determined their pre appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings. So that they and here it is. Here’s the purpose. For For it’s not only the purpose of America, it is the purpose of every nation that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they may feel for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our very being. Believers have many contradictions in their hearts, but two things can be true at the same time.
You can love God and love your country, and they don’t have to conflict with one another. And so we certainly supremely love the Lord Jesus Christ. But we also love this nation where God has blessed us to live in and to be in freedom and to be able to express our faith, live our faith. Our founding forefathers, Many of them came to this country so they could practice their faith according to the word of God as opposed to the dictates of politicians or elite religious figures who want to tell them what they could and could not do, and it contradicted the word of God. And so it’s okay.
Don’t be afraid to hang up your flag. Don’t be afraid to love your country, serve your country, and do what you can to make America a better place. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth happy.
The post A Biblical Response to Christian Nationalism Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Defending the Gospel Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 22 to 26.
Friends, the only way to heaven is for you to acknowledge that you’re a sinner, and to believe in your heart that Christ died for your sins, and to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins. And apart from that, friends, it is a relationship with Jesus Christ that you need to have. Hello. This is pastor Mike Sanders, senior pastor of the Open Door Church in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and thank you for tuning in and being a part of Hopeworth Having Radio program. Today, we’re gonna be back in the book of Acts chapter 22, and we’re continuing our study on defending the gospel.
Was anyone more eloquent and more determined and persevering in defending the gospel than the apostle Paul? I think not, but we certainly can learn from his life. So join me as we begin to study the bible together. And the apostle shares how Jesus interrupted his life. Would you notice that now it happened as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shown around me, and I fell to the ground.
And I heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So I answered, who are you, lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting. And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of him who spoke to me. So I said, what shall I do, lord?
And the lord said to me, arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all the things which are appointed for you to do. How did I come to that point where I realized I needed Christ? For some of you, it could have been a tragedy in your life that God used to awaken your heart, to turn you towards him. For some people, we are so hard headed. I put myself in there with you.
So if I’m making you mad, I’m making Mike mad too. But we’re so hard headed. How many of you know some hard headed people? Amen? Now quit ladies elbowing your husband.
But we have some hard headed people, and and the Lord knows who they are. And the only way that they will ever look up is to be laying flat on their back. You see what I’m saying? God knows how to get our attention. God knows how to bring us back in alignment with him.
Even as believers, sometimes we get apathetic in our faith and we begin to slide backwards in our faith. And God brings a shocker to our life to wake us up so that we will be passionate for Christ. I want you to understand that God not only uses tragedies, but he uses transitions. Your life is gonna be filled with transitions. How about that one?
You’re gonna transition. We think about so many times our young people transition from high school into maybe the workforce or to college or to military or some tech school or or whatever God is calling them to do, but they’re transitioning from a life where all they did is went to school every day, and now they’re transitioning into something different. And then one day, you might get married, and there’s a new transition from a single life to a married life, and then you have children, and there’s a transition of a couple with no children to now a couple with children. And then there’s a transition that the kids, they wanna play sports, they wanna dance, they wanna do music, and you’re like a taxi service and you are in this transition of life where you take them anywhere and everywhere that you can. And you said you’d never do it, but you buy a minivan.
And now you’re driving this minivan and you’re dropping all the kids off to soccer practice and you’re dropping them off to drama class, whatever it is that they do. And you’re in that transition, and then guess what? The kids grow up, and they leave. And then you look at each other as a husband and wife, and you say, who are you? Oh, that’s my spouse.
I’ve been living so much trying to get everything taken care of for the kids. And now the kids are gone, and I just realized I have a spouse. And so now you’re in that transition. And some of you are in the transition that your spouse is in heaven. And now you’re living without your spouse.
Some of you might be in a transition that your children are getting married, or maybe you’re in the transition of grandchildren, and some of you are in the transition of great grandchildren. And I thought all grandchildren were great. And here we are, we go through life, and we have new chapters in our life, and we have new transitions in our life. And God uses transitions to get your attention. And you may be going through a transition right now, and God’s trying to get your attention.
And what I want you to do when you’re sharing your testimony is maybe share a little bit about how God used a transition, a change in your life that brought you to Him. Another way that God gets our attention is not only through tragedies and not only through transitions, but through triumphs. You get a job promotion. You’re so overwhelmed with being blessed by God. Or maybe God blesses you with children and you’re so overwhelmed being blessed by God.
God uses triumphs in our lives, things that we accomplish. We recognize that we could never do it without Christ, and if it wasn’t his good work in us and through us that God just humbles our heart. We’re so filled with his grace that we just wanna give him glory and honor, and it spurs within us a desire to recognize him and to be more passionate for him and to live a life that is expressing gratefulness to him. God uses these times in our life to get our attention, and that’s what your testimony needs to be a part of. So the first part of my testimony is what my life was like before I knew Christ, how I realized that I needed Christ.
There are significant steps, perhaps, things that God did to get our attention. But then I want you to notice the next part of my testimony is how I committed my life to Christ. Isn’t what the apostle did? He got down on his knee. He was a religious man.
He thought he was doing the right thing. He was persecuting the church. He was going into people’s homes, dragging them out, dragging them to Jerusalem. He was even a part of the death of some Christians, and God knocked him off his high horse, shown the light around him. Now not all of our experiences are as dramatic as what happened for Saul.
It could be, but what I’m trying to say to you is that this powerful light shined on him, knocked him off his high horse. He landed on the ground, and the bible says in verse nine that those that were with him, they saw the light. They were afraid, but they didn’t hear the voice. But Paul did, at that time, Saul, and he said, what shall I do, lord? What shall I do?
And here we see in this presentation is Saul is accepting Christ as the lord. For Christ has already told him back in verse seven and eight, here’s what you’re doing. You’re persecuting me. When you persecute the church, Jesus takes it personal. When you attack the people of God, Jesus takes it personal.
Be careful, brothers and sisters in Christ. When you condemn your brothers and sisters in Christ, be careful to judge your brothers and sisters in Christ. Be careful to come after your brothers and sisters in Christ because when you attack the church, the people of God, you are attacking Jesus Christ himself. For the Bible says that the church is the bride of Christ. The church is the body of Christ.
So let’s be a little bit more cautious in what we say, and remember that Jesus takes it personal. And so the apostle wants to know what is he supposed to do. He is given instructions, and the apostle now is recognizing him as lord, and calling him lord, his savior, his king, his God, his lord. And he says, what shall I do, lord? And the lord said to me in verse 10, arise and go to Damascus.
And so that’s what the apostle did. He committed his life to Christ. You see, friends, part of your testimony is telling people how you committed your life to Christ. Not only the circumstances that brought about you realizing that you needed Christ, but how did you commit yourself to Christ? Many, many years ago when I first came to the Open Door Church, one of our members had passed away.
And I just it’s so vivid in my mind, and I’ve told you this before, but I just keep thinking about it sometimes about how we sat down with the family to plan the funeral service, and the children said to me, we don’t want you telling people how to be saved. And that caught me off guard because I’d never in my life ever had anybody tell me. They tell me just the opposite. Just the opposite. Make sure you tell them how to be saved, pastor.
Make sure you tell them to be ready because we never know when our number is called. We never know when it’s time to go. Right? So we gotta make sure that we’re ready for Christ, but this particular child, adult child, did not want me to share the fact that people are sinners and needed to be saved, and Jesus Christ was the savior of the world, and that he could save them from their sins. So the spirit of God just gave me the wisdom is all I can say because I don’t know.
It just popped in my head. And I said to her, can I share your dad’s faith? Well, that’s about dad. Sure. Go ahead.
Tell him how dad lived his life. Well, here, let me tell you something. I shared how he came to Christ, and I told him the way he got saved is the way you get saved. Amen? Yes.
Now it’s too late once the pastor’s up there. Okay? What are they gonna do now? What are they gonna do now? But here’s what I wanna tell you is how you committed your life to Christ.
You may have expressed it with different words. You may have expressed it at different times or seasons of your life, but how you committed your life to Christ is how they are to commit their life to Jesus. Some of you are worried about sharing your testimony because you think, man, I don’t know enough bible verse. I don’t know enough theology, and I can’t answer all the questions that might be shared. But listen to me friends, don’t underestimate the power of a testimony because God can use your testimony to help somebody relate to you and to understand how God is trying to get their attention, and they need to give their life to Christ, and you’re being that example.
And you’re showing them how you came to Christ, how you humbled your heart before God. It could’ve been in a service. It could have been in a tent revival. It could have been at your home. It could have been at a a coffee shop.
It could have been anywhere, any place because God has no limitations where he’ll save somebody. Amen? Some of you today may not even know Jesus Christ as your savior, and you hear the gospel shared, and you wanna be saved, but you don’t respond. Well, friends, you can respond in your home. You can respond while you’re driving down a road.
Just keep your eyes open. You can respond, but we need to remember what god does. Go down to verse 16. Go down to verse 16 of chapter 22. Again, we’re just highlighting things here, and notice what he says.
Let’s just do verse 15 too to help with context. For you will be his witness to all men and what you have seen and heard, and now why are you waiting? The apostle has already pointed them to Christ. He’s already pointed them to the righteous one, Jesus, and he says, why are you waiting? Why are you waiting?
What does he tell them? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the lord. Now I know I have many theologians here sitting out here, and I praise god for you. And I wanna help you because you’re struggling right now in verse 16 because it seems all backwards. Right?
Don’t you first look at verse 16. Don’t you first call on the name of the Lord and then he washes away your sins and then you’re baptized? Well, be assured that that’s the way it is in the Greek. That’s the way it is in the Greek language. I don’t know why the translators did it like that, but I’m just telling you that it is grammatically phrased, first, call on the name of the lord.
We know according to Romans 10 verse nine, ten, and 13 that we’re to call on the name of the lord and that whoever calls on the name of the lord shall be what, church? Saved. So here it is. The apostle lays it out for them. Call on the name of the lord.
After sharing his testimony, call on the name of the lord. And then he says, god will wash away your sins and arise and be baptized. Why are you waiting? Why are you waiting? Why aren’t you responding to god today?
Why aren’t you giving your life fully to him now? Every time you present your testimony, I want to encourage you to invite people to receive Christ. Offer the opportunity for them to receive Christ. Offer them the privilege to pray with you to receive Christ. Now some people aren’t ready.
Sometimes in our witness for God, we’re a seed planner. Some of us are waterers. We water the seed that has already been planted, and some of us get to harvest whatever has been God working in the heart, has been bringing forth fruit. Don’t be upset at where you’re at. Just be grateful that God is using you to plant the seed or to water the seed or to harvest the fruit, whatever it is.
There for a while, I remember when I was pastoring Indiana that I led five different people to Christ, and all five of them died within a few months of coming to Christ. And I thought, Lord, what are you doing? Because people aren’t gonna wanna talk to pastor Mike. They’re they’re gonna say, stay away from me. They’re gonna think I’m the death reaper or something.
But I want you to know it was just the harvest time. People had been witnessing, families had been witnessing, and they had been dealing with physical problems and health issues in their life, and it just happened that I was able to come in, and I was just able to bring in the harvest, but there had been people already who had been praying, and there had been people who had already been talking and planting seeds and watering that seeds. And then just before God called them out, he sent in the pastor to bring in the harvest. Does it make the harvester any better than the seed planner, the prayer warrior? It just means we’re all working together in the field of souls.
Are you with me? We’re all in it together, church. But always give people an invitation, an opportunity to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and help them with that. Now I’m not a guy who likes to have people repeat after me because I wanna make sure it’s from their heart. You say, well, they might not say the wrong thing.
And if they pray the wrong thing, they won’t be saved. Hello. Think about the thief on the cross. What did he say? Lord, remember me.
Now, he messes up everybody’s theology. He’s messing all of you up that you are particular, you’re perfectionist, and you want every t crossed, every I dotted, and here, the thief on the cross, he got saved and he didn’t do it just like you want it to be done. But see, I tell you that God knows the heart. And you and I may fumble in what we say in our prayers outwardly, but inwardly, he knows our hearts, doesn’t he? Right?
You could say the right things outwardly. How many people have said the right things outwardly, but their heart was not in it? They didn’t mean a word of it. They just said the prayer to get the pastor off their back, to get mom and dad off their back. I’ll pray the prayer so you’ll leave me alone.
But they didn’t mean it. So that’s why that’s just pastor Mike. I don’t sit there and say repeat after me. Some of you may. I just tell them.
I give them a template to ask God to forgive them of their sins and to express their faith and love to God and that God will save their souls when he calls upon them. Now, the last part of your testimony is the difference that Christ has made in your life. Let’s pick up in verse 17. Hang in there with me. Okay?
Then Paul called one of the centurions to him and said, take this young man to the commander, for he has something to tell him. So he took him and he brought him to the commander and he said, Paul, the prisoners called me to him and asked me to bring this young man to you. He has something to say to you. Verse 19. Then the commander took him by the hand, went aside and asked privately, what is it that you have to tell me?
And he said, the Jews have agreed to ask that you bring Paul down to the council tomorrow as though they were going to inquire more fully about him. But do not yield to them, for more than 40 of them lie in wait for him, and men who have bound themselves by an oath that they shall neither eat nor drink till they have killed him. And now they are ready waiting for the promise from you. Verse 22. I want you to see this.
So the commander let the young man depart and commanded him, tell no one that you have revealed these things to me. Now here’s what’s happening is that the apostle, having shared already what Christ has done for him and having already shared the change that God has made in his life, all of a sudden, he realizes that he is in trouble and that they’re going to try to persecute him. And so we see the apostle is taking the advantage of who he is, and he’s using the law to try to make sure that he’s able to defend and to be able to continue to share Christ and to be able to share what God has done for him. So I want you to see that God is working effectively in Paul’s life, and that God is saying to him that he is to be a witness for him in the synagogues. He is to be a witness to the Jewish people.
He is to be someone who is to continue to tell people how to come and to trust the Lord Jesus Christ. And so you and I have to continue to help people see those great results. Now the first point that I gave to you was to tell God’s story. Tell God’s story of what he has done in your life. The second point that I wanna share with you in these final few minutes that we have together is that we are to trust the results to God.
We are to trust the results to God. Many years ago, a man said to me, he said, pastor, nobody’s getting saved. Why should I share my testimony? Why should I tell others about Christ? And I said, because our success is not determined by results, but by obedience.
By obedience. Many of you, you have quit sharing Christ. You’ve quit telling people about Christ. You quit handing out tracts. You quit visiting people because you’re not seeing the results you want.
I want you to understand that our results are not our motivator. It is our faithfulness and obedience to god. Noah was a righteous man, and the bible says for a hundred and twenty years, he preached righteousness. And for a hundred and twenty years, he built that ark. And people laughed.
They mocked at him. And when they said, why are you doing this, Noah? He explained to them that god told them, and he kept at it, and they said, that’s a crazy man over there. And then the judgment of God came. Was Noah a failure?
No. No. Your success before God is not based upon results before God. Your success is based upon your faithfulness and your obedience to the lord Jesus Christ. Now in verse 22 through 29 of chapter 22, excuse me, is that what we see takes place is they eventually are going to bring Paul before they don’t respond.
Look at verse 22. They listened to him and tell this word, and then they raise their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth for he is not fit to live. How about that? If you witness to somebody and they said, take this guy away, he’s not even fit to live. Don’t even let him live.
But that’s what happened. That was the response. But you gotta trust God for the results. You gotta believe that your priority is to be a witness. Jump back to verse 15.
For you will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. That’s your testimony. You will be a witness for Christ of what you’ve seen, what you have heard, what God has done for you. I’ve kinda gave you a template on how to do that, and I wanna encourage you to continue to share that with others. And even though people may not respond the way that you want them to, in verse twenty two and twenty three, you’re still trusting god almighty.
I want you to take your bible to second Corinthians chapter five. I want you to go there. Second Corinthians chapter five. Second Corinthians chapter five verse nineteen and twenty. Second Corinthians chapter five verse 19 through 20.
That is that god was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. Underscore that. God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.
So you see, what he’s saying is that God is pleading through us to our family, to our friends, to our world to be reconciled to God. They say, well, I’m religious. I’m religious. I go to this church. I grew up.
I cut my teeth on the pew. My name, my family name. We bought a pew in the church. That doesn’t get you to heaven. Can God’s people say amen?
Friends, the only way to heaven is for you to acknowledge that you’re a sinner and to believe in your heart that Christ died for your sins and to call upon the name of the lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins. And apart from that, friends, there’s no class, there’s no religious experience, there is no particular outward ceremony or ritual that you can do that will save your soul. It is a relationship with Jesus Christ that you need to have. Now how is that gonna happen? How are people gonna know that?
How are people gonna know that? Hear me. He says there that God is pleading through us. God is pleading through us. Many of you know you’ve heard of Tom Landry.
He was a great football coach for the Dallas Cowboys, but many of you have great respect for him. And before he passed away, he shared his testimony with his team. And he said as a youngster, he had said, if I can just be part of a championship team, that’s all he wanted to do. He said, I I would have everything. As a high school player, he said, if I could just play college football as a college player, he said, if I could just go and be a professional football player, he said, if I could just win as a professional player a championship.
He reached every goal that he had that was material in this life. But everything and every accomplishment left him the same way, empty. The enthusiasm wore off. It wasn’t until he met Christ that he said, I found out for the first time what Jesus meant when he said, I’ve come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. There’s a lot of people out there who are pursuing life, and they’re actually achieving a lot of goals.
Tom Brady, after winning all his championships, in an interview said, I wonder if there’s more to life. My friends, you and I are called to be a testimony. So just some practical things that’ll help you. I’d like for you this morning to consider in making this commitment as a disciple and follower of Christ, that this year, you would invite someone who is unchurched, unsaved, that you would invite them to breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and you would share your testimony with them. It could be somebody in your family.
It could be somebody that you know, that you work with. It could be somebody that’s a friend. Just share what God is doing. Use that template I gave you, and develop. Write out your thoughts, and just share that testimony.
A second thing I’d like you to consider is to invite a family member, a friend, a neighbor to your home to choose someone in your family to share how they came to Christ. Not just Christians, and I think it’s good to fellowship with Christians, but when’s the last time you invited an unbeliever to your house? And you shared and you told what God is doing in your life. As always, church, we encourage you to invite unchurched people to attend church. We’ll tell them how to be safe.
If you’re here this morning and you need Christ, we say to you, behold the lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus said in Matthew seven verse thirteen and fourteen, enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And there are many who go by in it Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, there are few who find it. He’s not saying that you have to work hard to get to heaven, but he’s just saying that you have to be willing. It’s hard in this sense.
It’s hard to put your pride aside, and it’s hard to humble yourself before god almighty and say, I’m a sinner. When I witness to people, that’s the number one pushback I get. When I explain to them they’re a sinner in need of a savior, they’re like, I’m not a sinner. And they start telling me all their achievements. But friends, the only way to heaven is to humble your heart before God.
Jesus said you have to trust like a child. That’s what Jesus meant. If you’re already a Christian today, I wanna encourage you to think about those three things at the end I told you about. And that is going to breakfast with someone or lunch with someone who’s unchurched and telling what God has done in your life. That is to invite someone to your home and tell them what God has done in your life.
That is to invite someone to church that doesn’t know Jesus. What a big impact that would make, not only upon our communities and our families, but our church family. For us to invite others to say, come and see Jesus. Well, God’s plans are never thwarted by the violence of any person, any politician, or any action of human beings. And even though the apostle faced a lot of pushback, and some of it was people who just were antagonistic towards Jesus Christ and the gospel, the apostle knew that God’s power would overcome, and he would be able to see its mighty work affect many lives as they receive Christ.
Now, I wanna encourage you to reach out to us through our website, and there you can contact us and let us know what your prayer requests are. We’re not only just proclaiming the word, but we wanna pray for you. We wanna help you with bringing your needs to God, and I hope that you’ll take advantage of that. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post Defending the Gospel Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Defending the Gospel Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 22 to 26.
How did I realize I needed Christ? For some of you, it could have been a tragedy in your life that God used to awaken your heart. For some people, we are so hard headed. The only way that they will ever look up is to be laying flat on their back. Hello.
This is pastor Mike Sanders. It’s time for Hope Worth Having radio program. Thank you for joining us. We’re in the book of Acts chapter 22, and we’re learning about how to defend the gospel. At the end of the book of Acts, what we see in the life of the apostle Paul is that he’s brought before kings and governors and different people, and he is defending his faith, and even though there are many who are against him, and that’s just the work of Christ, and so God was working in him and through him.
So I want you to join me as we study God’s Word together. Take your bible this morning and join me in Acts chapter 22. We’re going to begin a section in the book of Acts that leads all the way to chapter 26. Paul in acts chapter 22 through chapter 26, six times, he shares his testimony. He shares the good news of the gospel with unbelievers.
And that’s what you’re gonna witness as you go from chapter 22, 20 three, 20 four, 20 five, and 26. That’s what’s really going on. Now you remember those of you that have hung in there, you know that in chapter 21, at the end of the chapter, that the apostle has been arrested. He was in the temple in Jerusalem, and he was warned by his brothers and sisters in Christ through the power and the wisdom of the spirit of God, what he would endure. The warning was not to cause him to not go to Jerusalem, but it was just to prepare him as he went to Jerusalem.
So Paul is in Jerusalem, and he was told that he would be persecuted, and that he would face many trials in Jerusalem. And that’s exactly what he is experiencing here in chapter 22. So in your mind, I want you to understand that he is now getting ready to give a defense of the gospel. Let’s look at verse one of chapter 22. He says, brethren and fathers, hear my defense before you now.
And so this is the apostle giving a defense of the gospel. It is the second account that he has already given to us about his conversion of how he came to know the lord Jesus Christ. And the apostle teaches us and models for us how to share our testimony. We live in unique times, and there are many different adjectives that we could use to describe the times that we live in. But there is one thing for certain, that if ever there was a need for the lord Jesus Christ for people to come to Christ, it is even now.
Would Would you agree with that? I hope you would. And that’s gonna require you and me to be able to share our testimony, to be able to tell others about Jesus Christ. Remember that Peter taught us in first Peter chapter three verse 15 to sanctify Christ as lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, but with gentleness and respect. I don’t wanna spend a lot of time on this verse, but I do want you to highlight a few things here, and that is first that we are called to sanctify our hearts to Christ.
That means that we’re to set apart our lives for his service, for his ministry, for his calling, for the purpose that God has for us. Now you thought that maybe God called you to make a lot of money, and you thought maybe God called you to live life to the max and enjoy all the selfish desires that you might be able to exhibit in your life, but that’s not true. Christ has called you to live for him. Christ in me and me in Christ. My life is about him, and it’s about reaching others.
Remember, Luke taught us that Jesus came to seek and to save those who are lost. You say, why does God have me here? Well, there’s many, many reasons that we could articulate, but let’s get to the bottom line, and that is that you are here to help win people to Jesus Christ. And he says sanctify your hearts, and he says be ready. Be ready to give a defense.
The King James says have a reason. Have a reason. It’s the same Greek word that the apostle uses in verse one when he says, hear my defense. Hear my reason. Hear my defense of what I believe and why I believe it.
You and I are to be ready to give a defense. And notice he says, for the hope that is in you. You know, we’re in these uncertain times. We’re in these unique times. We’re in these difficult times.
And there’s so much that is shifting and changing in our culture that I’m certain that some of you have become frightened, but yet God has called us to be a hopeful people. He has called us to be a people who are filled with hope, and this hope should be so overflowing in our life that people ask the question to us. Why do you have so much hope? Because you saw that to everyone who asks. To everyone who asks, which begs the question this morning, are you living your life in such a way that people see the joy of the lord and the hope of Christ in you that they are asking, what is it that you have that I don’t have?
Because if your life is you’re discouraged, you’re upset, you’re angry, you’re defeated, you’re just gloom and doom, then I’m telling you, you’re not living Christ in you. And you’re not letting Christ manifest his great joy in your life. The hope that is in you with gentleness. We give this defense, not that we’re angry, not that we’re obnoxious, not that we’re hateful, but we’re gentle with unbelievers. We show respect to unbelievers.
We may not agree with them, and we may not embrace their lifestyle, but we are gentle and respectful in how we engage them in conversation, and we speak the truth to them, and we speak it in the love of the lord Jesus Christ, and this is what God has called us to do, church. And it’s a lot for us to think about. And I wanna teach you this morning about sharing your testimony with your friends and your family, and I wanna use the apostle Paul this morning as an example for us. And so I don’t want you to get too excited, but I only have two points this morning. Okay?
But I wanna tell you under every point, there’s like four or five other sub points. So don’t get too excited. But I’m just telling you, that’s all you gotta really focus on. The first thing in sharing your testimony or defending the gospel in this culture that God has called you to be in is to tell God’s story. It is to tell God’s story.
We pick up in verse two, and we notice that the scripture says that when they heard that he had spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they kept all the more silent. You see, the apostle was a man who knew many languages. He was very articulate. He was not this guy who was uneducated or some guy who was just, you know, flinging it from the hip, but rather he was very intelligent. He was well educated.
And so the bible says, he said, verse three, I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus Of Sicilia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our father’s law, and was zealous towards god as you all are today. I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, as also the high priest bears me witness and all the council of the elders from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished. He is telling God’s story. Now how is he doing that? How is the apostle doing that?
The first thing I want you to write down to help you with a template of your testimony. Write this down. What my life was like before I met Jesus Christ. What was my life like before I met Jesus Christ? By the way, this will all be in the app if you need help and you can’t keep up with pastor Mike because he talks too fast.
I understand. But what was Paul’s life like? He was a religious man. He tells us that in these verses. He was zealous for god, but he was zealous for god in the wrong way.
He was a persecutor of the church. He could not stand Christians. He was against them. He was well educated. We saw there in verse three that he was brought up in the city of Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel, and Gamaliel was a celebrated rabbi who was a person who had trained many young people and educated them.
He was like a mentor, and so the apostle was trying to say, look. This is who trained me. But notice he says, I persecuted the way. When he talks about the way, this is a reference to the faith, to those who love Jesus Christ, to those who are following the way. Remember Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes unto the father but by me.
So Jesus introduced this concept of the way. The early believers referred to themselves in the way or following the way. And so the apostle is taking time here, and he is saying to us in verse four, I persecuted this way to the death. I persecuted them. He was very much connecting with his audience.
His audience was a Jewish audience. They were unbelievers. They believed that the apostle had abandoned Moses and the law, and therefore, he was a heretic. He was someone who had departed from Judaism, and he was a man who needed to be persecuted. He was a man who needed to be punished.
What does Paul do? He takes the advantage to begin to share his life before he met Jesus Christ. Let me give you some things that can help you as you’re trying to develop your testimony, and you’re trying to say how can I relate to my audience? Listen. If you’re gonna give your testimony to a teenager and to an adult, it’s gonna be a little bit different in this sense that you wanna be able to relate.
I know it’s hard for teenagers sometimes to believe that adults were once teenagers, but they were. They were. And so what are some things that’ll help you? Write these three things down. First of all, common circumstances.
I’m trying to think about my life before I knew Christ. Some things that I could relate to them. Maybe you were athletic. Maybe you were religious. Maybe you grew up in church, but you never knew Jesus Christ as your personal savior.
Maybe you were of a particular religion. Maybe you were Catholic. Maybe you were Episcopalian. Maybe you were Presbyterian. When you’re out there witnessing for Christ, there’s a lot of people who are religious, but they don’t know Jesus Christ.
Would you agree with that? Oh, yeah. They go to church and they show up every special day in the church, but they do not know the lord Jesus Christ as their savior. When I am trying to witness with someone, I want to find something that we have in common. A A common attitude as well is another thing you might wanna deal with.
Here’s what I’m talking about. Sometimes, I see people with maybe struggles in their life, anger in their heart, attitudes of resentment, attitudes of maybe feeling abandoned. And so you wanna try to identify with that. Maybe before you knew Christ, you had some of those same attitudes. Maybe your family circumstance led you to grow up with a lot of hurt and anger and disappointment in your heart, and you can relate and you can identify.
So you’ve got common circumstances, common attitudes. But how about this one? Common priorities. Think about what was your priorities before you knew Jesus. What was your priority before you came to Christ?
For me, my priority was to get up every day, and I was saved as a child. Praise God. But, yeah, I could look back at my life. My day, especially in the summer, was to get up. Now this is different.
It was back back in these days. We didn’t have video games. You ever heard of that? No video games. It’s a shocker.
I know. Hang on kids. Hang on teenagers. There was a time when there was no video games, and you say, what did you do with your time? We went outside.
We played football, baseball. My brother and I, we would play tennis. Anything we could find to do, if we found an old baseball, we would play baseball. We would call or we’d knock on every door of all the neighborhood kids, and we’re gonna meet over in the park and play football. And then we’d go home as soon as the sun went down or it was time for dinner, and that’s back in those days.
We’d ride our bikes. But what I’m trying to say to you is that what was a priority to me was just doing whatever Mike wanted was living his life and doing the things that were important to him. It was never to go to church. It was never to love God. It was never to read my bible.
These are the things that were important. For some of you before you came to Christ, your career was important to you. That’s all that mattered. For some of you, it was about trying to make as much money as you can. For some of you, it was just to do whatever I want.
I don’t want anybody to tell me what to do. All your life, your parents told you what to do, and you determined as soon as you got out of that house, nobody was gonna tell you what to do so you joined the army. Just teasing. But some of you did. So what we see in the apostle Paul is that he is relating to them in verses two through five.
He spoke their language. You see in verse two, he didn’t speak in terminologies that they couldn’t relate to. He was a very educated man, and he could have used fancy words, and he could have used different languages. Some of you, you talk over people. You talk down to people when you’re trying to witness.
Listen. You need to be where they’re at, and you need to remember the ground is level at the foot of the cross, and you just need to understand that you just speak a simple language. You don’t have to be profound. You don’t have to use big words. You don’t have to speak a language.
Now this is why I try to tell people so many of our young people, they have no clue about old English, thee and thou. They don’t even know what you’re talking about. Okay? And that’s why I’m okay. I give them a bible that’s translated from the scriptures, from the original manuscripts, and I give them a bible in today’s English.
Now, I know that upsets some of you, and it just sets you off. Okay? But you gotta pull it together. And you gotta understand that when a missionary goes to another country, they speak the language of the people. And even in America, you think about I was thinking about the other day that my grandson was in my office, my youngest grandson, and he was playing with my mouse.
And I was thinking about, you know what? You think about a mouse. A mouse can be a little creature running around. Right? Running from the cats.
But here’s what I want you to know. Look at that word mouse. Look. It changed. Now if I said a mouse to a young person, they’d think about a little clicker on a computer.
Do you understand? Some of you are falling apart. Don’t worry. I’m with you. I’ll help you.
But language changes. Some of you are mad because I go to Cracker Barrel. Look. I can’t boycott everybody. Okay?
I already told you this. If meat offered to idols bothers you, pull it together. Don’t do it. But it doesn’t bother me. Okay?
And even though the bacon may be offered to idols, I’m still enjoying every bit of it. Okay? I know that frustrates some of you. It’s okay. You’ll be okay.
Just show me in the bible where I’m wrong, and I’m glad to change. But until then, what I want you to remember in your testimony is that you wanna relate to people. You wanna talk about common circumstances, common attitudes. You wanna talk about common priorities, things that were important to you. That’s what my life was like.
Now what’s the second part of my testimony that we’re gonna see the apostle give is how I realized I needed Jesus Christ. You see, we pick up in verse six, and the apostle shares how Jesus interrupted his life. Would you notice that now it happened as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shown around me, and I fell to the ground. And I heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So I answered, who are you, lord?
And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting. And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of him who spoke to me. So I said, what shall I do, lord? And the lord said to me, arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all the things which are appointed for you to do. How did I come to that point where I realized I needed Christ?
For some of you, it could have been a tragedy in your life that God used to awaken your heart, to turn you towards him. For some people, we are so hard headed. I put myself in there with you. So if I’m making you mad, I’m making Mike mad too. But we’re so hard headed.
How many of you know some hard headed people? Amen? Now quit ladies elbowing your husband. But we have some hard headed people, and and the Lord knows who they are. And the only way that they will ever look up is to be laying flat on their back.
You see what I’m saying? God knows how to get our attention. God knows how to bring us back in alignment with him. Even as believers, sometimes we get apathetic in our faith and we begin to slide backwards in our faith and God brings a shocker to our life to wake us up so that we will be passionate for Christ. I want you to understand that God not only uses tragedies, but he uses transitions.
Your life is gonna be filled with transitions. How about that one? You’re gonna transition. We think about so many times our young people transition from high school into maybe the workforce or to college or to military or some tech school or whatever God is calling them to do, but they’re transitioning from a life where all they did is went to school every day, and now they’re transitioning into something different. And then one day, you might get married and there’s a new transition from a single life to a married life, and then you have children, and there’s a transition of a couple with no children to now a couple with children.
And then there’s a transition that the kids, they wanna play sports, they wanna dance, they wanna do music, and you’re like a tax minivan. And now you’re driving this minivan and you’re dropping all the kids off to soccer practice and you’re dropping them off to drama class, whatever it is that they do, and you’re in that transition. And then guess what? The kids grow up and they leave. And then you look at each other as a husband and wife, and you say, who are you?
Oh, that’s my spouse. I’ve been living so much trying to get everything taken care of for the kids, and now the kids are gone. And I just realized I have a spouse. And so now you’re in that transition. And some of you are in the transition that your spouse is in heaven.
And now you’re living without your spouse. Some of you might be in a transition that your children are getting married. Or maybe you’re in the transition of grandchildren, and some of you are in the transition of great grandchildren. And I thought all grandchildren were great. And here we are, we go through life and we have new chapters in our life and we have new transitions in our life, and God uses transitions to get your attention.
And you may be going through a transition right now, And God’s trying to get your attention. And what I want you to do when you’re sharing your testimony is maybe share a little bit about how God used a transition, a change in your life that brought you to him. Another way that God gets our attention is not only through tragedies and not only through transitions, but through triumphs. You get a job promotion. You’re so overwhelmed with being blessed by God.
Or maybe God blesses you with children and you’re so overwhelmed being blessed by God. God uses triumphs in our lives, things that we accomplish. We recognize that we could never do it without Christ. And if it wasn’t His good work in us and through us that God just humbles our heart. We’re so filled with His grace that we just wanna give Him glory and honor, and it spurs within us a desire to recognize Him and to be more passionate for Him, and to live a life that is expressing gratefulness to Him.
God uses these times in our life to get our attention, and that’s what your testimony needs to be a part of. So the first part of my testimony is what my life was like before I knew Christ, how I realized that I needed Christ. There are significant steps, perhaps, things that God did to get our attention. But then, I want you to notice the next part of my testimony is how I committed my life to Christ. Isn’t what the apostle did?
He got down on his knee. He was a religious man. He thought he was doing the right thing. He was persecuting the church. He was going into people’s homes, dragging them out, dragging them to Jerusalem.
He was even a part of the death of some Christians, and God knocked him off his high horse, shown a light around him. Now not all of our experiences are as dramatic as what happened for Saul. It could be, but what I’m trying to say to you is that this powerful light shined on him, knocked him off his high horse. He landed on the ground, and the bible says in verse nine that those that were with him, they saw the light. They were afraid, but they didn’t hear the voice.
But Paul did, at that time, Saul, and he said, what shall I do, Lord? What shall I do? And here we see in this presentation is Saul is accepting Christ as the lord. For Christ has already told him back in verse seven and eight, here’s what you’re doing. You’re persecuting me.
When you persecute the church, Jesus takes it personal. When you attack the people of God, Jesus takes it personal. Be careful, brothers and sisters in Christ. When you condemn your brothers and sisters in Christ, be careful to judge your brothers and sisters in Christ. Be careful to come after your brothers and sisters in Christ because when you attack the church, the people of God, you are attacking Jesus Christ himself.
For the bible says that the church is the bride of Christ. The church is the body of Christ. So let’s be a little bit more cautious in what we say, and remember that Jesus takes it personal. And so the apostle wants to know what is he supposed to do. He is given instructions, and the apostle now is recognizing him as lord and calling him lord, his savior, his king, his God, his lord.
And he says, what shall I do, lord? And the lord said to me, in verse 10, arise and go to Damascus. And so that’s what the apostle did. He committed his life to Christ. You see, friends, part of your testimony is telling people how you committed your life to Christ.
Not only the circumstances that brought about you realizing that you needed Christ, but how did you commit yourself to Christ? Many many years ago, when I first came to the Open Door Church, one of our members had passed away. And I just it’s so vivid in my mind, and I’ve told you this before, but I just keep thinking about it sometimes about how we sat down with the family to plan the funeral service, and the children said to me, we don’t want you telling people how to be saved. And that caught me off guard because I’d never in my life ever had anybody tell me. They tell me just the opposite.
Just the opposite. Make sure you tell them how to be saved, pastor. Make sure you tell them to be ready because we never know when our number is called. We never know when it’s time to go. Right?
So we gotta make sure that we’re ready for Christ, but this particular child, adult child, did not want me to share the fact that people are sinners and needed to be saved, and Jesus Christ was the savior of the world, and that he could save them from their sins. So the spirit of God just gave me the wisdom is all I can say because I don’t know. It just popped in my head. And I said to her, can I share your dad’s faith? Well, that’s about dad.
Sure. Go ahead. Tell him how dad lived his life. Well, here, let me tell you something. I shared how he came to Christ, and I told him the way he got saved is the way you get saved.
Amen? Yes. Now it’s too late once the pastor’s up there. Okay? What are they gonna do now?
What are they gonna do now? But here’s what I wanna tell you, is how you committed your life to Christ. You may have expressed it with different words. You may have expressed it at different times or seasons of your life, but how you committed your life to Christ is how they are to commit their life to Jesus. Some of you are worried about sharing your testimony because you think, man, I don’t know enough bible verse, I don’t know enough theology, and I can’t answer all the questions that might be shared, but listen to me friends.
Don’t underestimate the power of a testimony because God can use your testimony to help somebody relate to you and to understand how God is trying to get their attention, and they need to give their life to Christ, and you’re being that example. And you’re showing them how you came to Christ, how you humbled your heart before God. It could have been in a service. It could have been in a tent revival. It could have been at your home.
It could have been at a, coffee shop. It could have been anywhere, any place, because God has no limitations where he’ll save somebody. Amen? Some of you today may not even know Jesus Christ as your savior, and you hear the gospel shared, and you wanna be saved, but you don’t respond. Well, Friends, you can respond in your home.
You can respond while you’re driving down a road. Just keep your eyes open. You can respond. We’re going to have times where we are called to defend what we believe. That’s why it’s important for us to know what we believe, why we believe it.
And you gotta know the word of God. You gotta be in the word of God. The apostle Paul stands as an example for us. He was a man who could defend the gospel and defend the life of Christ and the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ, and he was not ashamed of the gospel for he recognized it as the power of God unto salvation. And I hope that’ll be true in your life and that you will take that opportunity to continue to saturate yourself in the word of God so you can be a fierce defender of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I want to encourage you to make sure that you sign up for our newsletter. You can go to our website, hopeworthhaving.com. Sign up for the newsletter, and that’ll can either be mailed right to your mailbox or it can come into your email box, whichever you prefer. Take advantage of that, and I know you’ll be blessed. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post Defending the Gospel Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on I Know That My Redeemer Lives (Easter Sunday). He will be reading out of Job 19: 25-26.
And Job just says, okay. Maybe God is gonna slay me. Maybe God is punishing me. I don’t know. But no matter what God allows in my life or what God causes in my life, I will trust him.
I’m gonna ask you, whatever comes your way, will you still trust him? Hello. This is pastor Mike Sanders from the Hopeworth Having radio program. Thank you for taking time to listen in. Today, we’re gonna be in the book of Job as we are celebrating Easter.
You know, for the believer, Easter is really every Sunday. We celebrate the resurrection every Sunday, but we know there is that special time of the year that we really hone in, and we call it Easter, and we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. So today, we’re gonna be in Job 19, and we’re gonna be looking at two key verses, verse twenty five and twenty six, as we study I know that my redeemer lives. If you have your bible this morning, I want you to join me in the book of Job. Job chapter 19 verse 25 through 26 is our main text.
You may never have heard of Robert King Merton, the Columbia University sociologist. He died in 02/2003, but I’ll bet you have heard some of the phrases that he has coined like self fulfilling prophecy, unintended consequences, and it was Merton who coined the phrase role model to describe someone who would provide an example of positive behavior. Now the term may be fairly new, but the concept of being a role model is as old as the bible. If you want a role model of someone who has truly been transformed by the message of Easter, you will find that in the person of Job. The bible tells us in the book of James that Job is a role model for each one of us.
And despite Job’s intense tribulations and the unanswered questions that were in his heart, he verbally affirmed five times his commitment to the Lord. There were five great statements in the book of Job that were statements of faith, and they are planted like signposts as we read through it. We are reminded through the book of Job that when life is rough, and when we get to that point where we feel so emotionally defeated, that there are some true facts that sustain us and bring joy amid the storms in our life. We come to Job chapter 19 verse 25 through 26. Job declares, for I know that my redeemer lives and he shall stand at last on the earth.
And after my skin is destroyed, this I know that in my flesh, I shall see God. This confidence, this faith, this boldness that Job declares in the midst of his trials is rooted in his belief that the redeemer, Jesus Christ, is alive. In his heart, he was rooting everything in his future into the resurrection of a Messiah, and a future in which he would see God. So I want us to help see that manifested in the book of Job, and how that guides each of our hearts as we think about what is the big deal about the resurrection, and why is it that the church makes such a big deal about it? Well, let’s jump back to Job chapter one.
If you’ll just take your bible and go back. And I want you to see first of all this great statement that Job makes at the very outset of the book. And it is simply this, blessed be the name of the Lord. Now, when we come to the book of Job, many of you are very familiar with Job. And you know that the devil desired to stir up trouble in Job’s life.
The bible teaches us that Job was a righteous man. He was a blameless man. We look at verse one, it says, there was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless. He was upright. He was one who feared God, and he shunned evil.
The bible later teaches us that Job was a man who rose up early in the morning, and he would offer up sacrifices and prayers and worship to God. And that part of his prayers was that he was praying for his children. He was praying that God would protect them, that God would bless them, and that God would bestow grace upon them. Job was a man who was very dedicated in his faith, and he was very determined to meet God every morning and to worship the Lord. The bible tells us in Job chapter one that the devil decided to stir up trouble in Job’s life.
Let me remind you that no matter how righteous you are and how dedicated and devoted to your faith that you are, The devil is always looking, and the devil is always wanting to do everything he can to destroy our lives. He wants to trap us into sin, he wants to destroy our testimony, and he wants to set us back in our determination to live for Jesus Christ. And that’s exactly what the devil wanted to do for Job. The bible tells us that the devil was looking, and God said, have you considered my servant Job? The devil made the case to God that the only reason Job followed God was because of how much he was blessed.
How blessed was Job? Well, the scriptures tell us that he owned 7,000 sheep, he had 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 donkeys. He was a man who was not only blessed in his wealth, but he was a man who was blessed in his family. He had seven sons and three daughters. He was blessed in his faith.
He was considered to be upright and blameless and righteous. And in many ways, Job was a man who was rich. Not just rich materially, but he was rich in faith for God. And yet the Bible teaches us that the devil came in and began to stir up trouble in Job’s life. We learn as we read chapter one, and we don’t have time to read every verse this morning, that there came in one day in Job’s life that there was the loss of all his children, and there was the loss of all his wealth, and there was the loss of his own health.
And I want you to see in verse 20 of chapter one what is Job’s response in the midst of this great trial. Then Job arose, tore his robe, he shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said, naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Honestly, when you think about it, when you just kind of reflect upon all that happened to Job, and when you read this later, you’ll just be kind of just amazed. How is it that this man in the midst of his tears and grief and sorrow, and all that he has lost, would worship God. He would not only worship God, but the bible says that he would declare, blessed be the name of the Lord. It is easy for us to bless God and worship God when everything’s wonderful in our life. It’s easy to praise God when the bank account is full and all the bills are paid.
It’s easy to praise God when we have a job to go to tomorrow. But how many of us will praise God when we suffer loss? When we are hurting, and we are grieving, and we are struggling, and it’s hard for us to figure out the way forward? How many of us And I throw myself right in there, friends. How many of us would say blessed be the name of the Lord?
I think there were two things that helped Job to fight through the tears and the emotions. I don’t want you to think that Job was some robot and just kind of blurted it out, and he had no connection to his family. And that it wasn’t devastating to him. That he lost his family. He lost his health.
He lost all that he had and possessed. But I think first of all, Job had established a pattern of worshiping God every day in his life. That Job rose up and he made it a habit of his life. I know sometimes we might think that certain habits are bad and that’s true. But there’s also habits that are good.
They’re godly. And they instill within us character, and they develop, and they impact our hearts for God. And I think this is really at the heart of what is the maturity and the character of who Job is. He was a man who worshiped God. And even though his circumstances had changed, and everything was now so difficult in his life, Job still worshiped and praised God.
For you and me, it’s essential to remember that we build good habits in our life, because I’m gonna tell you my friends that life is not always easy. And there are many sorrows, and there are many sufferings that we encounter. We find ourselves on detours. We find ourselves in paths that are dry and difficult. We find ourselves in situations where there is much pain and there is hurt, and what is gonna be sustaining in your life is going to be the habit of faithfully worshiping God personally and spending time with him.
And that even though you cannot understand it and you cannot explain it, what comes out of your heart is a heart that blesses, praises, and worships God. Listen to me. It takes spiritual maturity for you to bless God in the pain. To be able to praise him through the pain. In the pain.
And I wanna tell you that your faith will be tested. The bible teaches us that. But we must learn to praise him. What else is it that helped Job to be able to say, blessed be the name of the Lord? I think it was his confidence and his belief that his redeemer lives.
I think it’s the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I think that he knows that we live in a world of sorrow and sadness, and that there are many struggles. But there’s a hope that one day my flesh shall see God and my redeemer lives. It is a sustaining force in the life of Job. Again, I know he’s hurting.
I know the tears are flooding. And you say, how do you know this? Just read the book of Job. But over and over again, Job is working through the grief. He is working through the pain and the tears are flowing from his eyes.
He literally says that like a river. But Job builds his hope on the truth and the fact of the resurrection. And you’re not gonna be able to say, blessed be the name of the Lord if your faith is rooted in emotions, or your faith is rooted in circumstances, or your faith is rooted only in good times, or your faith is, as long as I get these certain things from God, then I will follow him. The only way that you will mature beyond that is to say that no matter what, I’m gonna continue to worship the Lord. And blessed be the name of the Lord.
The second great statement that I want you to see in this book is in Job chapter two verse nine and ten. Shall we accept good and not bad? Look at verse nine of chapter two. Then his wife said to him, do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die.
But he said to her, you speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and shall we not accept adversity? In all this, Job did not sin with his lips. I don’t want you to be too hard on Job’s wife. I don’t want you to judge her and condemn her.
First of all, if you haven’t been there, I don’t think it’s good for us to quickly judge. Right? You can only imagine the heartache that she has of losing 10 children. You can only imagine the emotion. She brought those children into this world.
She nurtured them. She trained them. She loved them. She guided them, and she certainly influenced their life in a tremendous way. The bible says, she said curse God and die.
There are times that in our emotions of our adversities, that we express things through our lips and our hearts and our minds that don’t always truly reflect of what is true and perhaps even what we believe. I just feel like in the moment of the pressure, in the moment of the anger and the disappointment and the loss and the doubt that she just blurted out, Perhaps her and Job were talking and they were discussing of the why did all this happen. And she was looking to her husband for comforting consolation and perhaps that he could explain somehow why God would allow all this to take place in her life and their life together as a family. And Job was doing his best while he’s hurting himself, while he’s struggling, fumbling over his words, trying to console her. And she, out of anger, said, just curse God and die.
Listen, I want you to understand that God can handle our anger. He can handle when we don’t know what to say, or sometimes we say something that maybe we shouldn’t say. He can help us work through it. We are human. We are limited.
And we find ourselves be unable to reason the tragedy we’ve just experienced in our life. We live in a confusing world. We live in a world that is many times unreasonable. And so I certainly understand and I hear what Job’s wife is saying. Many times people have said, pastor, I’m angry at God.
And I look at them and I say, it’s okay. It’s okay to be angry at God. And they are kinda like in shock that I said this. God can handle your anger. There’s nothing that you have said or are thinking that God hasn’t heard before or knows what people think.
God knows your heart. God knows what you’re working through. God understands our finite abilities and how difficult it is for us to work through the emotions of something that is so tragic in our life. I want you to know that the sin is not anger. Now, if we let that anger lead us to reject God, to walk away from our faith, to give up in following God, that’s different.
The Bible says, be angry and sin not. Some of you are upset today because you’re missing your loved one and you’re missing that person that is so precious to you. And maybe as you are trying to work through that emotion, there’s a little bit of anger. Listen, God knows and God understands, and God created you with that anger. He created us with the emotion of anger.
Just like he created us with the emotion of joy, and he created us with these different emotions as humans. What he’s telling us is that we need to learn in our maturity, as we are growing in our faith, to channel our emotions in a direction that not only is glorifying to God, but is a blessing to others. Be angry and sin not. It’s a lot to work through. But what does Job’s response?
Where does God have Job in this moment? Again, Job says this. Shall we indeed accept good from God and shall we not accept adversity? So I want you to underscore that word accept because part of you working through your grief and your sorrow is learning that there are some things that whether we like it or not, we have to accept and we cannot change. I know.
Even me saying that is difficult to process. The devil has unleashed an attack upon Job. He is struggling. His body is going through a lot of health challenges. He has sores all over from head to foot, the Bible says.
He is very afflicted in his heart. He is grieving. He’s struggling. He’s trying to help his wife, and she’s questioning and wondering. And Job was a great man of faith.
The bible already declared that. Right? But Job’s faith was not rewarded with the healing of his own body. And Job’s faith did not lead to his children being protected. And Job’s faith did not protect his assets.
And here is Job struggling. Job would say later on in chapter five that man’s days are full of trouble. Here’s what I want you to know. You’re running around trying to get the answer. And you got well intended Christians who seem to always have the answer.
Have you met these Christians? They got the answer to every sorrow, to every suffering. And when you’re sharing your heart with them, they wanna share their sorrow and suffering, and they’re just messing it all up. They don’t understand that sometimes there’s not a good answer. Do you understand that?
That sometimes there’s not a reason that we can explain. We live in a flawed world. We live in a world where people are allowed to make choices. And sometimes those decisions lead to tragedy and a ripple effect that impacts other people who aren’t even maybe in the situation. Yesterday, I was just kind of reading about this New York City Police Officer that was murdered, and and I was following what his wife had shared at the funeral service yesterday.
And she made this statement, my husband’s death was senseless. She couldn’t understand it. She couldn’t come up with a good enough answer. And we say, well what if this and what if that? And again, we could go through all the what ifs we want, but here we are.
And that’s the way life is sometimes. That we have to be like Job and we have to accept the good and the bad. There is injustice in this world. There are things that don’t always seem to be fair. But we must learn to accept the things that are happening.
We certainly can remember that serenity prayer in which someone once wrote, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. This morning I wanna tell you, as I’ve said to you many times church, that the secret things belong to the Lord. And there are times we just have to accept and say, Lord, I’ll never know the answer. I’ll never understand the tragedy. I’ll never have a good enough reason that comforts my heart for why I’m experiencing this loss.
But I accept that here I am. And the key is how can I move forward? The third great statement that Job said is in Job chapter 13 and I want you to turn over there with me. Look at chapter 13 verse 15, though he slay me yet will I trust him even so I will defend my own ways before him. You might say, why would Job say that he would defend his own ways before God?
Well, from chapter four all the way through chapter 36, Job has to endure three friends who have all the answers. Do you have a lot of people trying to fix you instead of accept you? Job had them. They told Job that the reason he went through so much suffering is because he had some unconfessed sins in his life. How about that?
It wonderful to have friends who are spec finders? Jesus said to the Pharisees that you might wanna take care of the beam in your own eye before you take care of the specks in others. Right? Be careful when you’re out there trying to comfort God’s people, people in your family, or even people in the community. I remember the funeral director calling me and saying, Pastor Mike, can you get down here quickly?
We have a young lady who’s lost her baby. And I go in there, then she’s weeping, wailing. And she looks up and I introduce myself, and and she looks at me and she says, do not give me that God stuff. And I knew right then, this wasn’t the time to quote her 10 verses. I just listened to her.
I just asked questions, tried to understand where she was at and what the circumstances were, and offered my support and my help to help officiate the service. And I want you to know that it’s important for us as believers to be sensitive to the moment. There’s a lot of things that are true. Yes, I believe them. They’re in the bible, but the application is not the right timing.
How about this, the Bible tells us, a word fitly spoken. You do see what I’m saying? And so, there are times Christians, we are very much like Job’s friends and we think we got all the answers. And what we ought to do is spend the time listening, weeping, praying, and doing however we can to practically minister to them. But Job said in this verse, in the midst of his friends trying to point out all his faults, Job said, though he slay me, yet will I trust him.
Even so, I will defend my own ways before him. Meaning that his friends have found everything wrong with him, and why he’s going through, and they claim to know all the reasons why he’s going through tragedy. And Job just declares in faith, he says, even though he slays me, I’m gonna trust him, and I will defend myself before that his possessions are gone? Isn’t it enough that he is having health challenges? And now his friends pile on top of him?
And Job just says, okay, maybe God is gonna slay me. Maybe God is punishing me. I don’t know. But no matter what God allows in my life or what God causes in my life, I will trust him. I wanna ask him, whatever comes your way, will you still trust him?
The broken relationships, the setbacks, the disappointments. Will you still trust God? Will you still faithfully follow the Lord? Well, let’s hurry up and get to that fourth statement. But the fourth is the most encouraging, and the fifth gives us guidance as we leave today.
We go to chapter 19. I already read it to you, but I just again wanna bring it to your attention because I wanna take it a little bit further. Chapter 19 verse 23, and note again that Job says, I know that my redeemer lives. Verse 23, oh that my words were written, oh that they were inscribed in a book, that they were engraved on a rock with an iron pen and lead forever. For I know that my redeemer lives, and he shall stand at last on the earth.
And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I will see God. Look at verse 27. Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold and not another. How my heart yearns within me. That last phrase, how my heart yearns within me.
The idea of the word is actually being overwhelmed. So what Job is saying is that I’m overwhelmed with my circumstances. I’m overwhelmed with what I’m experiencing. He’s just being honest with God. He’s being transparent.
He’s just being true to who he is and he’s being real with God. He’s not pretending. He’s not being fake, but he’s rooting his hope. He’s rooting his trust in the fact that he knows that his redeemer lives. Did you see that phrase there several times?
Verse 25, I know. And then we come down and we see again that he says in verse 26, this I know. You’ll never be able to move forward in your faith if you’re rooting your faith in feelings. Our feelings are up and down. Our emotions are good one day, bad another.
I wanna give you a piece of advice that’ll help you. Somebody should have told it to you a long time ago. And parents, please tell your children everything you feel is not true. And everything you think is not true. Sometimes you and I feel and think things.
We’ve convinced ourselves and it has been destructive to our life. But Job goes back and he says, this is what I know. And I wanna encourage you to go back to what you know to be true based upon the word of God. And Job’s hope is that he knows his redeemer lives. And because his redeemer lives, Job knows that he will live.
And he knows that his flesh will see God. We know as we’ve taught you before that when our body is placed into the ground, death is the idea of separation. The soul and spirit is separated from God. The body is placed into the ground and that the soul and spirit is immediately in the presence of God. And the bible tells us that there’s coming a day when the dead in Christ shall rise.
That body that has been decayed, that has turned ashes to ashes and dust to dust, that body God will recreate into a new, glorified body, and the soul and spirit are reunited, and your flesh, your body in this glorified body will see God again. And that’s not only true for all who believe in Jesus Christ, but that is true for all of our loved ones who have preceded us in death. That they will resurrect. Listen to what the psalmist said. The Lord redeems the soul of his servant and none of those who trust in him shall be condemned.
The psalmist understood what Job was affirming that his redeemer lives. The word redeemer in the old testament means to be a vindicator. To be a vindicator, an advocate. And in the old testament setting, there was the responsibility of the closest undertake the cause of a family member, and defend them. Job realized that there was one in heaven.
Job realized that there was one in heaven who would acquit him of all the charges of his friends, and all the charges of the world, and all the charges of the devil, who is an accuser of the brethren, Job knew that there was one who would be his redeemer, and that redeemer, the messiah, Job, unlike us, he looked forward to a messiah, and he looked to that messiah vindicator. Perhaps the greatest truth that verifies Christianity is that Jesus Christ lives. And because he lives, we also have the hope of a future and an eternal life with Jesus Christ forever and ever. And in a real way, his resurrection is our resurrection. He was the prototype.
He was the first fruits, and therefore, we shall live again because he lives. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post I Know That My Redeemer Lives (Easter Sunday) first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on What to do When Things go Wrong Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 21:17-40.
Everybody is our mission field. We’re to reach him for Christ, but trust God that he has a purpose. He has a plan. I’m sure as the apostle is going through the beatings, I’m sure that in his mind, he’s looking to God and saying, lord, I’m just gonna put my confidence in you. I don’t know why all this is happening, but I trust you, God.
Hello. This is pastor Mike Sanders, and I’m delighted to welcome you to the Hopeworth Having radio program this week. And today, we are going to be in the book of Acts chapter 21, and we’re gonna be covering verses 17 through 40, what to do when things go wrong. What do we do? We look at the narrative of the apostle Paul as he was out spreading the gospel, and you and I can learn some valuable insights.
What do we do when everything’s going wrong in our life, and how do we keep moving forward for Jesus Christ. So let’s get our Bibles, and let’s get into the word of God. It’s easy for us as believers to get distracted on details, to get distracted on preferences, to get distracted on personalities, to get distracted on politics, and allow these little things in this life to divide us as believers when God wants us to be united rejoicing and celebrating and giving glory to him because people are being saved. Now what we see in first Corinthians chapter nine in verse 20 is that Paul makes the principle of why he would do this. Listen to what he says.
To the Jews, I became as a Jew. In order to what? Win Jews. To those under the law, I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law that I might win those under the law. So what you’re gonna read next as you take time, because we can’t do it all today, is that the apostle takes on this Nazarite vow, and he is willing to do it to show and demonstrate that he understands, he relates, and he wants to connect with the Jewish people and help them to know that the gospel is true.
And so through his act, through his act of being willing to take on this Nazarite vow, he relieves or alleviates the tensions, and he begins to show unity in the church of Christ. Now one of the things you’re gonna learn as a believer, if you haven’t already learned yet, is that Christians do not always agree with each other. Can God’s people say amen? How about that? Well, that’s a shocker.
Christians don’t always agree with one another. But you see, God does not want us to focus on our differences. He wants us to focus on what we are united about. What I’m saying is that when you’re going through tough times in your life, when things seem to be going wrong, one of the things is get back to the main thing, To get back to the big picture. Not to allow the devil to distract the unity of Christ, the body of Christ, the fellowship of Christ.
Now sometimes, we all have different opinions and we say, well, we think you ought to do this or we think you ought not to do that, and we have all these lists of things, what I call the do’s and don’ts of Christianity. And you know, the Pharisees were like that. They had more rules than even the bible had. I tell people I’m just trying to keep up with the top 10, amen? Just trying to keep up with the top 10, but some people have they have 20, they have 50, they have a hundred.
The Pharisees had over 600 rules on top of the Bible. How about that? 600. Some of you say, well that’s nothing, my mother had over 700. That’s fine.
I wanna teach you a valuable principle as a Christian, is that you need to learn to draw the line where the bible draws the line, but don’t draw the line where the bible doesn’t draw the line. Don’t draw the line where the bible doesn’t draw the line. You may disagree with it. It may not be your style. It might not be your way.
It may not be your preference. It may not be your opinion, but that’s okay because there is diversity in the family of God and we gotta recognize that God is working in different cultures, different groups, and he is reaching people for the glory of God so that people will be saved. What works in America doesn’t always work in another country. What works in Franklin County, Pennsylvania doesn’t always work in another state. How about that one?
Yeah. I pastored two churches, one in Indiana and here, and the things that work there, I tried them here and they all fell flat because people are different wherever you go. You ever thought that one out? So what do we do when we disagree? I wanna give you four questions to ask yourself.
When you disagree with someone or you’re trying to figure out what’s right or wrong, here are four questions for you to consider. All these questions come out of one Corinthians chapter eight, they’re principles that are taught in one Corinthians chapter eight, and in that chapter the believers were divided over whether they should eat meat that is offered to idols. They were divided about that. The Jewish believers said, absolutely not. We’re not gonna eat meat offered to idols.
The Gentile believers said, it’s no big deal. The meat’s cheaper and it tastes pretty good and it came off the grill and we’re gonna consume us some good country steak. Amen? What was causing division in the church? You say, well pastor, we’re not worried about that, I know.
But see, some in the church they ask me, well pastor, what do you think about boycotting this store or boycotting that store? What do you think about all that pastor? You know what I tell people? I don’t boycott. Now that’s Mike Sanders.
There’s nothing in the bible that says boycott Target. Did you know that? There’s nothing in the bible that says boycott Starbucks. There’s nothing in the bible that says boycott whatever store you’re thinking about. But yet for some Christians, that’s important.
I want to lay out for you some guiding principles to help you relate and understand, because the reason I don’t boycott is because I think I’m gonna end up boycotting everybody, I’m gonna live on an island by myself and nobody is gonna come see me and I’m gonna be by myself and I can’t handle that. Amen? I mean when are we gonna stop boycotting? And where does it start? You know, I go over here and I use this and, uh-oh, it’s connected five generations back to something that I don’t like.
You know, I told you church one time, one lady, she challenged me on this, she was upset that I said that, and I showed her and proved it to her, but the point being is this, that you know that the tie, the tie, you know people used to wear ties in church. You ever heard of that? Tallon did. Tallon’s got a nice tie. He’s looking better than the pastor this morning.
How about that? But did you know the tie originated? People wore them to keep evil spirits away. And yet if I don’t wear a tie, you know, there’s gonna be a few of you just upset. They can’t believe the pastor’s not wearing a tie today.
Now some of you, you gave up the battle a long time ago. You’re okay with it. Alright? But here’s what I’m saying. Maybe we ought to boycott ties.
You know what I’m saying? We ought to boycott ties because they were connected to evil spirits. And some of you are saying, amen, let’s get rid of the tie. You know what I’m saying? You just, you know, you go all of a sudden everything’s connected to something that you don’t like.
How about that? But let me give you some principles that’ll help you when you’re trying to make a decision on what should I do this or not do this, and it’s not spelled out in the Bible, but how do I make good decisions? The first question and I want you to write this down. Please write this down because it’ll be a blessing to you. Will I become spiritually prideful if I do or don’t do this decision?
Let me tell you what I mean by that is that some people think that the society sins are worse than their sins. Have you ever met people like that? They’re self righteous and they like to point out everybody else’s problems and everybody else’s sin, but they got their own issues they need to deal with. Right? Jesus said, before you take care of the speck in somebody else’s eye, why don’t you take care of the beam that’s hanging out your own eye?
Hello? Hello? And so you’re all worried about this and you’re all worried about that and you’re all worried about society’s ills. Let me say something to you, whatever decision you make is between you and God, it’s up to you. Make sure it doesn’t lead you to think you’re better and that you’re somehow above others.
The ground is level at the foot of the cross. And the truth is we’re all sinners in need of a savior. And we all need the gospel and we all need God’s work in our heart and we all need that. So we can’t get to that point where we think we’re above and better than others, so I don’t wanna be spiritually prideful. If this decision is gonna make me look down upon others and it’s gonna cause me to think I’m better than others, then I’m out.
The second question, are we setting the right example to others? Now there may be many things that we can do as believers. Paul didn’t have to go get a Nazarite vow, he didn’t have to shave his head and take on this Nazarite vow, but he wanted to reach people. He wanted to be an example to the new believers in Judaism. Does that mean you need to take on the Nazarite vow?
No. I mean it might help some of you by the way. Some of you need a nice good clean haircut, amen? You say, Pastor, why are you worried about our hair? Because I don’t have any and so I gotta pick on something, right?
I’m just teasing. But he took the Nazarite vow. Sometimes in life, there are things I do or things I don’t do because I want to be an example to other believers. I wanna be an example to the young people. I wanna be an example to the children.
I wanna be an example to the students up at Cumberland Valley Christian School. And I’ll give you an example that Terry and I, we abstain from alcohol. I don’t want to be that guy who is taking down some alcohol and a little kid walks in and say, there’s pastor Mike. He’s he’s drinking, whatever alcohol is out there. Right?
Now I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you what Mike does because I wanna be an example to my responsibilities and roles here as a pastor. A third question, will I cause someone else to stumble? In my decision making, will I cause someone else to stumble in their faith? Yeah.
I know it’s not wrong, and I know you can do this, and I know there’s nothing in the Bible about it, but will it cause someone else to stumble? Paul says to the believers, listen, if eating meat offered to an idol causes someone to stumble in their faith when I’m around them, I just won’t do it. You say, is that a duplicit life? Is that a double standard? No.
He’s just saying, I don’t wanna be a stumbling block. You see, we have choices in life, and you can either be a stepping stone or you can be a stumbling block. You have to choose and every decision is a result of that. And so as you mature in your faith, as you get stronger in your faith, you begin to make decisions that you’re saying to yourself, is this a stumbling block to other people? When you become a parent, you say, well, I better not do that because, you know, I don’t want my kids to start, you know, like some of the things you guys say.
Some of the ways you talk. These little kids, have you noticed these little kids? They repeat everything you say. Right? Somebody cuts you off in the road and you start yelling at them as if they can hear you through the car window, and you’re yelling at them and the next thing you know your little guy is repeating exactly what you said.
You see? Are you a stumbling block or a stepping stone? You have to ask yourself that. Here’s the last question, am I building others up in their faith? You see, the apostle says this and he makes a quote.
He quotes a famous poet or philosopher of that day, all things are lawful, but not all things are edifying. Not all things are helpful. Not all things are helpful. Is this helping? Is this building other people up?
Or is it tearing them down? So as I walk through the process of making decisions, should I do this or should I not do that? Listen, my friends, these are the questions I ask myself to help make a godly decision, an honorable decision, a mature decision. But I always feel like this, that when the decision is made, again, remember what I taught you, that you draw the line where the Bible draws the line. No if, ands, or buts.
Pastor’s not backing down. But where the bible doesn’t draw the line, don’t draw the line. How do you make a decision? Use those four questions to guide you in making the decision of what you believe is best. Stay focused on the big picture.
Do not participate in creating more division. Do not participate in trying to cause more harm in the family of God, but always stay focused on what can we do. And even if it means to sacrifice our own preferences and our own opinions that we do what we can so we can reach more people for the lord Jesus Christ. That’s what you see taking place in chapter 21 verse 17 all the way through verse 26. Now the second thing I want you to learn is that you have to trust god in the uncertainty of life.
In verse 27, let’s just pick up there of chapter 21. Now when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews from Asia seeing him in the temple, that is they saw Paul, the apostle in the temple, they stirred up the whole crowd and they laid hands on him, crying out, men of Israel, help. This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against the people, the law, and this place. And furthermore, he has also brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled his holy place. Again, none of these are true.
None of these accusations are true, but here is Paul in the midst of a riot. He is in the midst of dealing with something that has been incited by others and false reports that are circulating and agitators who are trying to stir up problems, and they are trying to cause people to turn against the apostle. And here we see that he goes through these difficulties. We jump down to verse 30, the Bible says in chapter 21, and all the city was disturbed and the people ran together, seized Paul. They dragged him out of the temple and immediately the doors were shut.
Now as they were seeking to kill him, news came to the commander of the garrison that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. He immediately took soldiers and centurions and he ran down to them. And when they saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. So So what’s the apostle going through? He’s going through persecution.
He’s going through physically people are punishing him for what they believe that he is doing, and they are trying to cause problems. And here, the apostle, for just simply trying to be a blessing to the church at Jerusalem and simply taking on a vow so that he could reach more Jewish people, he is being beat up. He’s being maligned, he’s being mischaracterized, he is being persecuted. That’s what’s going on. Because Satan has one plan and that is to destroy the work of God.
He wants to damn every soul. He wants to make sure that people do not go to heaven, but that they go to hell. He wants to drag people there, and he wants to cause as much chaos in this world as he can. Jesus reminds us that part of the signs of the times in the midst before the coming of his return to this earth, he said to his disciples, then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you and you shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. Some of you are trying to figure out what’s going on in this world.
Friends, we we are moving quickly to the return of Jesus. And let me tell you, it’s not gonna get better. It’s gonna get worse. You say, how do you know? Because I just read the words of Christ.
You are witnessing and I want you to note something. This stood out to me in my studies. He said, you’ll be hated of all nations. Not just certain, but all nations. Every nation on this planet is going to hate Christians, hate believers.
We’re gonna find out who the true Christians are when it cost you, when you have to suffer for the cause of Christ, when you have to stand up for the cause of Christ and people are pushing back on you and they’re trying to create havoc and chaos in your life just because you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, then my friends, that is going to thin out the crowd and we’re gonna find out who truly loves the lord Jesus Christ. Amen? It will. It definitely will. But these are the signs of the times.
The apostle reminded Timothy, the young pastor, he said, indeed, all who want to live a godly way in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. We’re all gonna face persecution if we stand up for Christ. If we try to live for God, there are gonna be those who want to destroy us like they’re doing here with the apostle. You can take time to apostle. You can take time to read it later, but the Bible says if it wasn’t for the intervention of these particular soldiers, they would have kept on beating Paul, probably to his death.
He probably would have died. I want you to know in this Christian life that we live that there are times you will be falsely accused. You will be persecuted. You will be mischaracterized. You will be lied about, and people will do everything they can to discredit the gospel of Jesus Christ and to discredit your testimony and try to hinder the work that you’re trying to do for Jesus Christ.
That’s why I said you have to trust God. You see so much uncertainty out there? Trust God. Don’t get angry at people. Don’t get angry at the world.
That’s a mistake. Listen. Everybody is our mission field. We’re to reach him for Christ. Don’t get mad and upset, but trust God that he has a purpose.
He has a plan. I’m sure as the apostle has taken the whooping, and as he’s taken the persecution, as he’s going through the beatings, I’m sure that in his mind, he’s looking to God and saying, lord, I’m just gonna put my confidence in you. I don’t know why all this is happening, and I don’t understand the fullness of everything that is coming together here, but I trust you, god, that you are at work and hear me. Hear me. Remember, the suffering savior, Jesus Christ, is with all of us even as we suffer, even as we struggle in life, even as we hurt, and even as sometimes we find ourselves in difficult situations.
Some of you, your family has rejected you because of your faith in Christ. Some of you have lost jobs because of your faith in Christ. Some of you, you have lost friends because of your commitment and loyalty to the gospel of Jesus. You do not suffer alone. Christ is with you.
The third thing and final thing that I want you to learn this morning, and I want you to see Paul’s response, is that we are to take advantage of the opportunity even when there’s uncertainty, even when there is adversity in our life. I want you to come down to verse 37, and I want you to see how Paul responds to all this. Then as Paul was about to be led into the barracks, he said to the commander, may I speak to you? He replied, can you speak Greek? Now it wasn’t a question of inquisitive in the sense of, hey, are you able to speak this particular language?
Because Paul had already spoken that language. Paul was very fluent in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic. He knew all these three languages, a very intelligent man. He was well educated as the scriptures have already taught us. But it’s like they heard, this commander heard Paul speak in Greek and he’s like, you speak in Greek?
You speak in Greek? You can understand me and I can understand you? That’s what he’s trying to say here. And so then verse 38, he says, are you not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a rebellion and led the 4,000 assassins out into the wilderness? Josephus, who was a historian at the time of the writing of the Bible, refers to this particular individual who claimed to be the Messiah, and he claimed that he had all the answers.
And it turned out that he led a rebellion and a revolt against the Roman Empire, which led to many of his followers being killed in the wilderness. So Paul was misidentified. They thought maybe this is who he was, but Paul said in verse 39, I am a Jew from Tarsus and Sicilia, a citizen of no means city. What that literally means is of a very prominent city. The city of Tarsus was a city known for its universities, its education, its colleges.
It was an elite city. It was populated by intelligent people who were highly educated. Paul is not bragging. He’s just trying to get an audience. He’s just saying, hey.
I’m from Tarsus. I’m from this great, great city. And he goes on in verse 39 to say, I implore you, permit me or allow me to speak to the people. So when he had given him permission, Paul stood on the stairs, he motioned with his hands to the people, and when there was a great silence, he spoke to them in Hebrew language. Don’t worry, I’m not going to chapter 22 yet.
But here’s what I want you to see out of this. Why would Paul ask to speak to the people? They just beat him up. He was saved barely by an unbeliever. The commander who was not a follower of Christ plucked Paul out of the mess.
He was getting ready to throw him into jail. Paul says, would you let me talk to them? He’s like, dude, you can speak Greek? He’s like, yeah. Paul not only knew Greek, he knew Hebrew, he knew Aramaic as we already stated, he could speak different languages and so the guy’s like, sure, go ahead, speak to them.
Paul uses his circumstances as an opportunity. He uses the opportunity to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s what chapter 22 is all about, is that he takes the opportunity. Listen. I want you to know that all of us are gonna face adversity and persecutions, and we’re gonna find ourselves in tough times and difficult situations.
You have got to have the viewpoint, the mindset as a believer, I’m gonna use this to advance the cause of Jesus. You can be like Elijah who sat under a juniper tree and said, woe is me. I’m the only one trying to live for God, and I’m gonna give up and quit. And he just wanted pity. He just wanted people to cry over him.
He just wanted people to feel sorry for him, or you can be like the apostle who said, wait a minute, and now listen, these beatings were not just easy beatings, it wasn’t just like a little tap on the behind, but rather he spells it out in second Corinthians that they were lashing him. They were lashing him and at the end of those lashes were stones that would rip into his body and tear his skin apart. And so Paul having experienced all this, having gone through such suffering and such pain and persecution says, I want to talk to the people. Wow. When is the last time that you took advantage of the opportunity when things weren’t going right in your life to be a witness for God.
Some of you will eventually hear the word cancer from the doctor. Could be me, could be you, could be any of us, but the question is, are we gonna pout or are we gonna get on this platform and tell those doctors about Jesus Christ? Are we gonna quit and give up and go into our corner? Or are we gonna say, god, you have allowed this, and I’m gonna take advantage of this opportunity to share Christ? Many of you know that I like football, and you know that I love the Dallas cowboys.
And I appreciate your prayers for my team. But I ran across this illustration that I thought would be helpful as we conclude this morning, is that a football can be kicked many times yet never break. The reason is it doesn’t break is that the pressure on the inside is greater than the pressure on the inside is greater than the pressure on the outside. Paul, the apostle, had something inside of him that was greater than his problems, greater than his sufferings, and greater than his sorrows, greater than his persecution that he was experiencing on the outside. The scriptures tell us in first John four four, greater is he that is Jesus that is in you than he that is Satan that is in the world.
The reason we can go through tough times and we can be kicked and we can be pushed back upon and we can be maligned and we can be criticized and we can have hurt and sorrow and sufferings and still not break is because greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. Well, if you’re a student of the Bible, you know that Acts 27 contains the detailed account of the apostles sea voyage to Rome. And, of course, as he is traveling on the sea, it’s a very dangerous part of the sea, and so he is facing a lot of problems. And, of course, eventually, there is a shipwreck and the whole ship falls apart, but the apostle deals with this storm. And in this, we can see that God gives us great principles.
So we started today learning what to do when trouble comes. And I hope that you and I can continue to grow and apply these principles because the truth is it’s not if, but when trouble comes. And so it’s a coming, and you gotta be ready, and you gotta have the faith, and you gotta be able to move forward, and you gotta keep your eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to remind you about our Hopeworth Having website, hopeworthhaving.com. Check us out on the website, and we always have wonderful things.
You can catch up with our newsletter, different things that are going on, as well as our messages are archived. So feel free to check them out, and, I know you’ll be encouraged. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post What to do When Things go Wrong Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Changing the World for the Gospel Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 17:1-10.
Our message is not social reform. Our message is not political reform. Our message is not we’re going to fix the world. Our message is the death, burial, and resurrection. Welcome to Hope Worth Having.
This is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church, and we are delighted to have you with us. Thank you for tuning in and being a part of the program today. We’re going to continue our study, Changing the World for the Gospel.
Acts 17 is our study. We’re pretty excited about learning how God worked in and through the apostles and how He can work in and through us today as we continue to impact people day by day. So let’s get our Bibles and let’s get into the Word today.
And if you have ever doubted whether God loves you, just look to the cross. The full manifestation of God’s love is demonstrated in that Christ gave His life and paid the penalty of sin for you and for me.
But we are not only called to be people who operate in the power of the Lord and the love of God, but of a sound mind. In the Greek, it has the idea of being balanced. We understand that sometimes we can get in that mindset that we are saying, what if?
What if? What if? And it only strangles us. It only causes us to be fearful. But a sound mind is a balanced mind operating in the constant faith and confidence that God is in charge. It does not call us to be foolish.
It does not call us to be reckless. It does not call us to abandon reason, but rather just the opposite. That if we are to be a courageous people that we must be a people who have a sound mind and that we operate in this faith that is balanced, a faith, a mindset that is based upon the truth rather than rumors, innuendos, or theories and philosophies that only end up to be a dead end road.
Now this call to be courage, to be courageous, we see in the apostle. I want you to go back to verse 2 and I want you to see that right at the outset it says that Paul as his custom was. What was his custom?
His custom was that he went to the synagogue. We come down to verse 10 and the Bible says again the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea and when they arrived they went into the synagogue.
of Jews. You see, this was the plan. This is how the apostle operated. He’s already faced opposition. He’s already been chased out of several communities because of the power of the gospel, has so upset those who do not believe the gospel that their very lives were threatened.
But does the apostle give up? Does he quit? Does he hang up and they say, I’m done. I’m not going to do this anymore? No, he shows great courage. He regroups, he huddles, and he gets back at the task.
He is on mission for God. He stays true to his calling, and he shows great courage by keep going back to the synagogue, going back to be a witness for God. One of the reasons many people do not witness is because they’re fearful of what people might do to them.
They are fearful of what might happen. But friends, God has called you and I to be bold and not operate in the fear of people. The Bible tells us that the apostle claimed to the Galatians that if he lived in the fear of people, that he would not be a true servant of God.
You have to understand that God has not called you to be a person who lives in the fear of others. We fear God. That’s a healthy fear. We revere God. We have all for God. We have great reverence for our God.
We recognize him as holy and righteous. We recognize him as high and lifted up in a mighty God. But when it comes to people, we operate in the power of God, the confidence of God, the strength of God, and we refuse to back down from the truth because we know that Jesus said the truth will set you free.
Yes, it will. all the boldness of Peter and John and perceive that they were uneducated, untrained men, they marveled and they realized that they had been with Jesus. That’s a key. That we are to be with Jesus and that this fuels the boldness and the courage.
God has not called you to be obnoxious, hateful, or rude, but He certainly has called you to be courageous, to take a stand for what is right and to speak up, stand up and do not be afraid of what the world can do to you.
The Apostle continued for the Lord despite great opposition and terrible persecution. People who do not understand the gospel sometimes react in emotional ways and they get very upset. Just jump down to verse 23 and I want you to see something here real quickly.
Verse 23 of chapter 17 of the book of Acts. here the apostle has stood up and he is helping them to understand that their religion will not save them but they happen to have this great list of idols or gods and one of them is named the unknown god so we pick up in verse 23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship I even found an altar with this inscription to the unknown god just in case we got the wrong god we got an unknown god to make up for the wrong god how about that one that’s the way they operated and so the apostle continues and says therefore the one whom you worship without knowing him I proclaim to you what a beautiful opportunity that the apostle takes in verse 24 says that god who made the world and everything in it since he is the lord of heaven and earth does not dwell in the temples that are made with hands now let’s jump down to verse 29 verse 29 therefore since we are of the offspring of god we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone something shaped by the art and man’s devising the apostle is trying to help them understand what it means to have a relationship with god and he’s not afraid to tell them in the midst of a large crowd in the midst of a dominant society that worships multiple gods and everybody pick your own religion and just in case we got the wrong religion we got one over here it’s a backup plan and it’s called the unknown god what does the apostle do he steps into the gap and he steps up into the vacuum and he speaks up and says hey this unknown god let me tell you about him his name is jesus christ that’s how powerful and courageous the apostle is so you might ask how do i build courage into my heart let me give you three things real quickly three things how do i I build courage into my heart,
pastor. God is calling me in these unique times to be courageous, like the apostle to speak up and stand up for him. Let me give you three things. First is faith. And when I say faith, I mean trust. I mean trust in God.
I mean trust in God. I want you to take your Bible this morning and I want you to jump back to the book of Psalms. Psalm 27, many of you know this wonderful passage of scripture, but I just wanna read a few of them.
Come with me to Psalm 27. There’s nothing like visualizing the reading of the scriptures. Psalm 27, we’re gonna read verse one through three together. I want you to make sure you mark this and take time to spend more time in Psalm 27 this week.
The Psalmist says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Whom shall I be afraid? afraid when the wicked come against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell.
Though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not what, church? The war may rise against me. In this, I will be confident.” Now there’s much more to be said and we certainly can’t take all of our time on this chapter but I want you to know that we are encouraged over and over in the Bible to have faith.
You could maybe say trust or even confidence. You gotta have confidence in God. You gotta have trust in God. Now the only way that I can have trust in God is get to know God, is to spend time in His word, it is to spend time in prayer, it is to have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
The more you know God, hear me, the more you’ll trust Him. Have you ever met someone the more you know them, the less you like them? I’m not talking about your spouses, okay? I’m sorry they didn’t tell you everything up front before you got married, but here we are.
But I just want you to know this, the more you know Jesus, the more you will love Him. You will never be disappointed. People will let you down in life but Jesus never does. And I wanna be real with you that there may be times that in my frailty and my selfishness and sinfulness that I may let you down, but Jesus will never let you down.
So I wanna encourage you to have that kind of faith. Here’s another one, how to build courage is purity in my life. It is purity. Again, I want you to take your Bible and go to 1 Peter chapter two. That’s in the back of the New Testament, certainly not in the book of Revelation but you can back up from the book of Revelation, 1 Peter chapter two.
Again, I want you to see this because I think it’s important in helping to build courage in our life, 1 Peter chapter two verse one and two. 1 Peter 2, verse 1 and 2, verse 1, therefore laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby.
You see, if my heart is filled with filth, if my heart is filled with sin, it’s hard for the milk, the purity of God’s word and His truth to infiltrate my heart. That’s why the Bible says lay some of those things aside, that malice, that bitterness, that deceit, that hypocrisy, that envy, that evil speaking about others, put it all aside, get it out of your life so that there’s plenty of room in your heart that the pure milk of the word of God,
there is nothing that will help build courage in your heart that win your heart. is in alignment with God almighty. You don’t want a heart that is filthy. You don’t want to have a heart that is dysfunctional.
You don’t want to have a heart that is tainted with the sins of the world. Rather, God has called us to keep short accounts with Him and to repent daily of any sin in our life and to make things right with God and to make Him right with others.
You will be more courageous when your conscience is living in a clear, pure way before God and before others. When you are making things right with others and making things right with God, He is gonna use you in a courageous way in your life.
Let me tell you a third way how to build courage in your heart, and that is through hope. That is through hope. Again, I know you’re tired, but hang in there with me. Romans, go to the book of Romans, right after the book of Acts, Romans chapter five.
You say, Pastor, can’t you just throw these verses up there? I think you’re getting a little lazy. So I’m gonna have you exercise your fingers today. Romans chapter five, I love this, verse one. Romans five, verse one, therefore having been justified by faith, not by works, not by religion, but by faith in Christ, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have accessed by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in what?
Hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations knowing that tribulations produce perseverance and perseverance, character, and character what? Hope. And if you didn’t know enough about hope, how about verse five?
Now hope does not disappoint. Doesn’t let you down. The hope of God. Because the love of God has been poured out into the hearts by the Holy Spirit. Spirit who has given to us. So these things help us build hope into our hearts.
The apostle was driven. He’s a driven man to carry the hope of the gospel to as many people as possible. It didn’t matter what he had to endure personally, physically, emotionally. He just wiped the dust off his feet and he just kept plowing forward for God.
I want to give you a second characteristic of those who changed the world, and that is a message, meaning the right message. We go back to Acts 17. You got to have the right message because there’s nothing more disheartening than someone to have the wrong message.
But the right message in verse 2 and 3, we see that the apostle spent time reasoning, explaining, and demonstrating what was the message that Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead. that Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.
Jump down to verse 11. He’s now in Berea, having been chased out of Thessalonica because of the riots. He’s now in Berea, verse 11, these were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica. How about those people?
In that they received the word with all readiness and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Therefore many of them believed and not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well, as men.
So he goes on to tell us that there was great results and why is there great results? Because there is the right message and the message for us church, hear me, our message is not social reform. Our message is not political reform.
Our message is not somehow that we’re going to fix the world. Our message is the death, burial, and resurrection. I know you want to fix people. I know you want to fix these things that exist, but hear me, you can’t.
Only God can change your heart. And God changes hearts through the power of the gospel. So it’s important that you understand that you have the right message because what a person believes determines everything that they become and do.
What a person believes, the Bible says, as a man thinks, so is he. My attitudes, they are the ones that drive my actions. My character influences my conduct. And so I want to make sure that my thoughts, my beliefs, they impact my behavior, and I want to make sure that those are in alignment with the right message.
We see that Paul explains. He proves. Paul does not just get up there and emotionally rattle off some kind of a new religion but ravage. he proves, he defends, he is the one who’s making sure that as he is explaining and reasoning with the unbelievers that all their questions are answered to prove that Christ did suffer and that he did die on a cross and he did rise again.
Now the natural response of the human heart is get out of here, that’s unbelievable. That’s unbelievable. But yet you and I are called to explain the scriptures and that’s the key, that when Paul was reasoning, when he was explaining, when he was demonstrating, he was using the scriptures to help people to understand because here’s what I want you to know, church, faith comes by hearing and hearing the what?
So do not underestimate the sufficiency of the Bible, do not underestimate the power of the Bible. Okay, you may try many other means to persuade minds, but they’ve all been tried and found wanting and the real truth and the real power is in the word of God.
So Paul’s message was logical and it addressed to the minds and the hearts of those who would listen. Do not be discouraged church, that as you are out there sharing this right message and what a profound time to be able to do that right now.
Yes, you will have some resistance. Yes, there will be opposition and there may be some people get hostile and upset, but friends, you keep telling the right message. God will work in hearts, He will open eyes and He will bring spiritual breakthrough in those who are responsive.
His plan, the apostle was wise. He first reached out to those who were already familiar with the scriptures. What did we see? When he went to Thessalonica, when he went to the Bereans, he went where?
The synagogue. They already had a foundation of the Old Testament and then he went to the Jews and he also went to the God-fearing Gentiles. They had a sense of religion and a sense of what the Old Testament taught and Paul used that to build upon his message.
So many times that we’re making the mistake that we’re trying to convince those who have no foundation and I’m not saying we shouldn’t, but I’m also saying don’t forget that the first plan begins with those who have the foundation.
They have the foundation of the Bible. They have the foundation that they respect God in their hearts. They may not have a relationship with the Lord and they may not know Christ as their savior, but they have some kind of a foundation.
That’s why your family is where it starts. That’s why it starts with those that you know. That’s why. You want to share Christ at that beginning and then watch that ripple out, watch that have an profound impact upon others’ lives.
Now, how can a Christian know God’s word in such a way they could use it effectively? Well, let me just give you three things here real quickly. Be diligent in your Bible study. Look, church, you gotta stay in the Bible every day.
You gotta walk with God. You gotta spend time reading, studying the Bible. You gotta carve out that time. I know. I mean, look, some of you, I mean, you know everybody’s posts. You know who posted what, and you could tell me for the last five months who posted what and what they posted.
But let me ask you something. Do you know the Bible? Because you see, you’re not measured. God’s not holding you accountable about how much time you’re spending on social media. But we as believers are accountable.
to how much time we spend in his precious word. There’s no better post than the post that was made in God’s word. Nothing better. I’m not against social media. You’ll find Pastor Mike there. I put a post up and I get out of there before the devil gets me.
They bad? And sometimes someone will say, well, did you see that post? I have to be honest with you. I rarely scroll down looking for somebody else’s posts because most of it is everybody just venting about their issues.
Okay, don’t vent on social media. You got to move forward in your life, okay? I mean, that’s like hanging your dirty laundry out. Don’t do that. You got to be a person who is positive and joyful and full of hope.
Now, be diligent in your Bible study. How can I use God’s word effectively? Be committed to live the Bible. Now see, if you sit there and claim to be a Christian, but your life does not match up, it’s not that God wants us to be perfect, but certainly the direction of our life is that we’re striving to be as real and authentic with our faith as possible, right?
What turns people off is hypocrisy. What causes people to reject the gospel is they see some kind of a different life and what you and I need to strive to do. Now look, some of you parents, you’re gonna make mistakes.
I have made mistakes as a father and we make mistakes, but you got to be honest with your children. And when you fail, don’t be afraid to apologize. When I call you to authenticity, I’m not calling you to perfection.
I’m calling you to be real. And if you said something you shouldn’t have said, if you did something you shouldn’t have done, and if you promised something you never fulfilled, then be real and say, look, I blew it.
And I’m asking you to forgive me and I should have been better. I should have been better. Listen, this is what we understand. Redemption is what the Bible is all about, but be committed to live your life as close to God’s word as possible.
Let me tell you. third way, how to use God’s word effectively, teach the Bible to others. I have had so many people tell me, boy, when I became a teacher, when I began to lead a Bible study group, when I led a prayer group, that’s when I really grew in my knowledge of the Bible.
And I want to challenge you to think that way, and I know some of you will never teach a Bible group, and that’s okay, but I want to challenge you, at least try to teach it to your children and your grandchildren, or maybe somebody that you know, somebody’s asking questions in your life, it can be one-on-one, it can be in a group, or it can be in whatever scenario God gives you, but don’t be afraid to teach the Bible.
The third characteristic is multiplication. Now, in verse 4, we see that there was a great multitude that responded in chapter 17. Verse 12, I already read to you, there was many that believed. I want to tell you that what we’re seeing here is the apostle is multiplying.
Himself, those who want to influence the world for Christ must recognize they cannot do it alone. That’s what we see Paul doing. He’s not doing it alone. And we love that great verse in 2 Timothy 2.2 that says, the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
Who are you mentoring? Who are you discipling? Who are you trying to influence? You say, well, I don’t really have a big platform. You don’t need a big platform and you don’t need to be a great influencer on tikki takki.
All you gotta do is be genuine and notice that there are many people that are in need of a mentor. I stand here on the shoulders of others because people took an interest in Mike Sanders as a young boy, as a young man.
And they said, let’s do our best to be a positive influence in their life. So I’ve told you this before, write it down because you were sleeping, you didn’t pay attention. You forgot your notebook. So pull out your Walmart receipt or some of you go to Target, wherever you go and write this down.
You need three relationships in your life. You need an apostle Paul, a mentor. Pray, God, give me a mentor. Get plugged into a Bible study, get plugged into different ministries and build these relationships where you can have mentors.
I asked people, would you be a mentor to me? That’s what I did. I asked people, would you be a mentor to me? And I still have mentors today, but you also need a mentee. You need a Timothy in your life.
You need someone that you can pour your life into, that you can be that discipler, that you can be a positive influence in their life, that you can help them to make great choices and good decisions.
And then thirdly, you need a Barnabas. You need an encourager in your life. I mean. I mean, you walk through life and you get dragged down, you end up in the mud and you get beat up a little bit and you wonder, man, how are we gonna make it?
Man, isn’t it wonderful to have an encourager in your life? When you come to church, don’t be complaining. Don’t complain. I want to challenge you. Don’t find anything that you see to complain about.
Refuse to do it. Say, God didn’t send me here this morning to find fault. He sent me here to bless others. Amen. I want you, you see, you found a lemon. Let’s make some lemonade, amen. Let’s be positive.
Let’s encourage God’s people. Let’s find ways. Well, you know, this didn’t happen. And you know, that didn’t happen. Or that was the most boring sermon I’ve ever heard in my life. I know, I hear you, buddy.
You don’t have to be the one that has to deliver the most boring sermon. You know me? This will be my final point, endurance, and I only have a few thoughts. Now, what we see here is that Paul kept enduring.
We must not allow opposition to stop our witness. The remaining verses show the response of many to the gospel, and it’s because Paul wouldn’t quit. If Paul would have given up in chapter 16, we wouldn’t have chapter 17, and we wouldn’t have chapter 18.
And if somebody would have given up and said, you know what, you know, I told you church that I was a bus kid, and I know you’ve been wondering what’s wrong with me, it’s because I’m a bus kid. I got saved through the bus ministry, but I guarantee you there were times they got up and somebody forgot to put the gas and the fuel, and somebody maybe forgot to warm the bus up or maybe they had to scrape the window to get the ice off.
But they kept enduring and they kept picking up Mike and they kept picking up my brother and my sister. And today, because they wouldn’t give up, we’re all connected to Christ in a local church, serving God, married to Christian families, have beautiful children and spouses.
And all I’m trying to say is that someone down the road wouldn’t give up, and so in order to have a chapter 17, there had to be a chapter 16, and there had to be these people who just kept enduring. And here’s what I want to leave you with, church.
Galatians 6, 9, let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. Would you pray with me, church? Last week, we proposed the question, what characterizes a person who changes the world for the gospel?
And we learned that it was beginning with courage, and that’s what we see in the apostles. They were courageous men who were not afraid to stand up and to speak up for the gospel of Jesus Christ. But we also learned this week that courage is to be coupled with the right message.
It’s not enough for us to just be courageous. We’ve got to have the right message, and the message is not politics. The message is not social gospel, but the message is the true gospel that calls every person to repent and to believe in Jesus Christ.
It’s this message that turned Nineveh on its head and caused the king to call for a citywide repentance. And so I pray that today that God will use each of us to help change the world for the truth of the gospel and to bring glory to His name.
I want to encourage you to check us out on our website, hopethhaving.com. And in hopethhaving.com, we have a list of the different TV times and radio times that we are broadcasting. And so if you’d like to keep up, no matter where you’re hearing us, you can keep up with these different times.
And we’re pretty excited because we’re now launched in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and we welcome all of our new listeners there and hope that you’re enjoying and growing as we minister through the Word of God to you.
And this is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post Changing the World for the Gospel Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Changing the World for the Gospel Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 17:1-10.
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. The antidote to any fear and anxiety in your heart is always rooted in the strength or the power of God and the love of God and the sound mind.
Are you ready? This is Hope Worth Having. I’m your host, Pastor Mike Sanders. We’re looking forward to sharing the hope of Christ with you today. So I want you to grab your Bibles and join me in Acts chapter 17.
We’re starting a new series entitled Changing the World for the Gospel. And I hope that that’s your heart, that you want to see people change through the power of the gospel. So let’s grab our Bibles, maybe a pen, a piece of paper, and let’s continue to study together.
If you have your Bible this morning, I want you to turn to Acts chapter 17. Those of you that have been with us consistently, you know that we’ve been studying the book of Acts. It is easy to sometimes look at the book of Acts and we see some extraordinary events that happen, sometimes almost unbelievable.
And we have in our hearts that we feel the need to replicate those events. But really the book of Acts is a narrative of how the ministry of the apostles, but more specifically in the section of we’re in, the Apostle Paul’s ministry and his missionary team, how that all unfolded, how it began the inception of Christianity throughout the world, how it quickly spread.
Our goal is that as we are reading the Scriptures, we are looking for commands and patterns that we want to certainly emulate. as believers. As you and I live in these unique times, God is calling us more than ever to be committed to changing the world.
But I want you to understand that God is not calling you to change the world for politics, for finances, or perhaps even the business, or some kind of technological new discovery, but rather He is calling you to change the world for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The good news of Christ. One might ask, what is the good news? The good news is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We’re taught that in First Corinthians chapter 15 verse 1 through 3.
And the good news, my friends, is not that you and I have some other kind of a religion that we can follow, but rather that we can, through Christ, have a relationship with God. The invitation of Christianity and the celebration of the coming of our Savior Jesus to this world is not to add more religion to your plate, but rather it is that you may know God and that you would experience His forgiveness and His grace in your life,
that you would have a connection with our Savior, that you would have a connection with your Creator, and that you would know Him in a very personal way. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by Me, and though that may seem to you very exclusive, and you may struggle with the lack of plurality that Jesus speaks, but I want you to know that He is very direct and He cuts through all the noise and voices of the world,
and He speaks straight to our heart and reminds us that there’s only one way to heaven, and it is through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The job of the church is not to reformat the message, it is not to try to make the message more palatable.
The job of the church is to proclaim that message, that we continue to reiterate what God has already proclaimed in the coming of a Savior who has come to this earth, and He did not abandon us in our sufferings or our struggles, but rather unlike any other religion in the world, God sent His only begotten Son, and Jesus came and walked among us and lived a sinless life, thus qualifying Himself for not only fulfilling all that the law had required that was given in the Old Testament,
but He would be qualified. to go to the cross and to pay for the penalty of our sins and then the Bible says three days later he would rise again. Jesus went to that cross to take care of our past and he came out of that grave to take care of our future.
From beginning to end, in a relationship with the Lord, we are cared for and we are taken care of. Our God is not distant. He is not a God that we cannot speak to nor that He does not even hear us. But we have a Heavenly Father who knows us and He sent His Son and Jesus is the full manifestation and revelation of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
And now you and I can walk in unity and harmony with our Savior and we are a people that are blessed. But how is it that we are going to be able to change the world for the gospel? We understand the world is not as it was when God created it.
Now, some would say the world’s not like it was, Pastor, 10 years ago or 30 years ago or 50 years ago or 100 years ago. I think that’s pretty obvious. The measuring stick is not the past of the world, but the measuring stick is God’s word, and we look and see how God created Adam and Eve, and He created, if you will, this utopias world, this great Garden of Eden, this place where Adam and Eve could flourish and that they could walk in the cool of the day with God Himself in sweet communion and fellowship,
all that the heart longs for is found in a relationship with Jesus. The world will not satisfy you as you pursue it. The money will never be enough. There’s always going to be somebody who has a bigger house and a better car and more technology than you.
You’re in a rat race. You’re a dog chasing the tail. But if you want to experience real peace, real joy, real forgiveness, well, that’s found in a relationship with Christ. But unfortunately, Adam and Eve, not created robots, not robots who could only do whatever God says, but rather created with a will that could make a choice so that when they chose to love God, it would be authentic and real, not something forced upon them.
Unfortunately, they chose to disobey God. It is from that moment that sin entered the world. And the manifestation of a sin sinful world is what we have seen unfolded throughout all of history. There are times that mankind has been great, and there have been times that mankind has dipped into the deepest depravities known to the heart.
But either way, we’re still a sinful, selfish people. We are a flawed people. We are limited. We bear the burdens of our sins and unforgiveness. We carry the weight of our guilt, and we strive to find answers that are out in the world to resolve these issues that are within.
In our observation of the world that we live in, the time span that God has granted us to be alive. We certainly, as believers, would say that our world is… turned upside down. Why the prophet Isaiah had said that there would be a time when good would be called evil, and that evil would become good.
The Bible chronicles a period of time, even in the nation of Israel’s history, in which every man did what was right in his own eyes. And if these do not personify our times, not from the perspective of the world, but from the perspective of Scriptures, you and I are witnessing some of these perilous times that the Bible describes.
And when we come to our text today, we find that the Apostle Paul, that he was a man who was living in perilous times. He was living in times when there were many gods and many religions, and many people seeking rest in their hearts, only to find that the religion and the things of the world could not bring true peace to them.
And so the Apostle shows up in a town called Thessalonica. Thessalonica was a port city with major Roman roads running through it. It was really a community of a melting pot of ethnicities and nationalities.
And the Jewish people, the Jewish population, had already been very effective in prostilizing and evangelizing many of the Greeks to come to follow Judaism, as well as many influential and leading women in the community of Thessalonica.
We understand the Jewish teaching centered around the keeping of the commandments of the Old Testament. With the ultimate goal that one day the Messiah would come and he would be the king and he would reign in Jerusalem.
That achieving righteousness with God in the mind of the Jewish people was simply a matter of climbing a religious ladder. Follow the commands, become good enough, and you’ll be accepted by God. It is against this backdrop that the Apostle Paul shows up into this community and when he comes he brings the startling and earth-shaking message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
A message as we’ve taught you that Jesus is that Messiah that has been prophesied. That he has fulfilled every prophecy in the Old Testament relating to his coming as the Messiah and that he also would fulfill all that was proclaimed about him as he lived a sinless life on this earth, and that we know that one day, as we read in our scriptures, and we are waiting on his second coming to this earth,
one may say, why would Jesus come? Aren’t things so wonderful, pastor? Because people continue to make a mess of not only their personal lives, but the world. This place is going to consummate into destruction, but Jesus is gonna come, and he is going to rule and reign in Jerusalem, and he is going to set up a millennial kingdom, and that is our hope, and that is our anticipation.
But when Paul comes to a community of not only Gentiles, and Greeks, and Jewish people, he sends a very powerful and thought-provoking message, a message that is contrary to what religions say, because really there’s only two religions in all that we see unfolding.
You either believe that you can be good enough, work hard enough to be accepted by God, and to have eternal bliss with God, or you believe that Jesus Christ has done all that is necessary, and he has been accepted by God, and by faith in him, and what he has accomplished on the cross and through the resurrection, that you and I have eternal life.
It’s either one or the other. You can put whatever labels you want on it, whatever church signs you might have, but you either believe that Christ paid the penalty for our sins, and did all that was necessary for us to live a life of grace, and forgiveness, and hope, and peace, or you believe it.
believe it’s up to you, it’s up to you, to the strongest, to the fastest, to those who are morally the best. But we find that even the moral among us find out that sometimes their morality is rudderless and it leads them down paths that are sinful and degrading to humanity and disrespecting the dignity of life and that no matter how intelligent and how scientific that they become, that they would embrace belief systems that would actually murder people.
And I know that you say, Pastor Mike, what are you talking about? How about up there in Canada where they’re now making it possible for every citizen to be euthanized if they want. You don’t think that these things that are going to infiltrate our societies?
These are true. How horrible that is. How horrible it is. But the point that I want you to see this morning is that the gospel is the true answer. If we’re going to change this world, it’s not going to be through politics, and it’s not going to be through technology, and it’s not going to be through religion.
If we’re to change the world, it is going to be through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so then, we are called to be a people who literally turn the world upside down. I want you to pick up with me because we see this emulated in the life of the apostle in chapter 17, verse 1.
Now, when they had passed through Amphiphilus and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them, and for three Sabbaths, he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, this Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.
And some of them were persuaded, and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women joined Paul and Silas. But the Jews who were not persuaded becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob set all the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.
But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason, and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, these who have turned the world upside down. the world upside down have come here too. Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, Jesus.
And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things, so when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.
Wherever the apostle went, it was either a revival or a riot. Wherever he went, he was constantly turning the norms upside down. He was turning people’s lives upside down. You remember in chapter 16 and we learned about the fortune teller and how she was owned by masters who were profiting off of her fortune telling and how that when she finally came to God, they were upset because now their money making machine and system had been depleted and destroyed and they were upset and they began to attack the apostle.
We come to chapter 17, the apostle shows up and he is shaking things up when he shows up. He’s not shaking things up intentionally in the sense that he’s trying to cause a riot or that he in the way that he is trying to create mobs to disrupt the normal activities of life but rather he is just proclaiming the gospel message of Jesus Christ.
And I want you to see this morning the characteristics or perhaps we could put it like this. What is it that characterizes a person who changes the world for the gospel? What is that? Well let me give you a few of these this morning and I want you to write them down as we analyze this chapter together.
First I would submit unto you courage. I would submit unto you courage we talked about in verse 1 and 2 how the apostle again leaves one city and he heads to another city. Now if you have had time and maybe you haven’t but you can later, you know that when the apostle in chapter 16 that he was beaten, he was mistreated, he was thrown into jail.
Remember the Philippian jailer? Remember that he came to Christ? Remember that Paul and Silas rather than whining and crying about their circumstances, they sang hymns unto God and they rejoiced in God.
They prayed to God and when the Bible says that when they were singing and praying that the earth shook and that they had the ability to expand. escape, and rather than escaping, they chose to stay, and they so impacted those that were responsible for watching the prisoners that they said, what must we do to be saved?
But Paul and Silas, wherever they went, they weren’t always accepted. And so having been beaten and having been thrown in jail, now they’re moving on to the next town, and we see in their life that they have an incredible amount of courage.
No one will ever influence the world for Christ who lacks courage. No one will influence their family, their friends, their neighborhoods, their communities without having courage in their life. The Scriptures teach us that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
The antidote to any fear and anxiety in your heart is always rooted… in the strength or the power of God, and the love of God, and the sound mind. Let me just help you understand what that means practically in your life.
We talk about the strength of God. We cannot operate in our own strengths. For when we operate in our own strengths, we find that it is limited, and that it can only go so far, but the strength of the Lord, it is what keeps encouraging us.
It is what keeps enabling us to be able to be all that God has called us to be, even when we face opposition, even when we face pushback in our life, that it is the strength of the Lord that works effectively in our lives.
We’re taught that we’re not given a spirit of fear, but rather power and love. The apostle John would later teach us love casts out all fear. And we’re talking about a love for God and a love for people, rather than operating in fear of others and fear of God, we are called to operate in the mode of love.
And why is it that we can love? Well, the scriptures tell us that we love Him because He first loved us. And that is manifested in that one succinct verse that we know so well in John 3 16, that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
You and I have the capacity to love others unconditionally. And we have the capacity to love people, even through trials, differences, disagreements, that you and I can still love others because God has loved us.
And if you have ever doubted whether God loves you, just look to the cross. The full manifestation of God’s love is demonstrated in that Christ gave His life and paid the penalty of sin for you and me.
and for me, but we are not only called to be people who operate in the power of the Lord and the love of God, but of a sound mind. In the Greek, it has the idea of being balanced. We understand that sometimes we can get in that mindset that we are saying, what if, what if, what if, and it only strangles us, it only causes us to be fearful, but a sound mind is a balanced mind, operating in the constant faith and confidence that God is in charge.
It does not call us to be foolish. It does not call us to be reckless. It does not call us to abandon reason, but rather just the opposite. that if we are to be a courageous people, that we must be a people who have a sound mind, and that we operate in this faith that is balanced, a faith, a mindset that is based upon the truth, rather than rumors, innuendos, or theories and philosophies that only end up to be a dead end road.
Now this call to be courage, to be courageous, we see in the apostle. I want you to go back to verse two, and I want you to see that right at the outset, it says that Paul as his custom was. What was his custom?
His custom was that he went to the synagogue. We come down to verse 10, and the Bible says again, the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of Jews.
You see, this was the plan. This is how the apostle operated. He’s already faced opposition. He’s already been chased out of several communities because of the power of the gospel, has so upset those who do not believe the gospel that their very lives were threatened.
But does the apostle give up? Does he quit? Does he hang up and they say, I’m done? I’m not gonna do this anymore? No, he shows great courage. He regroups, he huddles, and he gets back at the task. He is on mission for God.
He stays true to his calling, and he shows great courage by keep going back to the synagogue, going back to be a witness for God. One of the reasons many people do not witness is because they’re fearful of what people might do to them.
They are fearful of what might happen. But friends, God has called you and I to be bold and not operate in the fear of people. The Bible tells us that the apostle claimed to the Galatians that if he lived in the fear of people, people that he would not be a true servant of God.
You have to understand that God has not called you to be a person who lives in the fear of others. We fear God, that’s a healthy fear. We revere God, we have all for God. We have great reverence for our God.
We recognize him as holy and righteous. We recognize him as high and lifted up and a mighty God. But when it comes to people, we operate in the power of God, the confidence of God, the strength of God, and we refuse to back down from the truth because we know that Jesus said, the truth will set you free.
Yes, it will. We see this again, exemplified in Acts chapter four, verse 13, when the Bible says, now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, untrained men, they marveled and they realized…
that they had been with Jesus. That’s the key, that we are to be with Jesus and that this fuels the boldness and the courage. God has not called you to be obnoxious, hateful, or rude, but He certainly has called you to be courageous, to take a stand for what is right, and to speak up, stand up, and do not be afraid of what the world can do to you.
The apostle continued, for the Lord, despite great opposition and terrible persecution. People who do not understand the gospel sometimes react in emotional ways, and they get very upset. Just jump down to verse 23, and I want you to see something here real quickly.
Verse 23 of chapter 17 of the book of Acts. Here, the apostle has stood up and he is helping them to understand that their religion will not save them, but they happen to have this great list of idols or gods, and one of them is named the unknown God.
So we pick up in verse 23, for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. Just in case we got the wrong God, we got an unknown God to make up for the wrong God.
How about that one? That’s the way they operated. And so the apostle continues and says, therefore the one whom you worship without knowing him I proclaim to you. What a beautiful opportunity that the apostle takes.
Verse 24 says that God who made the world and everything in it since he is the Lord of heaven and earth does not dwell in the temples that are made with hand. Now let’s jump down to verse 29. Verse 29, therefore since we are of the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold.
Truly, we have seen a lot of changes in our world, and we would say that we live in an upside-down world. But think about this, that when the apostles were out there preaching the gospel, they turned the world upside down with the gospels, and the apostles shook things up wherever they went.
And that’s what we see in Acts 7. We see them changing the world through the power of the gospel. And I hope that today’s message will continue to inspire us to be bold in sharing our faith and recognizing that hope is a powerful force, and that it can help us to overcome obstacles and achieve God’s truth into our life, and that we can accomplish what the Lord has called us to do.
I want to remind you that we have a YouTube channel, and on that YouTube channel you can pick up some of our podcasting, you can pick up some of our videos, some of our sermons, and we also have interviews and different discussion topics and Q and A.
So I hope you’ll check out our YouTube channel, go to Hope Worth Having, just sign up or subscribe, and we hope the channel will be a great inspiration to you. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post Changing the World for the Gospel Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities Part 3. He will be reading out of Acts 16:11-40.
When everything’s wrong in your life and nothing is coming together as you had hoped it but you still choose to sing praise to God and you still choose to worship Him and you still choose to pray to Him that’s when you get the attention of the world.
Welcome to Hope Worth Having radio program. I’m your host Pastor Mike Sanders and today we’re going to be talking about hope. We’re going to be talking about the gospel. We’re going to be talking about how to turn your obstacles into opportunities and we’re continuing our study in Acts chapter 16 and we’re learning how the apostle dealt with opposition.
So let’s grab our Bibles and let’s continue to learn and grow together. If you have your Bible this morning I want you to join me in the book of Acts chapter 16 several weeks ago. We started this study on how to turn your obstacles into opportunity.
I want to remind you that wherever the apostle Paul went he either had a revival or it ended up being a riot and that’s what we see taking place in chapter 16. The apostle and his missionary team are headed into the city of Philippi and they are preaching the gospel but they end up being in jail.
We read that in verse 24. The Bible says that having received such a charge he put them into the inner prison and he fastened their feet in the stocks. The gospel message will always be met with obstacles but God has the ability to turn each and every obstacle into an opportunity.
We must remember as God’s people that as the gospel spread opposition will increase. Jesus taught us in John 15 verse 18, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. And so at the very outset an understanding of why someone would resist the gospel and someone would be against the salvation of souls, it is at the heart that they are resisting Jesus Christ Himself.
It is our job as His disciples to not take it personal but to recognize what is really going on. The Apostle Paul was preaching the gospel in this great city Philippi, which we have shared with you, was a gateway to Europe and would eventually become the gateway to the gospel spreading throughout all of Europe.
But as he preached it, he faced physical suffering. In these past few weeks we have learned a few principles to help us. How to turn our obstacles into opportunities. The first thing that we learned a few weeks ago was that we must work where God is working.
What you have to remember is that even when there is opposition, even when there is an obstacle in your life, God is still working. We seem to think sometimes that when there is trouble that God is not working.
That somehow this is not a part of God’s plan, but just the opposite is true. God is always working and the Bible teaches us that the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost. So Christ has come to seek sinners.
God is always drawing people to Him and He uses the circumstances of life to open people’s eyes and to help them to see the truth. So how do I turn my obstacles into opportunities? It is first to work where God is working.
Second of all, we learned that we must expect obstacles. As soon as the Lord starts blessing in our life, as soon as He starts working in divine ways, I want you to know the devil is going to be fighting.
The devil is not taking a vacation. The devil is not going to say, well, look, I’m going to just take a step back and let the work of God and the cause of Christ to move forward. No, just the opposite.
We see this in verse 14 of chapter 16 that a certain woman named Lydia, she heard us. She was a seller of purple. This is where God was working. He was working in the life of Lydia and she was from the city of Thyatira who worshiped God and the Lord opened her heart.
So Paul goes to Philippi. God is working in this small group of women and they are meeting for prayer. Paul shows up at the prayer meeting and the Lord opens her heart when she hears the gospel and the Bible teaches us that she came to Christ.
But then we see the opposite in verse 16. God was working in Lydia’s heart. She and her family came to God to believe in the Lord. But look at verse 16. Now it happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling.
And so she was going around sarcastically and deceitfully trying to convince others that these men were servants of the Most High, which was true. But the problem is, as we’ve taught you, that she was trying to gain trust with the believers and the disciples so that she could suck them in to false teaching, that she could suck them into fortune-telling, that she could be that charlatan that would take advantage of their genuineness,
their authenticity, and she would make money off of them. What does the Bible say in verse 18? And she did this for many days. But Paul greatly annoyed, turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.
And he came out of that very hour. This upset her handlers because she had other people who were using her, this fortune teller, to make money. And so they became upset, we see in verse 19, that they seized Paul and Silas and they dragged him into the marketplace to the authorities.
What is the result? Look at verse 24. Having received such a charge, he put them in a prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. So here, people are being saved. Then there’s opposition. There’s an obstacle here.
What does the apostle do? Well, that’s the third thing I want you to learn on how to turn your obstacles into opportunities. And that is to keep planting seeds in your life, to keep planting seeds. You know, most of the time when we face an obstacle, what do we do?
We give up. But I wanna remind you that God turns every obstacle into an opportunity if we will respond the way he is calling us to respond. And I want you to look at verse 25. Remember verse 24, don’t forget that.
You can’t understand verse 25 until you understand verse 24. And that is that they are in the inner prison and they are in stocks. Their hands are chained and their feet are chained and they are hardly able to move.
Now friends, it’s not like our jails and prisons. This prison is not fancy where they have three square meals a day and everything is clean and they have big TVs. And you say, how do you know these things, Pastor?
But I just want you to know, administering and trying to reach out, we’ve been there and we see some of these things. But here’s the thing, I want you to see what they’re dealing with, what their circumstances are and how they respond, how they keep planting seeds for the sake of life.
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now look at verse 25. But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And the prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken.
And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awakening from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself.
But Paul called with a loud voice saying, do yourself no harm, for we are all here. Then he called for a light and he ran in and he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved?
So they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and he washed their stripes.
And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them. And he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household. And when it was day, the magistrates sent the officers saying, let those men go.
So the keeper of the prison reported these words of Paul saying, the magistrates have sent to let you go. Now therefore depart and go in peace. But Paul said to them, they have beaten us openly, uncondemned Romans and have thrown us into prison.
And now do they put us out secretly? No, indeed. Let them come themselves and get us out. And the officers told these words to the magistrates and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans.
Then they came and pleaded with them and brought them out and asked them to depart from the city. So they went out of the prison and entered into the house of Lydia. And when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and departed.
What a powerful passage of scripture. Now in this passage of scriptures, I want to teach you how to keep planting seeds. Yes, you got problems in your life. You got struggles in your life. You got circumstances that are not perfect and things are not coming together just as you had planned.
But I want to tell you something that God wants you to keep planting seeds. He wants you to stay on mission for him. He wants you to keep moving the ball forward for the cause and the glory of Christ.
Here we find the apostle. He was overflowing with joy. And when he realized his situation, he recognized he had a ministry opportunity. He realized that even though there was an obstacle, there was an opportunity to advance.
the cause of Jesus Christ. The Apostle wrote to the Philippians, and he said, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. Have you ever thought about that?
How that God allows circumstances in your life that you might be able to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ? Have you ever considered that God may put you on a difficult path so that your path would cross with other people who need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ?
You see, here they were in a prison, and they had unexpected problems, and certainly this was not what they had planned on. But what did God do? He had opened a new door, and God has other plans sometimes, plans that are not ours, plans that are different so that we might be able to fulfill His will.
Think about this, the Bible says that man plans his ways but the Lord directs his steps. You get up every day, you got a schedule, you got an agenda, you might even have a calendar and you have a plan of things you want to get done and you got a to-do list of things you need to achieve this day but you know what?
God throws a wrench in all of it and it’s a big mess and you find out that you’re on a detour but God uses that detour so that you could advance the cause of Jesus Christ. How do I keep planting seeds?
How do I do that, pastor? Number one, I want you to write this down, you need to choose joy. You need to choose joy. Would you recall with me in this passage again that after being beaten by the Roman guards, their muscles were aching, they were stiffening up, they were put into a smelly inner cell that was filled with darkness, there was nothing but cold and darkness and hopelessness in the room.
I’m sure that we would have been okay saying, you know what? It’s okay to be mad at God but instead of cursing God, Paul and Silas chose to pray and sing songs of praise. I want to ask you a question, what would you have done?
I have to be honest with you that if I was in a prison, I’m not sure that I would be praying and I would be singing songs to God but that’s exactly what Paul and Silas did. They were praying to God and they were praising God.
They had chosen that they would be joyful people. They would be joyful people and that’s what I’m challenging you to do this morning is that you have the joy of the Lord in you no matter what your circumstances are.
So many people are striving for happiness. And we know that happiness is not out there, friends. Happiness is not in the world. Happiness, or if we could say this, joy is in a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Life is about relationships. And if you can’t get relationships right, you can’t get anything right in your life. And that ought to be the priority of your life. When you come to the end of your life, you’re not gonna say, boy, I wish I had another hour in the office.
Let me tell you something, friends. I’ve been by many people that God was ready to promote out of this world. And I tell you that every one of them, what they want is their family around them. And they want to know that their faith is real.
You see, life’s about relationships, my relationship with God and my relationship with others. And that’s why that has to be the priority of my life. And you might think, well, Pastor Mike, what are you trying to teach us?
I’m trying to teach you what Jesus taught us. And that is that we are to love God and we are to love people. You love God and you love people. And that’s the key. to you having a joyful life that is the key of you living an abundant life the psalmist said the lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime and in the night his song shall be with me a prayer to the god of my life you see friends if you want to be able to sing in the night if you want to sing in the difficult circumstances of your life if you want to be a person of prayer then you’ve got to have a relationship with the lord jesus christ jesus said the thief comes not but to steal and to kill and to destroy i am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly why did jesus come that you and i might have life that we might have eternal life and let me tell you something about eternal life it’s not just the quantity of life that you’ll be forever with jesus yes but it is the quality of life and i’m not talking about the fact that you’ll have everything perfect in your life i’m talking about that you’ll have the peace of god and the joy of christ in your heart that no matter what you face in life that you are going to be able to put your focus on christ even in those difficult circumstances and you’re gonna have an abundant life jesus christ is the reason to have a song in your heart let me tell you something god’s people have always been a singing people music is not the source of your joy jesus is the source of your joy and music and singing is the outgrowth of a relationship with jesus christ and when you’re feeding that every day when you’re spending time with the lord every day when you’re in the bible every day when you are praying every day listen when you face a bump in the road when you face times of darkness when you face those difficulties in your life you’re going to be like paul and sylas you’re going to be singing at the midnight of your crisis and i would encourage you to have a strong relationship listen to what jesus Jesus said in John 15,
verse 11, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be what church for? You see, God doesn’t want you to just have half joy. He doesn’t want you just to have a little bit of joy, but he wants you to have his full joy.
Doesn’t mean that you’re always slapping everybody high five. It doesn’t mean that you’re walking around giving everybody hugs, but what it does mean is that even when you’re grieving, you have the joy of the Lord in your heart.
Why? Because your hope is not in this world and your hope is not in the circumstances of your life and your hope is not in how people respond to you or treat you, but rather your hope is in your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and you know that he’s come, that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly, that you might not only have the quantity of life, but that you might have the quality of life in knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior.
What does Jesus want from me? That we would exhibit joy in every circumstance of our life. The psalmist said in Psalm 5.11, but rejoice all who take refuge in you. Sing for joy forever and may you shelter them that those who love your name may rejoice in you.
I am confident that the grace of God can make and help and strengthen each of us to sing even when we are suffering. You as the follower of Christ should never be ashamed to sing the songs that God has put upon your heart.
Songs that remind us of our relationship with God, and songs that grow out of our relationship with God. So I wanna encourage you this morning to choose joy. And at the heart of not only praising God and singing is your prayer life.
Consider this church that people that are joyful, people that are quick to praise God even through trials, are people of prayer. Because let me tell you something about prayer that you need to understand.
It is more than just a discipline. It is more than just a spiritual act. It is the mean by which God imparts his sustaining and sufficient grace to you. When you are filled with the grace of God that has been channeled to your heart through the means of humbling yourself before God Almighty and praying to him consistently and constantly I tell you that what will happen to you when you are facing the trials and darkness of life,
you will sing the praises. of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That’s why prayer is important to your life. Now the second thing that I want you to learn, we’re learning how do we keep planting seeds.
We choose joy in all of our circumstances. But number two, we are ready to give an answer. Yes, we are ready to give an answer. I want you to go back to verse 25. I don’t want you to see something here that I think’s important for us to remember this morning.
We already noted that Paul and Silas in difficult circumstances were praying, they were singing. But did you catch the last of that verse? We often focus on the beginning of the verse, but have you ever thought about the last few words there?
The prisoners were listening to them. You see, I want you to understand something. There’s a world that’s watching you. They’re not impressed with your God that blesses you when everything’s going right in your life.
They’re not impressed that you praise the Lord and you get up and go to church on Sunday and that you fail. safely serve the Lord, that you sacrifice for his cause. But here’s when the world takes note and is watching you, when everything’s crashing in your life and everything’s wrong in your life and nothing is coming together as you had hoped it, but you still choose to sing praise to God and you still choose to worship him and you still choose to pray to him.
That’s when you get the attention of the world. But I want you to know that the Lord uses our suffering to open doors of witnessing for him. And it’s our responsibility to be ready to give an answer.
So we come down to verse 26. The Bible says, suddenly there was this great earthquake and so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were open and everyone’s chains were loosed.
Now remember, they were all listening to Paul and Silas. The keeper of the prison awakened from sleep seeing that the prison doors were open. He supposed the prisons had fled and drew his sword and was about to be killed.
Why would he do that? Because Roman soldiers who allowed a prisoner to escape were executed and therefore they just said, look, if this is our fate that we’re gonna die, we might as well just take our lives then to suffer the consequences.
But did you see what the apostle did? He said in verse 28, Paul called out with a loud voice saying, do yourself no harm for we are all here. Not only are people listening, but people are watching how you handle your problems, how you respond to your circumstances.
They could have all been very selfish and said, let’s get out of here. God has caused this earthquake, let’s get out of here. And I know that many of you are trying to run from your problem. You’re trying to run from your circumstances and you’re trying to run from that relationship and you’re trying to run from that person and it’s easy to run, it’s easy to hop churches.
and it’s easy to go from this person and that person and that place, it’s easy to do all that stuff rather than have to deal with the reality what God is calling you to face. Are you with me, church?
What did Paul do? He did not run, nor did his team. They did not run, but look at verse 29. The Bible says he called for a light. He ran in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas and he brought them out and he said, sirs, what must I do to be saved?
Isn’t that glorious? Let me ask you a question. If somebody asks you, what do I gotta do to be saved? Could you even explain it to them? Are you ready to give an answer for the hope that lives within you?
Are you able to explain the gospel to someone? Are you able to present the plan of salvation? Are you able to walk somebody through the Romans Road and show them that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God?
Are you able to explain to them that God commends his love towards us yet while we were sinners, Christ died for us? Are you able to show them that the Bible says whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved?
Are you able to present the answer that the world is looking for? Could you answer this question? It’s a good question and it’s a beautiful question when God brings someone to that point for God has ordained that humans would proclaim the gospel to humanity.
God has chosen to use you and he has chosen to use me and he has chosen to use all of us church that we might answer the one question what must I do to be saved? What we witness in these verses is a miraculous conversion.
We see a hardened jailer humbly come to faith and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and not just the jailer but his whole family. What must I do to be saved? Well friends you might be asking that question this morning.
You may have trickled in here and you may be wondering what must I do to be saved? Let me tell you something, it’s not about religion. It’s not an invitation to be more ritualistic. It is an invitation to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
You see there’s no magical formula but there is this wonderful person Jesus and Jesus said that I am the way, the truth and the life. And no man comes to the Father but by me. Salvation comes through faith when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is a matter of what we believe and who we believe in. The gospel is the object of our faith, but the gospel message, its focus is upon Jesus Christ. If I wanna be saved today, I must be willing to humble myself before God.
I must be willing to be honest before God and say, Lord, I’m a sinner. Now that’s a big step because I wanna tell you something powerful in your life that you should never forget. You can’t change what you won’t acknowledge.
If you’re not willing to admit that you’re a sinner, you won’t become a saint. You won’t become a person who has the wonderful blessing of receiving the forgiveness of your sins. So it starts right there.
I have to admit that I’m a sinner. Second of all, what do I gotta do? I gotta believe. that Jesus died on the cross for me, not just that he died for the world. The Bible says that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not what, church?
But have everlasting life. I still want you to know that if you’re here today and you’d like to know what to do to be saved, I want you to know that not only do you have to acknowledge that you’re a sinner and believe in Christ, but you have to call upon the Lord to save your soul.
You have to call upon Christ to forgive you of your sins. I tell people that getting saved is as easy as A, B, C. Acknowledge, believe, and call upon the Lord. But I want you to understand something.
When I was a little boy, 11 years old, and the preacher got up there and he preached on John 3 16, and he told me that I was a sinner, I didn’t even know I was a sinner until I came to church. Nobody had ever told me that I was a sinner.
I didn’t know I had sinned against the holy God. I didn’t realize that my God was righteous and that the only way I could go to heaven was to have his righteousness. And the only way that I could have his righteousness was to admit that I was a sinner.
I didn’t know that. And I was just 11 years old. But I want you to know when he told me that Jesus Christ went to the cross and died for my sins, and if I would believe in him, that I could have eternal life.
And I was like, well, if you’d stop preaching, I would get saved. I didn’t even know what to do. But he just said, if you’ll believe, I was ready to believe. Didn’t know what to do. And that’s the kicker.
That when he finally said, call on the name of the Lord, and he invited anyone who wanted to be saved to come forward, and I came forward, my brother came forward, my sister came forward, and I know this is crazy and it’s unusual, and it just seems the way that God worked in our lives, I’m not saying he does this for everybody, but in that first time that we heard that we were sinners and that Christ died for our sins,
and that if we would just call upon the name of the Lord and be saved, we were ready. Now some people are hard-headed, amen? This lady in the church, she said, pastor, would you meet with my husband?
And for seven weeks I did, and he finally came to Christ, praise the Lord. Listen, on that day, for me, my brother and sister, we came to Christ on the first time, and we went to the altar, and there a man was ready, and he showed us how to call upon the name of the Lord.
And I wonder how many of us would be ready. You just never know when somebody wants to know what they gotta do to be saved. As the gospel spreads, opposition will always increase. Jesus reminded us, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.
So I pray that today, these principles will be applied to our hearts, and we’ll always see great. opportunities in the obstacles that we face, and we ask that you will continue to remember that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post How to Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities Part 3 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 16:11-40.
Here’s how the world works. When they cannot debate you about the truth, they start attacking you. They make accusations that are not accurate. They try to discredit you. They create a narrative that characterizes you as someone who is against the people.
Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and I’m delighted to welcome you to the Hope Worth Having Radio program this week. I’m excited to share God’s word with you as a source of inspiration for your heart.
And today we’re going to be in Acts chapter 16, covering verses 11 through 40, continuing our study on how to turn obstacles into opportunities. So let’s grab our Bibles and let’s get right into the Word of God this morning.
Well, if you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in the book of Acts chapter 16. We’ve been studying this chapter, and I’ve been teaching you how to turn your obstacles into opportunities.
Now, you recall that in the book of Acts, over and over, back in chapter four, back in chapter five, there was much opposition to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There were those that did not agree with the good news of salvation, coming to those who repent and believe in Christ.
Jesus reminds us in the gospel of John chapter 15 and verse 18 that if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. At any opposition or any pushback that we see for the things that are honorable and godly and righteous from this world that we see pushing back against those things, we know that it’s even deeper than just that they are upset with us.
or that we would stand for truth or we would stand for righteousness. That it’s deeper. There is a hatred in the world towards the things of God. There is a hatred towards Jesus Christ Himself. And you and I must recognize that.
When we come to chapter 16 we see the Apostle was teaching and preaching that this brought about physical suffering in his life. That not everybody was receptive When we started out in Acts chapter 16 we learned first of all that if we’re going to turn our obstacles into opportunities that we must be working where God is working.
That as believers we must be sensitive. Remember that Jesus said that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. God is seeking. He is seeking sinners and He is drawing. In our own lives we think about personally where we’re at spiritually.
And perhaps you were just kind of going along in life and really not even thinking much about God, but there was a spiritual breakthrough in your life. There was something that brought you to that moment.
You may not have been looking for him, but God has always been seeking you and he has always been drawing you. We must recognize church that that is happening multiple times, not only in our families and our communities, but literally around the world.
And that’s why the apostle had to be sensitive because the Spirit of God forbade him to go one direction so that he would go another direction that he might join God where he is working. You’re familiar in what we learned last week that the apostle showed up at a Jewish prayer meeting and that there was a lady, her name was Lydia, and that she would come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you can read about that later in your own personal time. That is in verse 14 and 15. How she not only became a believer, but she was baptized into the faith and that she was one whose heart was opened to the things of God.
And God had worked effectively. We pick up in verse 16, and I want you to see that we are to expect obstacles if we are going to continue to see those opportunities. Look at verse 16 of chapter 16. Now, what happened is we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination, met us who brought her master’s much profit by fortune telling.
This girl followed Paul and us and cried out, saying, these men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaimed to us the way of salvation. And this she did for many days, but Paul greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of God.
of Jesus Christ to come out of her and he came out that very hour. But when her master saw that their hope of profit was gone they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities and they brought them to the magistrates and said these men being Jews exceedingly trouble our city and they teach customs which are not lawful for us being Romans to receive or observe then the multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods when they had laid many stripes on them they threw them into prison commanding the jeller to keep them securely having received such a charge he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.
When you and I start serving God and join him where he is working guess what? When the Lord blesses, Satan starts fighting. I want you to be alert to this as believers, that Satan’s not just gonna take a day off and say, hey, I’m gonna let the church march forward, or I’m gonna let the church continue to reach out and to bring salvation to others, but yet we need to be alert, and we need to expect that there is gonna be opposition.
There are gonna be obstacles. The Apostle Peter taught us in 1 Peter 4.12, and he said, beloved, do not be surprised. At the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though something strange were happening to you.
Sometimes we see that opposition. It can be in the workplace, it can be in the family, it can be in the community, but we see it, and the Bible is teaching us not to be shocked and not to be startled, because this is the natural process.
Paul’s ministry in the city or the town of Philippi was now experiencing opposition, and Satan was sending obstacles, and Satan is always at hand to oppose the work of God. Now, what kind of obstacles or opposition was present?
I want you to note there in verse 16 and 18, it was unwanted publicity. Unwanted publicity, you say, Pastor, what do you mean? Well, go back to verse 16, and I want you to see that verse 16 says there was a spirit of divination that met us.
And then I want you to jump down to verse 17, that this girl who was possessed of this demonic force, that she was crying out, these men are the servants of the Most High God who proclaimed to us the way of salvation.
When you see that phrase, a spirit of divination, it’s literally in the Greek, a python spirit. And this is referring to the mythological Greek gods in which there was the Greek god of Delphi that had this python that was a symbol.
of protection and wisdom to the God of Delphi. And so literally what we are learning here is that this spirit, this demonic force, possessed this girl and she began to cry out, the Bible says, the Most High God in the Hebrew, it’s the idea of El Elyon, which means in the Hebrew that it is the absolute sovereign one.
She is crying out that Paul and his team of ministers are serving the absolute sovereign God of the world. Now, if you were out there trying to win the lost and somebody came up and told everybody that you were sent from God and that you were serving God, you might say, yes, I want people to hear that.
But Paul takes a different response and the Bible tells us he, in verse 18, was greatly annoyed. And he turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” Here’s what I want you to remember, church, that when you are dealing with opposition and obstacles in your life, even praise of the gospel can be deceitful and misleading.
I want you to see this, I want you to understand that the Bible says even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. It’s sometimes difficult to know who’s on what team and who is trying to help us and who’s trying to hurt us, who’s trying to advance the cause and who’s trying to hinder the cause of Jesus Christ.
One author writes that when Paul and Silas began to minister in Philippi, that Luke reported that this slave girl seemed to be favorable to the gospel and that she was proclaiming the authenticity of the gospel, but behind it all, beyond her words, was the motivation that she wanted through this demonic spirit to be able to attract people and gain trust with them and to be able to use her fortune telling skills that were given to her by this demonic spirit that she may lure people away from the true cause of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that she would be a demonic instrument, that the devil would use to draw people away from the truth. Now, hear me, church, that this is happening all over the world and that it is your responsibility as a believer to be alert to these kind of things, to not just be a person who just believes everything that is out there.
So many times as believers, we think, boy, if Jesus’ name’s on it or if somehow it’s religious, it’s gotta be from God. But I wanna tell you friends, everything you see is not what it really is. The Bible tells us in 1 John 4, 1, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Do you see that this demonic lady who is being controlled by her masters, and they are using her to take advantage of others and making a prophet off of it, that she is speaking things that are positive and beneficial to the gospel, but the apostle sees beyond it, for he knows that she just wants to lure them away.
She wants to gain trust with them so that she can lead them down the path of fortune telling, and they eventually are deceived of the truth. That’s why the Bible says to test every spirit. That’s why we’re taught in Thessalonians to test all thing.
God has not called us to be a naive people, but rather, He has called us to be a discerning people. That we’re to have our antennas up, and that we’re not to be drawn away just because we are impressed with the style.
The key is that you and I are alert to the substance. We see this all the time, whether it’s in politics, or we see it in businesses, or corporations, or even sometimes in sports and athletics. We see all the rah, rah, rah about the style.
But then when it comes down to the substance, how many times have you and I seen maybe a football game, a baseball game, and everybody’s saying, hey buddy, this is the team, and boy, when they get out there, they’re gonna, but listen, the game is not won in hype and marketing.
The game is won on the field. Do you agree with that? And so it is in the Christian life. There’s a lot of hype out there. There’s a lot of people claiming things that are not necessarily true, but what is the substance?
Now I know that you’re saying to me, Pastor, how do we discern, how do we test? Well let me just give you two things that’ll help you. How do we discern and how do we test? And I wanna tell you that I think the two big areas that you have got to apply these principles into testing is first of all to the messengers or the teachers that are out there.
Now Pastor Mike’s not one who thinks he’s the only one that’s right. I would never think like that. There’s a lot of good Bible believing churches in our community, and yes, even the world. So don’t misunderstand me.
But I also know there’s a lot of false teaching out there. But it’s not just in those who are proclaiming the gospel in teaching the Bible, but I need you to be discerning in relation to even music. Because so many of you are sucked in by the style that you’re forgetting the substance.
So let me give you two things that’ll help you to test all things, to test the spirits. Two things, they’re simple, they’re not complicated. First is that you need to evaluate the message that is being proclaimed.
Evaluate the message. Does the message line up with the Bible? Does the message line up with Christianity? Does the message line up with what our savior taught us? That’s why you need to be a student of the Bible.
If you’re not reading, studying your Bible on a regular basis, no wonder you’re easily led astray. No wonder you’re gullible to the style. No wonder you get caught up. So let’s make sure the message is right.
Now when we look here in Acts chapter 16, the message is right, isn’t it? The message is right. Go back to the message. I want you to see this because I don’t want you to lose focus here. Verse 17, these men are the servants of the Most High God who proclaim to us the way of salvation.
But Paul said, he got annoyed at her. So it’s just beyond the message. Here it is. Here’s the second step when you are testing the spirits. It is the character of the messenger, the character of the musicians, the character.
of the person. Now, Jesus said this in referring to false teachers, you will know them by their fruits. You will know them by their fruits. Jesus said, you can’t have good fruit come out of a bad tree.
And his point is that you gotta look at their life. Here’s what I wanna say to you, church, is never expose yourself to a so-called ministry, teacher, or music in which their life does not align with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now, we’re not talking about perfection, but we’re certainly talking about the direction of our lives. There’s nobody perfect, and if you’re perfect, would you please stand up? Just lookin’. Anybody wanna say I’m perfect?
None of us are perfect. The only perfect one is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen? But what’s the direction of your life? Listen, there are many messengers out there who are using religion to profit off the most vulnerable.
Now look, during COVID, there were charlatans out there on TV, religious, quote, leaders, saying if you would send them $1,000, they would send you oil that would protect you from COVID. And you know what?
There were millions of vulnerable, naive people who did it. You understand that? You see, there is a righteous indignation. There is a righteous anger. And when is it that Jesus turned over tables? Not because somebody’s life was messed up, or bad choices, but when religious so-called people took advantage of the weak and the vulnerable and the poor.
That’s when Jesus got upset. And there is a time to have a righteous indignation. Now, I don’t want you to turn over any tables, okay? I’m just telling you that there ought to be a time when we stand up and say, no, we’re not gonna tolerate this.
We’re gonna step in and say something. And that’s just an example, it’s the same thing. I can continue to go on. But look, the lives of these individuals that are proclaiming a message that looks good on the outside, but on the inside.
And I could give you stories after stories after stories. And some of you say, well, Pastor, how come we don’t sing this song? How come we don’t sing that song? I’ll tell you why, though it is in the Christian top 10 list, I know things about some of these groups.
I know how they’re taking advantage. I know their lifestyles. It is not anything that is private knowledge. It’s all public. You need to be discerning. You need to be careful because there can be somebody like this lady who is saying, these men are the servants of the Most High and they proclaim to us the way of salvation.
And then Paul turns around and says, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And so what was the obstacle? It was deception. And now Paul is addressing this. And in verse 19 through 21, we see that as a result of him standing up for what is right, and even though he has confronted this deception, look what happens in verse 19, because this reveals the true motivation.
But when her master saw that, their hope of profit was gone. They seized Paul and Silas and they dragged him into the marketplace to the authority. So what we see here, what takes place is unjust accusations.
You see, here’s how the world works. When they cannot debate you about the truth, they start attacking you. They make accusations that are not accurate. They try to discredit you. They try to create a narrative that characterizes you as someone who is against the people.
And so whenever the gospel starts threatening economic interests of charlatans, I promise you there will be opposition. While Christianity is not an officially recognized religion by the Romans here in the Roman Empire, the owners of this slave who they were using because she was possessed of a demon was losing money.
And so look what they said in verse 20. The Bible says that they brought them to the magistrates and said these men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city. Did you see they attacked their nationality?
They attacked their race. They attacked who they were. Being Jews, they exceedingly trouble our city. The work of the devil is to try to create division within a nation, within a family, and within a people over race.
You must be alert to that because the gospel teaches us that God loves every person on this planet. Do you believe that church? Yes, we do. But look what they’re doing. They’re trying to create division and they’re upset because they’re losing money and so they accuse them of their race.
They accuse them of their ethnicity. They accuse them of their nationality and they say they are troubling our city. I am for the laws of the land being obeyed. I am for there being proper processes and everything being done decently and in order as the scriptures teach us.
But church, be careful that you don’t get caught up in the vitriolic language of demeaning people who are loved by God, that Christ went to the cross and gave his life, that they might have eternal life.
Do not get caught up in the racist language and creating division and dividing families and individuals based upon their ethnicity. What is that, the heart and the problem that goes on with lawlessness?
Sin is. that we’re all born with a sinful nature. It has nothing to do with the color of our skin, but it has everything to do with our heart. The heart can only be changed through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
You can pass all the laws you want, but what needs to take place is the redemption of the heart, and I want you to be careful that you are not like these dividers who are trying to hurt and cause division and that you would use this type of terminology to attack, because this is how the devil works.
He not only tells us in verse 20 that they’re troubling our city, but look at verse 21. Now, they’re going back to their nationalism. Look at verse 21. They teach customs which are not lawful for us being Romans to receive or observe.
How did these charlatans create anger in the hearts of the people and the leaders? They attacked Paul and his team’s nationality, their ethnicity, but they also attacked their unwillingness to do it the Roman way.
And what is the response when the people hear this? The multitude rose up together against them. The magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. You see how they’ve stirred the people up, and now they are upset as they are attacking.
But I wanna preface what I’m gonna say with this. I love America. I appreciate every one of you that have served our country so I can stand up here and teach the gospel. But what’s more important than the American way is God’s way.
It’s God’s obedience, and there have been many things that were the American way, but that didn’t make it the right way. And praise God, we live in a country where things can be corrected, right? Where things can be changed.
We look back in our history, and it’s not that our history has always been perfect. Thank God for our forefathers who wanted a country of freedom, but we also know that because we are flesh and blood, that mistakes have been made.
and things have been mishandled, but praise the Lord that we have a system that can correct those. Don’t be so blinded by the American way that you can’t see the sins of America, that you can’t see the flaws of America, and you can’t see the things that need to be changed to make America a better country that honors God and takes care of the poor and reaches out to the hurting and blesses every citizen that lives in this country.
I want you to have discernment. I want you to not get caught up in the emotionalism of the style, and I want you to process discernment with the substance. The final part that we see is unlawful punishment.
Verse 22 through 24, the Bible says the multitude rose up, they tore off their clothes, and they beat them with rods. Why? Because all that they did was they did a spiritual work, they cast out a demon in this young slave, now her.
profiteers, her charlatans couldn’t make money off her anymore. And because they couldn’t make money, they brought them in and they made false accusations about them and tried to make it look like they were against the nation and that they were people who were not to be accepted or received.
And now they’re being beaten up. They were commanded to be beaten. Then we see they were suffering. The Bible says in verse 24 that having received such a charge, meaning the jailer, he put them into the inner prison and he fastened their feet in the stocks.
What did they do wrong? We know that even in the Roman system and the Roman legal process that it was illegal to beat a Roman citizen without due process, without a trial. They were immediately thrown in to prison.
They were not given this opportunity to defend themselves and to make their case. We’ll see how the apostle takes advantage of that later. But here we see this unfolding that they are put into jail and then they are put into the inner prison, not just the outward prison where they kept different criminals, but into the inner prison so that they would not escape.
Yes. Here’s what I want you to understand church, that as we live for God, as we stand up for righteousness, I can’t promise you that everything’s going to be fair. I can’t promise you that there’ll be no obstacles in the future, that there’ll be no challenges in trying to do right.
I can’t promise you that every person will abide by the law or that they will follow the proper legal way of dealing with things. But I can promise you this, that the trials that we go through in life, no matter how they evolve in our life, that they are not designed by God to punish us, but they are designed by God to make us sharper and better believers for Jesus Christ.
The trials and the struggles are only purified. our lives. That what God is doing in the life of the Apostle and his team is that he is refining them and God is refining us when we struggle. He is refining us when we face trials and we find that things are not fair.
He is refining us that we may come forth as pure gold. The Bible says in the book of Job that he knoweth the way that I take and when he has tried me I shall come forth as gold. God understands what you’re facing and God knows and he’s very much aware of every detail of your life and just as he saw that the Apostle Paul’s team was unjustly imprisoned, they were punished for things that they had never done or for the situation that they were dealing with.
They just happened to be there they’re trying to do some good work and now all of a sudden Satan is opposing them and he is using people to have him thrown into jail. You might wonder and you could consider.
I wonder if Paul thought, God, you told me this is where I was supposed to go. You told me that this was your will. You forbade me to go the other way. And you told me that by the Spirit, I’m to go to Macedonia.
And there may have been decisions and choices that you have made that you believe with all your heart. That was the right thing to do. This is what God wanted you to do. But now all of a sudden you’re dealing with one trial after another.
And it seems so unfair. It seems so unjust. And you’re saying to yourself, God, do you see what I’m going through? Why? Why are you allowing this God? I want to assure you this morning that God does care and that God is alert.
And that just because you face opposition and just because you have problems in your life doesn’t mean that you are not smack dab in the center of the will of God Almighty. That even through our trials and even through our struggles that God has a perfect plan, that He has a perfect will, and that He is working in our life.
God uses our trials to shape us. He uses our trials to shape our life. Every one of you. It is experience that has shaped your life. It is what you’ve been through that makes you the way you are. Sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad.
The problem is not your challenges. The problem is not your trials. The problem is not your circumstances, hear me. It’s how you respond to your problems. Your problem is not your problem. Your problem is how you respond.
This morning my challenge to you is that here, we’re gonna see later on next week as we come together again, we’re gonna see how did Paul and Silas respond when they’re thrown in prison. You can read ahead and you’ll find out that they were singing.
They were shouting joy. They were giving praise to God. When you have a problem, do you cry out and say, God, why? Or do you say, Lord, what are you teaching me? When you have a problem, do you get…
mad at God and do you get mad at everybody around you and do you become a bitter and angry person or when you have a problem do you strive to be better and stronger. Every trial in your life has these two possible outcomes.
It can either be a stumbling block in your life that sets you back for many years or it can be a stepping stone that helps you to step up and be all that God planned and intended for your life. I want to remind you that Hope Worth Having has a Facebook page and I would love for you to check that out and to make sure that you take the opportunity to learn more about our radio program by going to our Facebook page and like us and then learn more about it and check out all the posts that we’ve made and keep up with us and I know the Lord will work in your heart.
This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post How to Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 16:11-40.
And I want you to understand the invitation to come to Jesus is not an invitation to be religious. It’s an invitation to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to have a relationship with Christ. More important than anything in your life, but it is a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders and you are listening to Hope Worth Having radio ministry. Today, we’re going to be in Acts chapter 16, verse 11 through 40. We’re going to talk about how to turn your obstacles into opportunities.
When we think of the book of Acts, one of the things we note that as we study the latter part of the book of Acts, focus is on the ministry of the apostle Paul, a person that we could really learn from and how he handled obstacles and turned them into opportunities.
So let’s get into the word of God today and begin our study. If you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in Acts chapter 16. We’re going to begin a new series that I want to share with you the next few weeks on how to turn your obstacles into opportunities, how to turn your obstacles into opportunities.
If you have been tracking with us through the book of Acts and you have been with us and learning chapter by chapter, you know that the apostle Paul and his team have arrived in the city that is called Philippi and they were expecting great things.
After all, they had been clearly sent to Philippi. You remember that back in verse 6, the Bible tells us of chapter 16, now when they had gone through Phrygia, the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia.
A stunning statement there. We jump over to verse 9 of chapter 16. The Bible says, a vision appeared to Paul in the night. a man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him saying, come over to Macedonia and help us.
God works in mysterious ways. And sometimes what seems to be what our plans are, God puts detours in our lives. And he sends us a different direction. This is exactly what we have already taught you on.
And so here we find when we come down to verse 16 that Paul is in Philippi, that he is establishing a church in this city. Philippi was the city within the province of Macedonia. You might think of in terms of like how we have states in the United States.
And there are cities within those states. Philippi was a city within the province of Macedonia. And when he came to Philippi, the apostle would face much conflict, obstacles and problems. He describes some of these, challenges in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 2 when he says that even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict.
Yes, the gospel message is often met with obstacles. Yes, when you and I are serving God and we’re out there trying to make a difference, trying to impact, whether it’s in our family or it is in our community, I want you to know that there’s going to be obstacles.
There’s going to be opposition. Not everybody loves God. You know that. And I don’t want you to be under the delusion that somehow when you start serving God, the devil just takes a vacation and he decides, you know what, I’m just going to let them have free reign.
No, just the opposite, my friends. One of the ways you know that you are doing the will of God is that there will be opposition. There will be pushback because the devil is fighting hard to stop the work of Christ taking place in your home, in your family, in your church, in your community.
But I want to remind you that whenever there is an obstacle, God has the ability based on our response to that obstacle to turn it around into an opportunity for the advancement and the cause of Jesus Christ.
So that’s what we’re going to be talking about in the next few weeks. Yes, there are obstacles. But let us remember church on a big perspective. And this is really helpful as you are wrestling through the challenges of your day, as you are trying to push forward for Christ.
I want you to keep in mind that the Father has called a people, His people. He is called a people to salvation. And the Son, Jesus Christ, went to the cross and He purchased their salvation. and he gave his life for our sins to be paid for.
I want you to remember that the Holy Spirit is working and that he is drawing people to him. You say, how do we turn our obstacles into opportunities? Well, it begins with this simple statement, church.
I want you to hang off this. I want you to work. Here it is, work where God is working. I want you to work where God is working. You see, what is Paul doing? He is working where God is working. You see, he was headed to one place.
The Spirit of God forbade him. The Spirit of God said, that ain’t gonna happen. You’re gonna go over here. God gave him a vision of a man crying out for help, and so the apostle assembled his team and said, look, we gotta go a different direction.
We’re punting over here. and we’ll come back to this location and we’ll share the gospel, but now the Lord is leading us over here and I want us to move forward. And so the apostle was sensitive to work where God is working.
Why should I work where God is working? Because God is seeking sinners. Did you hear me, church? You may question why you are in this situation. You may wonder why you’re dealing with this circumstance.
You may wonder why you are in the midst of this test and why you are dealing with these particular problems. But I’m here to tell you that the reason God has you where He wants you is because God is working in the hearts of your family and He is working in the hearts of your coworkers and He is working in the hearts of the people that live in your community and He is calling you to be that instrument because He is seeking sinners.
Remember what Jesus said in Luke 19.10. He said that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. You see, don’t forget that it is our God who takes the initiative to reach out to us and He uses each and every person who loves the Lord to fulfill that initiative.
But it all started in John 3.16 when Jesus taught us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He was intentional. He took the initiative. He didn’t sit back and say, we’ll just see how things pan out.
He jumped into our messed up world and the Bible tells us that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting what church? Life, yes. Not just the quantity of life that the gospel is teaching us but about the quality of life.
Everlasting doesn’t have to do just with the duration of life but the depth of life. And so when you come to Christ, you not only live with God and you not only have eternal life in the sense that you will be with Him when you leave this world but you will have the greatest life.
Jesus said, I’ve come that they might have life and that they might have it more, what church? Abundantly, that’s right. Now listen, that doesn’t mean there aren’t obstacles. That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t sorrows in your life. But I tell you that God, when he saves us, he changes us and he does something miraculous within us and the quality of our life supersedes the quality of any life that follows the world and the flesh and the devil.
You see, Jesus came seeking each and every one of us when we were not even seeking him. We’re reminded in the scriptures in Romans chapter three and verse 11 that the Bible says there’s none who understands.
There is none who seeks after God. I wish every mom and dad could understand that. The most powerful principle you can learn about your children in raising them is that they’re sinners in need of a savior.
I mean, parents are coddling them and they’re trying to baby them and they’re trying to make their world perfect and that this kid will never have a bump and he’ll never have a bruise. It’s not reality.
But if you focus on the fact that my child is a sinner in need of a savior, that we do not in our human flesh naturally seek God, we do not even understand God. You wonder what is wrong with my kid. I’ll tell you what’s wrong.
They’re sinners. They need Jesus. That’s what’s going to change your children. And when you start with that premise, then you will begin to be that missionary to your child. You will begin to bring the plan of salvation to that child.
And so when we come to the book of Acts chapter 16, what we see is everything that I just taught you being played out right before us in a lady whose name is Lydia. Turn with me to Acts chapter 16, pick up in verse 16.
Now it happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us who brought her master’s much profit by fortune-telling. Now this lady here, she is in contrast to what I want to show you with Lydia.
And I want you to see back in verse 14 that there’s a certain woman named Lydia who hurt us. Here, Paul is wanting us to see the contrast between Lydia who comes to Christ, believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, and a person who is a slave girl who’s possessed of a spirit of divination.
And she is a part of a fortune-telling scheme. What the Bible shows us here is God is working when people respond to him that we can see the powerful work of Christ in people’s life. And what is taking place here is that we see that Paul is at Philippi, which was a strategic city.
because it was the gateway to Europe. Some of you may say, why? Why Philippi? Why was God wanting Paul and his team to be in Philippi on the second missionary journey? Why would he want them? Because this is how God was working.
He would send Paul’s team to these major metropolitan cities and then from there, as they would plant the churches, the gospel would just spread like wildfire throughout the continent. Philippi was located 10 miles from the port city of Neopolis.
It was a Roman colony. It was a city that was named after Alexander the Great’s father, Philip the Second, and he wanted to honor the Philippians for their loyalty to Alexander the Great. And so the Bible says in verse 11 of chapter 16, therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samathras and the next day came to Neopolis and from there to Philemon, Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia,
a colony, and we were staying in that city for some days. And on the Sabbath day, we went out of the city to the riverside where prayer was customary made. And we sat down and spoke to the woman who met there.
Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira and who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay, though she persuaded us.
Here what we see is that a small group of women had gathered together on the riverside and they were wanting to come together as Jewish believers to worship God. Now why were they meeting in the riverside?
Because there was a rule in Judaism that you cannot have an official synagogue unless you have 10 men available to start a synagogue. So these women did not have this ability and so they just met together and the Bible says that they were coming for prayer and they were coming to worship God.
Lydia, she was a business woman. She was a professional woman and she was a woman who was selling purple, which meant that simply there was a dye that they would use in the fabrics and they would sell this.
So she was kind of traveling, if you will, the world and different parts of the world and selling this product. She knew, apparently because she had maybe been there before, but that she knew these women gathered and she knew that they prayed and so her wanting to be a person who was faithful to what she believed in, which was Judaism, she showed up and she began to…
to meet with these ladies. She was a wealthy woman. She was not only a business woman, but she was a religious woman. And so it was that she was reaching out to these women to connect with them, but the Bible says something interesting.
I want you to look at verse 14. The Lord opened her heart. The clue to Lydia’s conversion was that God opened her heart. Yes, she was religious. Yes, she had a tender heart towards the thought of God.
And yes, she had good thoughts and intentions of coming together to meet with these women, to pray and to worship God. But here’s the problem. She did not have a relationship with God. And I want you to understand the invitation to come to Jesus is not an invitation to be religious.
It’s an invitation to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to have a relationship with God. Christ, more important than anything in your life, and more important than anything in the life of your children, is not your religion, it’s not your rules, it’s not your rituals, but it is a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
I wish parents cared more about the heart of their children than they do the hair of their children. This lady, her heart was opened, and the Bible says that not only was her heart open, but her home became open, and then her mouth became open as she confessed God through baptism.
And then finally, here’s what it is, the entire continent of Europe would become open to the gospel because of one lady named Lydia. That’s the power of the gospel. That’s the power of God’s work. And so the key that I want you to see here is that God opened her heart.
But how did God open her heart? Let’s go back to the text, a certain woman named Lydia, she heard us. What did she hear? Well, look at the end of the verse, the Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.
What was Paul speaking? Do you think Paul went in there and said, hey, let’s talk about politics? You think Paul went into that group of ladies and said, hey, let me tell you how to be a better person?
You think he went in there and he had a strategy of how to do this or how to do that? No, the apostle Paul went in there. Let me tell you what he did. He gave them the word of God. He gave her the power of the gospel.
That’s why the Bible says in Romans 10, 17, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You see, I want you to understand this morning that God has not only ordained the message, but he has ordained the means.
This is where we get off track in our parenting. This is where we get off track in our families. This is where we get off track in our churches, is that we think… We’re gonna try every other means outside of God’s word to reach our family, and to reach our children, and to reach our grandchildren when the truth is, faith comes by hearing the what, the word.
Now either God lies, or he tells the truth. You understand that? So people say to me, they say, Pastor, well, we wanna do this, and we wanna do that, and that’s fine, you all do that fancy stuff, but let me tell you something.
The only way people are gonna get saved is through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She could see that God’s plan of salvation was clearly articulated by the apostle. She could see that Jesus Christ was our substitute on the cross, that he had gone to that cross, and rather than us being punished for our sins, Jesus was punished for our sins, and Jesus gave his life for us.
She could clearly see that Jesus went to the cross for sinners, that she was a sinner in need of a savior, and surely the apostle Paul taught her that if she would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, she would have everlasting life.
How did God open her heart? How is God gonna open the heart of your children? How is God gonna open the heart of your neighbor? How is God gonna open the hearts of masses of people around the world? It will not be, hear me, it will not be by the razzle dazzle.
It will not be by entertainment. It’ll be by the power of the proclamation of God’s word. And I know some of you struggle with that, but that’s okay. You do you, but I’m gonna stay on track with God.
The Bible says in John 20, verse 31, but these are written, what was written? The Gospel of John, that you might what? Believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name.
You want to ignite faith in the hearts of people around you. You want to ignite the hearts of those who are unbelievers. Feed them the word of God. You know, a young man was talking to me just the other day, and he said, what should I do?
And I said, look, you should read the Gospel of John. Well, why the Gospel of John? Because these things were written that you might believe. And I want you to understand that the power of God’s word, getting him to go through the Gospels and to see the power of Christ and to see the Gospel clearly portrayed before him through the life of Christ and through the work of Christ.
on the cross would have a greater impact than be handing him any book or be handing him any particular podcast or whatever it is. I want you to understand that it is God’s word. And sometimes I am afraid that in this contemporary world that we live in, that we have forgotten about the power of the word of God, and we have forgotten about the sufficiency of the word of God.
And so we’re grasping for straws, we’re grasping for everything else out there. And having been tried, what do we find? We live in a more messed up world today than our forefathers who stood strong on the inerrant, infallible word of God.
Are you with me? Oh yes, I understand. But I want you to understand that faith is ignited in the heart by the word of God. That God is working out their church. Jesus said, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day, so I want you to know that God is drawing people to him.
It’s not that people are not responsive to God. And you say, well, they don’t, listen, Mike, it’s boring. Nobody wants to listen to the Bible. Nobody wants to hear what God has to say. Hey, listen to me.
When Lydia came, she thought she was gonna do a religious ritual. She thought she was gonna go through the motions. A man showed up to this little prayer group. He taught him about Jesus Christ. He proclaimed the gospel to him.
The Bible says that the Lord opened her heart. And she believed. God was drawing Lydia. God was working. The Apostle Paul joined where God is working. The other day, I was picking up my car. This lady, she was frustrated at what the mechanic said it was gonna cost to fix her car.
And she screamed out, and God, forgive me. She said, Jesus, like in a derogatory way. I looked at her. I said, he loves you. Whenever people use God’s name in vain, Pastor Mike’s right there. I don’t care where I’m at.
I finish it out because I think perhaps they misunderstood. But this is the name above all names, amen? This is our Lord and Savior. And I’m certainly, I know, you say, well, Mike, that’s not gonna help win people to Christ.
But I’m just telling you, it irritates me. It bothers me when people shame the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, when people drag it through the mud, and when people degrade it, there’s something that makes me want to stand up and defend the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I know I got issues, and I know I need to be in counseling, and I know I need a lot of therapy in my life, but I’m just telling you, it just busts out on me. And I said, he loves you. She started to cry.
And I held her hand, and I talked to her, and I listened to her. And the poor guy that wanted to get me checked out and get me on so he can get the next customer, he was a mess because he didn’t know what to do, and he was just witnessing God working.
She hadn’t been back in church. since COVID. And I said, you need to get back in church. God is at work. You just don’t know where he’s working and who he’s working and I can stand up here church and tell you stories after stories after stories, okay?
That just happened in my life day to day, week to week, and they’re happening in your life. You’re just not seizing it. You’re just not jumping on the opportunity. You see every obstacle as it’s time to defeat, quit and give up and fold our chair up and call it a day.
But I’m saying to you church, God is at work. He is working every day in your home. He is working every day at your job. He is working every day in your community. And what you need to do is you need to realize that he is drawing people to him.
And he was drawing Lydia. And as a result of this one woman’s conversion, think about how many people have come to Christ in Europe. And then when it left Europe, it jumped into America. And you think about all the great awakenings that America has happened.
And people think that in the next few weeks that we’ll fix America. You’re not gonna fix America in a couple weeks. What you’re gonna do is you’re gonna just try to pacify one side or the other. But let me tell you the true answer to America.
It is Jesus Christ. It is for us to get back to God. And I wanna encourage you, church, to be sensitive to that every day in your life. Remember what we learned in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 6. The apostle Paul told the church, he planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
He gave the increase. You see, that’s how it works, church. You just go around spreading seeds. You just go around planting the gospel. You just go around planting good seeds into people’s lives everywhere you go.
You get up every day and you recognize, I’m either planting a seed today or I’m watering a seed. I’m getting up every day and God’ll give the increase. And you say, well, I don’t see thousands falling down and giving their lives to God.
It doesn’t matter, church. God’ll give the increase. And how does God work? Sometimes God works in the most insignificant ways. While we’re all looking for the big and the profound, God is working in some of the most smallest ways you have ever seen.
It was this massive city of Philippi, a gateway to Europe. And it wasn’t the big political buildings that were built. It wasn’t even the pagan buildings that were built of religious worship. It was a small group of women on a riverside meeting together to pray and to worship God from what they understood.
It was that small group of women that the apostle showed up. He shares the gospel. Lydia gives her life to Christ. It becomes a profound impact upon Europe that leads to America, that leads to you and I eventually coming to the Lord Jesus Christ.
But I wanna tell you, when God gives the growth, when God gives the increase, it is very profound. Now after she followed her step of faith in Christ, the Bible says that she was baptized. I want you to see how she was baptized.
The Bible tells us in verse 15 that when she and her household were baptized, she begged us saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And so she persuaded us.
You see, what was her next step? After she came to Christ, she was baptized. You see the Apostle Paul, when he led people to Christ, he didn’t just leave them out there. He didn’t just say, well, that’s another notch in my belt.
But he followed up on people and he made sure that they followed the Lord in obedience to be baptized. And this lady was baptized. And you know, I think it’s so important because I meet so many Christians who have never followed the Lord in baptism.
Baptism is the outward sign of an inward change in a person who has placed their trust in Jesus Christ. If you have never been baptized and you are a believer, then you are living in disobedience to God.
And you know, when our children were young, we taught them not only about salvation, but after they came to Christ, we taught them about the importance of being baptized. We took that time, and we made sure that they understood what it is, why it is, and how it’s an outward sign of our faith, and we would explain it to them like this.
When our children were little, they loved to play soccer for the CVS, and they wanted to wear their uniforms the night before. They wanted to sleep in them. We’d say, no, we’re gonna do that in the morning.
No, no, we gotta sleep in them tonight. We want to be on the Blazer team. That’s what they love. They love to identify with their school soccer team. Hear me, when I get baptized, we just witnessed it this morning, amen?
And what we’re seeing is not only someone saying, I’m a believer and I’m not ashamed to follow Christ, but we’re witnessing someone who is identifying with Jesus Christ. You understand that, church? That’s why if you have not been baptized, you need to make that commitment today.
And moms and dads, what are you doing? You’re talking about everything else, about the sports and football and basketball and soccer and yada yada? But you’ve never sat down and taught your children about baptism?
Hello? Come on. Be the priest of your home, dads. Step up. You wonder what’s wrong? It’s because you’re not spiritually leading your children. You’re leading them in sports. You’re leading them in activity.
You’re leading them in academics. You’re leading them in every area, but then the one area that determines between heaven and hell, the one area that determines their eternal destination, and that is their spiritual life.
And that’s why more than anything, God wants you to be a spiritual leader in your home. That’s what we need. We need spiritual leaders in our homes. And so she was baptized. She was illustrating the gospel.
And I want you to know at the Open Door Church, we practice believers baptism. We don’t baptize little babies because they cannot express faith. We baptize people who put their faith in trouble. trust in Jesus Christ for salvation.
That’s why we call it believers baptism. You say, well, Pastor Mike, I was baptized as a little baby. Well, that’s an expression of what your parents believe, but it’s not an expression of what you believe.
And if you have come to the Lord Jesus Christ, you need not be ashamed and you need to be willing to follow the Lord in obedience and be baptized. Why is that essential to you? Not only because God commanded it, but because it is the gateway to your spiritual growth.
Wherever the Apostle went, It was either a riot or a revival. And that’s really true. We see this illustrated in the Word of God. And that’s because some people, when they respond to the gospel, their hearts are melted and they are receptive.
Others, their hearts are hardened and they are rebellious and resistant to the Word of God. And so I’m so grateful that God has led us to be able to understand the gospel, to receive the gospel, that our hearts have been responsive.
And I hope today that is your heart and that you will continue to grow in your faith. And when we begin this journey, there’s gonna be problems, but we always remember God is working. And I would encourage you to stay faithful.
Don’t forget to check out hopeworthhaving.com. There’s many wonderful opportunities for you to expand and grow your learning. And also you might check out the devotion book that I wrote and you can get that book for a donation of any amount.
We’ll be glad to send it to you and that’ll help you to stay faithful and walk obedient for the Lord. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having. Thanks for watching.
I’m Mike Sanders, and I’ll see you next week.
The post How to Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on God’s Strategy for Successful Service Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 16:1-9.
It is our responsibility to come alongside our brothers and sisters and to strengthen them because when the devil is firing his darts, they are darts of discouragement that are designed to defeat us as believers and cause us to become so despondent that we want to quit and to give up.
Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from The Open Door Church. Today we’re in Acts chapter 16 and we’re covering verses 1 through 9. And one of the things that I thought was interesting that we learned last week is how the early church was always mentoring and preparing the next generation, how important that is.
And I hope today that as we continue in the study of God’s strategy to successfully serve, that you and I can continue to see the value of investing in other believers. So let’s get into God’s word today in Acts chapter 16.
It just so happened to tie in the fact that I would be preaching on this text. But it was very reflective and affirming in my heart to know that there are others that have poured into me. But I just want to ask you, who are you pouring into?
I’ve said to you before, church, I’ve learned it from someone somewhere. I mean, you know nothing’s new under the sun. But I just want you to know that I want to encourage you that every one of us need a mentor.
We all need an Apostle Paul in our life. And you need to find those mentors. And sometimes those mentors take on different influences upon us, meaning that one mentor may be good in this area and another mentor may be good in another area, but they are pouring into our lives.
But not only do we need an Apostle Paul, we need a Timothy. We need to be pouring our lives into someone else. And we also need a Barnabas, an encourager. They’re just certain people who are gifted. It doesn’t matter.
Every time you are with them, everything’s wonderful. I mean, the whole world could be collapsing, but it’s wonderful. They’re just encouragers. It’s not that they’re lying, it’s just that the way they see the world, they’ve just been designed by God to be an encourager.
And if you need to be lifted up, you just need to hang around some of those Barnabas that are always coming alongside others and encouraging them. We need these people in our lives, and if we’re gonna see this happen, we must be intentional.
We must be intentional. It must be a goal that we would find these mentors in our life. But also, number two, we must take the initiative. And I’ve always, and in pursuing mentors, I have always taken the initiative.
Usually, mentors don’t come running to me and say, Mike, I wanna pour my life into you. But I go to them and say, hey, can I have 10 minutes? Can I take you to lunch? Hey, I got some questions and the relationship just evolves from there and God blesses.
Some doesn’t evolve, but some it does. And I love it when I get to meet with other young pastors and helping them. And I tomorrow have an appointment. I won’t be available from, well, I got the radio station, then I got to drive to…
I know you’re not going to believe this, but I have a breakfast meeting. That cracker barrel, I don’t know why these people always want to go to cracker barrel. But anyways, with a young pastor, first year pastoring, and he wants to sit down and we meet once a month and we talk about ministry and we talk about problem solving and different ways that can help him.
One of his deacons called me one time and said, thank you, Pastor Mike. Thank you for pouring into our pastor because every time he comes back, he has 100 new ideas. I promise you, I don’t give people a lot of ideas, I just try to give them principles.
But the thing is this, all of us need to do it. And I only share that with you because I want you to know I’m not standing up here telling you to do something I’m not doing. And we all need to find people that we can pour our lives into and that we can be a blessing to.
And that is part of God’s success strategy. We cannot wait, church. We cannot wait. Our church has dropped over 30 some volunteers. We just had a little staff get away and we walked through our numbers and the number of volunteers since before COVID into now has just dropped drastically.
Now, our attendance is coming back and it’s pretty exciting to see how God is pulling his people back into the fold. There’s a few that still haven’t come, but I’m not sure they’re ever coming back and there’s nothing I can do.
I’ve done everything I can to bring them back, but everybody has to seek the Lord and whatever they believe. is right, but here’s what I want you to understand is that when we think about how are we going to make up that gap I’ll tell you what it’s gonna be it’s gonna be each one of you not only volunteering and stepping up and I’m doing things that it’s not that I said hey I love this or I want to do this but it’s got to be done but also it’s us training the next generation it’s training the young people and the new believers and the new families coming into the church it’s training them and helping them to get engaged and you do that by this way never do ministry alone never do ministry alone whatever God has called you to do you pick up the phone and you call somebody or you text them and you say come alongside let’s do this together I want you to know that when I was a young man in my small church that I came to Christ to believe in that the pastor there Like,
we didn’t have this big mentoring program, and we didn’t have all these classes and all these Bible studies, and I’m not against any of that, okay? So don’t walk out of here upset and send me an email this afternoon, because I’ll be watching football and falling asleep, okay?
I’m just being honest with you, okay? But here’s the thing. The pastor just said, “‘Mike, I’m gonna go make some visits. “‘Would you like to come along?'” Sure. “‘Mike, I need to go run an errand. “‘Would you like to come along?'” Sure.
“‘Would you like to help me on this project? “‘I gotta do some things at the church. “‘Can you help me with this project?'” Sure. Glad to do it. Now, of course, I was a new believer, hungry, desiring, wanting, and growing, and wanting to learn more, and probably drove my pastor crazy and just asking him so many questions about what I read in the Bible and what in the world that that meant, and how that applied to my life.
But what I wanna say is this. Here was a pastor who never did ministry alone. And that’s your mindset’s gotta be, is that as you are training the next generation, is that you’re always thinking about who can we get.
It’s not just that we sit and drink coffee, that’s good, but we serve together, and we train these young people and these new believers and new families, and we get them engaged in training the next generation.
The second thing that I want you to see out of this passage is that we must strengthen the faith of existing Christians. Look at verse four and five. Again, we see as they went through the cities, they delivered to them the decrees to keep, which were determined by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem.
So the churches were what? You can do better. The churches were what? So the churches were strengthened in the faith. They were strengthened. This is our role, church. This is God’s success plan, is to strengthen other believers.
Now let’s back up a little bit, understand what’s going on in this. This text in verse four, we’re reminded that the apostles, they brought, they delivered a decree for them to keep or to obey or to follow.
The ruling that was given by the Jerusalem Council is what they were delivering. So let’s go back to chapter 15. Again, it’s good for you to see everything in context and understand what is happening and not just rush through the text and not fully grasp what God is trying to show us here.
We go back to verse 11, chapter 15. Remember, there was this debate. Did new believers, Gentile believers have to follow the customs of Judaism? Did they have to follow the rituals and the ceremonies of Judaism?
What was that conclusion? We look at verse 11 of chapter 15, but we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they. Meaning, you don’t get saved differently in the kingdom of God.
that just as the Jews were saved by the grace of God, so shall the Gentiles be saved by the grace of God. Now jump down to verse 19 of chapter 15. Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, verse 20, but that we write to them to abstain from things that are polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, and from things that are strangled and from blood.
And what was the purpose in that last part? It was not to be offensive that the gospel may go farther and reach more people, that it was not to be offensive to the Jews in their dietary laws that they had and their customs that they had, but that they were to understand that the gospel was to go out and that they would believe in the true gospel of salvation by Christ alone.
That’s it. That’s it. The problem with legalism and liberalism is they’re always adding to the gospel. They’re always adding something to the gospel, and you and I gotta be careful about these lists that we make, these lists of dos and don’ts, because they do not define the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now all of us are called to be examples, and all of us are called to live a life that is honoring to God and not be a stumbling block to our brothers and sisters in Christ, but when it comes to salvation, it’s Christ and Christ alone.
Twice Luke uses the word here in chapter 15 and 16 that the brothers were strengthened, that the family of God was strengthened in the faith. It’s the idea of being made strong or established. Some translations have that word established.
They were made firm in the faith, and what is interesting is that when you come down to verse five, when the Bible says the churches were strengthened, it’s in the continuous action verb, it’s continually happening, it’s ongoing, it’s not just a one-time event, a big rally day, a big day, and the church was strengthened in the faith.
No, day by day, week by week, month by month, the task of strengthening God’s people in the Word, in their faith, helping them. So we see that there were three things that they were strengthened. They were strengthened and established in the truth of the salvation of the gospel by Christ alone.
If there’s anything you can do to communicate to our brothers and sisters in the fellowship and the family of God, not only locally, community-wide, regionally, internationally, there’s only one way to heaven.
And that is through Christ. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me. This is critical church because in a pluralistic society where people believe there are many ways to heaven and that there may be many gods, but we’re all serving the same God, and all of this is the lies from the devil.
And therefore, we need to be that sounding voice to our children, to our grandchildren, to our brothers and sisters in Christ establishing Him in the truth of salvation. But number two, they were established or strengthened in being steadfast in their labor for the Lord.
To continue on, day after day, that they would continue to serve God, that they would stay faithful to Christ, that there will be problems, there will be challenges, but we cannot be weary in well-doing.
We cannot let people, problems, circumstances set us back to the point that we give up on advancing the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is our responsibility to come alongside our brothers and sisters and to strengthen them because when the devil was firing his darts towards our hearts and minds, they are darts of discouragement.
They are darts of trying to get us distracted. They are darts that are designed to defeat us as believers and cause us to become so despondent that we want to quit and to give up. And therefore, it’s our job to keep establishing and make strong our brothers and sisters to stay steadfast.
But the third thing we see is that they were to continue to be strengthened in reaching more and more people for the Lord. Did you see that? Did you see that in verse five? The Bible says they increased in number.
daily. They were strengthened. They were not just strengthened in anything, but they were strengthened in the faith, which is a journey that requires us to stay at it, to be steadfast. But they were established and made strong in reaching out.
The job of evangelism and reaching out to others never stops church. As long as you and I have breath, our methods may change. The styles may change. Our means to get the gospel to people. We may be in the old day, we knocked on a door, and we kind of just went right after the person to share the gospel.
That may have been effective one day, but today we use shoeboxes. I don’t care. Don’t get caught up in styles, don’t get caught up in methods. Just be the kind of person that wants everybody to come to Christ and you’re open to all available means to reach all available people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I remember, many of you may remember, Dr. Herbert Fitzpatrick. He preached here for us and for Dr. Bedrone and Dr. Fitzpatrick, pastored in upper Marlboro, just outside of Baltimore. And he would say, Pastor Mike, and I pastored the church in Indiana that he had started.
And he would say, I came to town and I didn’t even have a license. And people would sit out on their porches and I would just walk up and down the streets, sit down and talk to them and tell them about Jesus, lead them to Christ, they’d get saved.
I said, buddy, if I showed up on somebody’s porch, they might just pull out a gun and start shooting at me. What’s wrong with you? He said, it’s so different, Mike. It is different. But the need of spreading the gospel is not.
And we must find different ways that we can do that church. And so we must be in the business of strengthening the faith of existing Christians. Unfortunately, in the vocabulary of Christians, that the terms build up, strengthen and edify are vacant or void.
But we must make them a part of our understanding. And we must strengthen our fellow believers. Remember what Paul said in Romans 16, 25, now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ.
You see, as we proclaim his truth, whether it’s one on one, small groups, Bible studies, or large groups, teaching and preaching Jesus, it is establishing people in. the faith and what is the result of strengthening people in the faith did you see that in verse 5 they increased in number daily it is God who adds to the church when the church is vulnerable and anemic in its faith when the church is shallow in its faith it cannot make an impact but when the church is rooted and it is established God adds to that church and God can say I can trust that church to teach the true gospel I can increase their number I can bring more people into that fellowship now it’s not gonna be that you and I just sit on the couch and eat potato chips it’s that we’re out there we’re engaged we’re sharing the gospel and God is using our lives to reach others now my final point we’re talking about a strategy for success it begins in training others the next generation it is to strengthen the faith of existing Christians but it is finally to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
Look at verse six through eight. Now when they had gone through Phrygia, sorry, and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia, and they had come to Mysia.
They tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. Would you underscore that in your Bible? The Spirit did not permit them. So passing to Mysia, they came down to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul.
In the night, a man, a Macedonian, stood and pleaded with him, saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.
Paul was divinely prohibited from carrying out his plan to minister in Asia Minor. The Bible tells us man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps. When I was growing up many times, my children would say to me, dad, you promised, and I always remind them, no, I didn’t promise.
I told you a plan, God willing. If it comes together right, this is what we’re gonna do. And sometimes my staff will say to me, well, pastor, you promised. And I say, no, I don’t make promises, I make plans.
Plan is to do this. And so last week, my plan was that on Monday, I might catch a little sleeping in because I had been putting in a lot of time. And I might rest a little bit in the morning, but then one of our bus drivers had a heart attack.
And so they called Pastor Mike and said, we need you to drive a bus. I had a plan. but God changed those plans and what I’m trying to tell you is believers that there are times we have plans the way we want our lives to go and sometimes people say to well that’s not the way I planned it pastor well I just want you to know man has a plan but the Lord directs his steps we have plans in our lives on how we do things but it is the Lord that directs our steps we see in Acts chapter 13 and Acts chapter 16 that the Spirit of God is the director of God’s work it is the Spirit of God that leads us and directs us in the way that he wants us to go and what we witness here is that God is sovereignly redirecting the Apostle in a way that would bring salvation to the people at Thessalonica This was what God wanted.
It’s not that he would not come back later and reach the people at Ephesus. It’s just that in God’s timing, and God’s way, and in God’s perfect plan were to follow. And what I admire most here about the Apostle is that he was willing to lay aside his own plans so that he could do the will of the Lord.
God uses circumstances to get our attention. He communicates with us in unique ways. And sometimes God will say to you, No, that’s not what I want you to do. That’s not the direction I want you to go.
He will direct your paths to the place where he wants you to serve him. Romans 8.14 says, For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God. We need to be more sensitive to God’s leading in both the prohibiting and directing of our lives.
There are times God closes doors in your life, and you need to be sensitive to that. Let me share with you four things. How do I know the leadership of the Spirit, Pastor? How do I know? How do I follow that leadership of the Spirit?
Real quickly, it’s real easy. It always begins with prayer, Church. Write that word down, prayer. When Terry and I have prayed and said, Lord, what is your will? We’ve always asked him that if it’s not his will, please close the door.
Every opportunity is not God’s will in your life. Every time something comes along and you might think it’s bigger, it’s better, you know, you’ve got all these wonderful things. That doesn’t mean it’s God’s will in your life.
It’s not what God wants. So we would always pray, God, if it’s not your will, At your will, please close the door. I remember that in my early days, as I had concluded my time at Bible College, that there was a church up in Michigan that wanted me to come up and candidate.
So Terry and I tracked up there, just outside of Detroit. A very nice church, a very wealthy church, a very formal church. And I got up there. If you guys think I’m crazy now, you should have seen me when I was 20.
You should have seen me in my 20s. If you think, man, I mean, you’re lucky. You got the refined mic. And that isn’t too refined. But you should have seen me back then. And I was up and down the stage all over the auditorium, and those people were horrified at what they had just witnessed.
I really appreciate it. I feel sorry for the chairman of the pulpit committee. He came by to see me and said, Pastor Mike, you’re a good preacher. But it’s not gonna work here. And you know, actually, I’m praising God because all that snow up there, hello.
But anyways, I want you to know, God shut that door. It’s okay, it’s okay. God opens doors, God closes doors. How do I know the leadership? How do I follow it? Number one, prayer. Number two, peace. You see, God is not the author of confusion, but a peace, the Bible says.
Now the Bible tells us that God will give us a peace that passes all understanding. I can’t scientifically measure it for you. I can’t tangibly explain it to you. I can just tell you that when you pray and you’re seeking the will of God and you’re trying to understand the leadership of the Spirit that He will give you a peace that passes all understanding.
And if you don’t have that peace, don’t move. Don’t make a change. Don’t go in that direction. That you need the peace of God in your life. It’s not just that we need to make peace with God and that we need to be saved and we need to surrender our lives to God, but we need to have the peace of God as His people.
You need to have the peace of God in your life believing that this is what God has for you. And the Spirit of God will give you that peace if you seek for that peace. God is not the author of confusion.
If you’re confused, it’s not from God. If you’re confused, it’s either from the world, the devil, or your own flesh. And people say, Pastor, I’ll just follow my heart. No, please don’t do that. The heart is deceitful, who can know it?
And there’s been many people who have followed their hearts and made bad decisions in their life. The third is principles. I wanna tell you that the leadership of the Spirit of God will never, it will never be in contradiction to the principles of God’s word, okay?
It’ll never be in contradiction. So, you might say, I’d say, well, God wants me to rob a bank. The Spirit of God, and I’m being extreme just to make a point, okay? But the Spirit of God has led me to rob a bank, pastor.
No, he hasn’t. Okay? He is not, because the Spirit doesn’t lead you to do something that violates the word of God. Well, please remember that. And then finally, it’s people. The Bible says that there is wisdom and there is safety in a multitude of counsel.
God’s people, not the people who will agree with whatever you say. But I’m talking about godly people that you can come to. It could be elders, pastors. It could be your parents. It could be people that are spiritual mentors in your life and just bounce things off of them.
And if they’re saying, ah, I’m not seeing it, I think that’s, you know, listen, God uses people. Now, sometimes we don’t like what people say. We want the people to say what we want them to say. And many times I feel like people come to see me and they just want me to affirm whatever they wanna do.
You know, and I’m just like, hey, if you just wanted me to affirm, man, just send me a text message. And I’ll say that a boy. Hang in there, keep going. We can move forward. But if you really want how I see it objectively from God’s word, then this is what I think.
But here’s the thing, is that God uses people in your life, sometimes like a warning sign. And sometimes those people might say to you, the bridge is out if you go down that path. That’s a bad direction.
And you might say, well, I don’t agree with that. It makes me feel excited and it makes me this and that. But you know what, they have wisdom. They see things that you don’t see. And so I want to encourage you, never make a move, never make a change, never make a major decision in your life without seeking the counsel of godly people in your life.
God aligns all this together to help you to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit in your life and to help you to know what God’s will is. God is calling all of us to be successful. There’s gonna be opposition church, there’s gonna be disagreements.
But God can override it all to accomplish his great purpose. And the key for us, don’t stop. Just keep training that next generation. And keep investing and strengthening other believers. And keep following the leadership of the Spirit in your life and what you’ll see is God will use your life uniquely and he’ll use your life specifically to bring the gospel to many hearts.
God has called us to strengthen our fellow believers, and we do that by not only giving them the word of God, but to coach them, to mentor them, to encourage them, to support them, and to help them to work through some of maybe the obstacles and challenges that are in their life.
And that’s what you see going on in the early church consistently over and over and over. So, I hope that today’s message has continued to kind of give you a pattern or a template that you can use as you’re trying to encourage and mentor others in the family of God.
Well, I want to remind you that Hope Worth Having is a ministry that has a newsletter we put out on a regular basis, and if you’re interested in signing up to receive our newsletter, you can go to HopeWorthHaving.com, hit the newsletter button, and sign up for that newsletter, it’ll come right to your house, or if you just want to email it, we can do that as well.
We can email it straight to your inbox. So take advantage of that opportunity as you continue to learn more and grow in your faith and let the Lord encourage you. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post God’s Strategy for Successful Service Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on God’s Strategy for Successful Service Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 16:1-9.
And when you tell the young people they’re the church of tomorrow, they’ll sit back on the sidelines and they’ll wait for tomorrow, but the devil will get them before tomorrow ever comes. The key is today.
Get the young people involved. Today pour your life into somebody. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church, and we welcome you to the radio program of Hope Worth Having. We’re excited to learn the Word of God together.
Today we are starting a new series in Acts chapter 16, God’s Strategy for Successful Service. And as we dig into the Word of God, we continue to see great examples of the early church and how they functioned and how they ministered.
And so I want us to open our Bibles and begin to study together in Acts chapter 16. We serve a great God, and we are grateful to be able to gather this morning and to be able to share God’s Word with you, and we’re going to be in Acts chapter 16.
This morning, Acts chapter 16, while you’re turning there, I want to share a story I read in Sports Illustrated, and it says most people haven’t heard of the pro football running back named Tony Richardson.
That’s because his primary role involves helping other running backs succeed. He blocks so that they can run. Over the span of 17 pro football seasons, teams have often paired Richardson with some of the best backs in pro football.
In 2001, he was slated to be the main running back, but instead he went to his teammate Priest Holmes, and he told him, it’s time for me to step out of the way. You need to be getting the ball, and I’m going to do everything I can.
to help you. Holmes went on to lead the league in rushing, but Richardson never grew envious or resentful. As Holmes would report, he used to call me up and say, I just saw you on SportsCenter. He was happier for me than I was for myself.
All of the running backs that Richardson helped succeed content that his influence went beyond blocking for them. He would constantly talk to them through the game, advising them, pushing and encouraging and inspiring them.
In a recent interview, Tony Richardson said, I can’t explain it, but it just means more to me to help someone else achieve success. There’s something about it that feels right to me. And this morning I want to talk to you about God’s strategy.
for successful service, and I think it really aligns with what that story encompasses, that God is calling each and every one of us, not only to think about our role in the kingdom of God and our responsibilities that we have, but to be thinking about others and how it is that we could help them to be successful, to achieve what God is calling them to do.
Now for context purposes, let’s again go back to chapter 15, because a couple of weeks ago you remembered that we shared with you how to agree to disagree, and you recall that Paul and Barnabas, two great men in the church were getting ready to launch out on what is referred to as the second missionary journey of the early church, yet they had a dispute, they had a difference of opinion.
In verse 39 of chapter 15, the Bible says, then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. The idea of this word contention is a strong disagreement, and the disagreement was over a young man named John Mark, for he had already been on the first missionary journey, but for some reason not known to us, it is only speculative of what it could be, but that John Mark had left in the middle of the journey,
that he had departed, whether it was personal, health reasons, perhaps it could have been spiritual, perhaps it could have been other things that were going on in his life, but whatever it was, it was so significant that it influenced the apostle Paul to say no, we cannot bring John Mark because there is no reliability, but Barnabas feeling so much different about that, wanted to take John Mark, and I want you to imagine these two great men who have been strong in their leadership in the church,
and they have impacted the lives of many people in the church. The ripple effect of this disagreement that these two men have made. Luke under the influence of the Holy Spirit, he does not pick sides.
He just gives us a narrative of what took place. And the Bible says in verse 39 in the middle, And so Barnabas took Mark, and he sailed to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God.
And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. I left you with this thought a couple weeks ago that I think is important for us to reaffirm in our hearts again as we launch into what I want to share with you today.
that our God is a sovereign God and that He is a God who is bigger than all the differences of opinions between His servants. That God is big enough to overcome the disagreements that God’s people might have with one another and that though Barnabas and Paul could not see eye to eye on this matter relating to John Mark which I shared with you was very redemptive in its nature because it would all come full circle in which the Apostle Paul would say send me John Mark for he is profitable for the ministry.
God works in different ways even in our disagreements even when we can’t see eye to eye. Our God is still working out His purpose, His plans, His mission of reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ and that’s what we’re left with when we come to verse 41.
We see now we have two teams going out. It’s Barnabas’ team with John Mark and it’s Paul’s team with Silas. We come to chapter 16 and here we see the work of the Apostle Paul. He is continuing this work of going out to spread the gospel but I want you to see in verse 1 it says then he came to Derbe and Lystra and behold a certain disciple was there named Timothy.
The son of a certain Jewish woman who believed but his father was Greek he was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted to have him go on with him and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region.
For they all knew that his father was Greek as they went through the cities they delivered to them. the decrees to keep, which were determined by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in the number daily.
Do you see that church? Do you see that when we go back to verse 41, we see that the churches are strengthened? Do you see that in verse five, that we see again the churches are strengthened and that the number of believers and followers of Christ is increasing, not just on a monthly basis, but daily?
That God is working effectively, not only in the life of Barnabas’ team, because we know that to be true, though it is not, it is not recorded in great detail like Paul’s ministry. But we see the outcome of John Mark, who did have some struggles, but here is Barnabas, an encourager, coming alongside John Mark and pouring into this young man, and that he would eventually be that person that the apostle,
who being a type A personality and being a very driven person and very committed to the task that God had given him, would say, send me John Mark, for he is profitable for the ministry. What I want you to see is that even in the differences that our God is bigger than all this, he’s bigger than every difference you have with other believers, he’s bigger than any maybe perspective that you have, that God is still going to achieve the ultimate purposes of redeeming mankind and bringing glory to his wonderful name.
And so let’s learn this morning how God can use us in his strategy for successful service. The apostle is gathering additional team members to continue his work that God has called him to. And the first thing that I want you to see in this text is that we are called to train the next generation of leaders.
Again, whether it is that Barnabas is training John Mark or it is that Paul is training Silas and Timothy, we know that God is working and that God is calling all of us to train the next generation of leaders.
We know that Luke is a part of this team that Paul has because though that Luke has been relying on many witnesses to share the unfolding events of the early church, he is also a part of this team and he himself is a witness.
We come down to verse 10 and we see that in chapter 16. Now after he had seen a vision referring to the vision that the apostle had received, immediately we. Well, who’s the we? Obviously. Luke is on that team.
Luke is the human author under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, penning down the words. Immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.
Verse 11, therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course. And so what I want you to see here is, again, over in these set of verses, Luke is revealing that He is on this team, this missionary team.
Yes, there was a difference, but now there’s another team, and God is using both teams to accomplish His purpose. But for us this morning, what we need to remember is that God is calling us to train the next generation of leaders.
We come back to verse 1, and we see this phrase, a certain disciple. His name was Timothy. Timothy is referred to as the Apostle’s son in the faith. and Timothy would eventually become the apostle’s right -hand man.
He would be an important part of the missionary team. If we go to 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 2, we see that as the apostle is writing to the young pastor, Timothy, he says, to Timothy, a true son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
Timothy joins Paul and Silas and Luke. He joins this team to serve, but he was very much like a son in the faith to the apostle, and he was a valued member of the team. He would serve as a pastor at the church at Ephesus.
Timothy had been developed, he had been trained, he had been encouraged, he had been discipled by the apostle Paul. We see in 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 3 that as I urged you, again Paul writing to Timothy, when I went into Macedonia, remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach you no other doctrine, so Timothy was equipped.
He was equipped by the apostle that he might be able to push back on the false teaching and that Timothy might be this bold leader that would continue to guide the church, this important church at Ephesus that would have huge effect upon the region.
What kind of a man was Timothy? The Bible tells us in chapter 16 of Acts that the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed but his father was a Greek. We know in 2 Timothy that Timothy as a young man was raised in the gospel, that his mother and his grandmother taught him the word of God.
And you remember the Apostle said to Timothy that he had learned the scriptures that were able to make him wise unto salvation. Verse 2, we see more about his character. He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium for the needs of what the Apostle had, for the needs of what he would encounter, what we will see in the next few chapters, the challenges that would face this team going out on this second missionary journey.
It was essential that he had a man like Timothy. He is a man of good character. Timothy is well spoken of. His reputation extended beyond his own community, his own family, and other believers recognize that he was a strong leader.
Philippians 2, verse 22, describes this. When Paul was writing to the Philippian leaders, he begins to describe the character of Timothy, and he says, you know his proven character, that as a son with his father, he served with me in the gospel.
The apostle would send Timothy out to address problems in churches, to deal with issues, to be an advisor to the elders and the leaders of the local congregations. Not only did he serve in Ephesus as a pastor, but he served as the apostle’s right -hand man, and so that they would listen to this man, Timothy.
Paul says his character is proven, and he has been loyal and served with me in the gospel. I want you to understand that what we’re seeing is the outcome of a life, the life of Timothy. That a man who has been trained, a man who has been poured into, a man who has been equipped, and that reminds me that our success is not measured.
Every one of our success as believers is not measured by what we have done, but by what those we have mentored have done and achieved for God. I want you to think differently in the kingdom of God. So many times it’s about us, and it’s about what we do.
But I think God is calling us, even in these unique times, to train the next generation. You’re familiar with 2 Timothy 2 ,2, which says the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses.
And trust these two faithful people who will be able to teach others also. This word and trust means to deposit a treasure, to commit this treasure to the people, the things that you have learned, this gospel, the things that you have learned.
from others. Every one of us stands on the shoulders of other people. We are where we’re at because of the influence and the impact of people upon our life. It was Paul’s continuing mentorship of Timothy throughout his ministry that resulted in Timothy not only being a great man of character but being a catalyst in transitioning from the early church from the Apostles into elders and pastors who would lead the church and it would be Timothy that would be at the spearhead of all of that transition that would pour in to many other great leaders who would continue the work of Christ.
You’re familiar with Proverbs 27 verse 17 that tells us that iron sharpens iron and so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. I ran across this statement I did not have down in my notes who said it, but I really believe it.
Older believers who don’t invest in new believers soon become stagnant believers. This morning, my challenge to you as brothers and sisters in Christ, that as we are observing the transition of a conflict into the success of God’s work continuing on, that we recognize our responsibility to train the next generation of leaders.
It was always the Apostle’s heart that he would be able to invest in others. He said in Colossians 1 .28 that him referring to Christ we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
You and I have this responsibility not to live our lives unto ourselves, but to be thinking about the next generation. I often hear people say, well, the young people, they’re the church of tomorrow.
No, they’re not, they’re the church of today. And when you tell the young people they’re the church of tomorrow, they’ll sit back on the sidelines and they’ll wait for tomorrow, but the devil will get them before tomorrow ever comes.
The key is today, get the young people involved. Today, pour your life into somebody. Today, take under your wings new believers and young believers and to begin to train the next generation of leader.
When I think about my own life, not that in any way it’s somehow a perfect life, but I just want you to understand that as I stand here today, it’s not because of my own achievements, it’s because of other people who have poured their life into me.
Some of those that… you may know and others you may never have heard of but all critical to the development of Mike Sanders. I’m taking this course on pastoral ministry and the question that the professor proposed to us was to write down all the people that have influenced us for ministry.
And it was very reflective and it just so happened to tie in the fact that I would be preaching on this text. But it was very reflective and affirming in my heart to know that there are others that have poured into me.
But I just want to ask you, who are you pouring into? I’ve said to you before church, I’ve learned it from someone somewhere. I mean you know nothing’s new under the sun but I just want you to know that I want to encourage you that every one of us need a mentor.
We all need an Apostle Paul in our life. And you need to find those mentors, and sometimes those mentors take on different influences upon us, meaning that one mentor may be good in this area and another mentor may be good in another area, but they are pouring into our lives.
But not only do we need an Apostle Paul, we need a Timothy. We need to be pouring our lives into someone else. And we also need a Barnabas, an encourager. They’re just certain people who are gifted, it doesn’t matter.
Every time you are with them, everything’s wonderful. I mean, the whole world could be collapsing, but it’s wonderful. They’re just encouragers. It’s not that they’re lying, it’s just that the way they see the world, they’ve just been designed by God to be an encourager.
And if you need to be lifted up, you just need to hang around some of those Barnabas that are always coming alongside others and encouraging them. We need these people in our lives. And if we’re gonna see this happen, we must be intentional.
We must be intentional. It must be a goal that we would find these mentors in our life. But also, number two, we must take the initiative. And I’ve always, and in pursuing mentors, I have always taken the initiative.
Usually, mentors don’t come running to me and say, Mike, I wanna pour my life into you. But I go to them and say, hey, can I have 10 minutes? Can I take you to lunch? Hey, I got some questions. And the relationship just evolves from there, and God bless us.
Some doesn’t evolve, but some it does. And I love it when I get to meet with other young pastors and helping them. And I, tomorrow, have an appointment. I won’t be available from, well, I got the radio station, then I got to drive to, I know you’re not gonna believe this, but I have a breakfast meeting.
At Cracker Barrel, I don’t know why these people always want to go to Cracker Barrel. But anyways, with a young pastor, first year pastoring, and he wants to sit down and we meet once a month and we talk about ministry and we talk about problem solving and different ways that can help him.
One of his deacons called me one time and said, thank you, Pastor Mike. Thank you for pouring into our pastor because every time he comes back, he has a hundred new ideas. I promise you, I don’t give people a lot of ideas, I just try to give them principles.
But the thing is this, all of us need to do it and I always share that with you because I want you to know I’m not standing up here telling you to do something I’m not doing. And we all need to find people that we can pour our lives into and that we can be a blessing to and that is part of God’s success strategy.
We cannot wait, church. We cannot wait. Our church. has dropped over 30 some volunteers. We just had a little staff get away and we walked through our numbers and the number of volunteers since before COVID into now has just dropped drastically.
Now our attendance is coming back and it’s pretty exciting to see how God is pulling his people back into the fold. There’s a few that still haven’t come but I’m not sure they’re ever coming back and there’s nothing I can do.
I’ve done everything I can to bring them back. But everybody has to seek the Lord and whatever they believe is right. But here’s what I want you to understand. Is that when we think about how are we going to make up that gap, I’ll tell you what it’s gonna be.
It’s gonna be each one of you not only volunteering and stepping up and I’m doing things that, it’s not that I said, hey, I love this or I wanna do this. But it’s gotta be done. But also it’s us training the next generation.
It’s training the young people and the new believers and the new families coming into the church. It’s training them and helping them to get engaged and you do that by this way. Never do ministry alone.
Never do ministry alone. Whatever God has called you to do, you pick up the phone and you call somebody or you text them and you say, come alongside, let’s do this together. I want you to know that when I was a young man in my small church that I came to Christ to believe in that the pastor there, like we didn’t have this big mentoring program and we didn’t have all these classes and all these Bible studies and I’m not against any of that,
okay? So don’t walk out of here upset and send me an email this afternoon because I’ll be watching football and falling asleep, okay? I’m just being honest with you, okay? But here’s the thing. The pastor just said, Mike, I’m gonna go make some visits.
Would you like to come along? Sure. Mike, I need to go run an errand. Would you like to come along? sure would you like to help me on this project I gotta do some things at the church can you help me with this project sure glad to do it now of course I was a new believer hungry desiring wanting and growing and wanting to learn more and probably drove my pastor crazy and just asking him so many questions about what I read in the Bible and what in the world that that meant how that applied to my life but what I want to say is this here was a pastor who never did ministry alone and that’s the your mindset’s gotta be is that as you are training the next generation is that you’re always thinking about who can we get it’s not just that we sit and drink coffee that’s good but we serve together and we train these young people and these new believers and new families and we get them engaged in training the next generation the second thing that I want you to see out of this passage is that we must strengthen the faith existing Christians.
Look at verse 4 and 5. Again we see as they went through the cities, they delivered to them the decrees to keep, which were determined by the Apostles and elders at Jerusalem. So the churches were what?
You can do better. The churches were what? So the churches were strengthened in the faith. They were strengthened. This is our role church. This is God’s success plan, is to strengthen other believers.
Now let’s back up a little bit and understand what’s going on in this text in verse 4. We’re reminded that the Apostles, they brought, they delivered a decree for them to keep or to obey or to follow.
The ruling that was given by the Jerusalem Council is what they were delivering. So let’s go back to chapter 15. Again it’s good for you to see everything in context and understand what is happening and not just rush through the text.
And not fully grasp what God is trying to show us here. We go back to verse 11 chapter 15. Remember there was this debate. Did new believers, Gentile believers, have to follow the customs of Judaism?
Did they have to follow the rituals and the ceremonies of Judaism? What was that conclusion? We look at verse 11 of chapter 15, but we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they.
Meaning you don’t get saved differently in the kingdom of God. That just as the Jews were saved by the grace of God, so shall the Gentiles be saved by the grace of God. Well this strategy of serving is something that we see in the life of the early church and the apostles and how they effectively shared the gospel and they were willing to take it to wherever they could and of course we think about those early men of God like Philip in the Bible who were not ashamed of the gospel and they were bold in their faith even though they faced a lot of pushback.
We are grateful that you and I can learn from their examples and we are encouraged that they have stood so strong and so I hope today that as you look at the Word of God and you can find this model and this example that’ll help you in these unique times that we live in.
Well I want to encourage you to make sure you check out our Hope Worth Having website, hopeworthhaving .com. We have a contact button up there on the right. I’d love for you to share your prayer requests so if you have a special prayer request just hit that contact button on the website and we’ll be able to hear your requests and then be able to pray for you.
We not only want to share God’s Word but we want to continue to help in praying for you so I hope you’ll take advantage of that.
The post God’s Strategy for Successful Service Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Agree to Disagree Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 15:36-41.
When there are conflicts in your marriage, and conflicts in your job, and conflicts in the church, don’t run, but grow. Get better. Get stronger. Yes, there’ll be scars, but know that God is making you more like Christ.
Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and this is Hope Worth Having Ministries. Today, we’re continuing our study in Acts 15, verse 36 through 41. We’re learning how to agree to disagree. There are times that you and I have conflicts with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
The Bible teaches us that Paul and Barnabas had a contention. It was a disagreement that resulted in them having to go different directions. But there was reconciliation, and so I want you and I to learn together through this process how God works and how we can agree to disagree.
Here we see a disagreement between Paul and Apollos. Paul says, you need to do this, and Apollos says, nah, that’s not going to be what I’m going to be able to do. The apostle Paul says, it was not his will to come now.
Now why do people sometimes disagree? You write these down, okay? Write these down. Number one, because there’s personality conflicts. Now I could solve 90% of your marriage if you could just understand each other’s personality.
90% of your marriage problems are personality problems. They are. And that’s why it’s important to learn about the different personalities of people. And the Bible teaches us that there are different personalities.
And we see these personalities come through as they’re sharing the stories of the different things that they have done. But one of the reasons people disagree is because they don’t like one personality over the other, or vice versa.
that they just rub each other the wrong way just the way it is number two perspective I don’t know if you understand but people have different perspectives on things you see it one way they see it another way and sometimes we disagree it’s not because it’s wrong but it’s because we see it differently now let’s just imagine and I don’t want this to happen but let’s hypothetically imagine that on the way out somebody drives off our campus and they have a fender bender that I’m on one corner of the street and you’re on another corner of the street and the police officer comes and he asked for us to describe what happened and I tell one story and the other person tells another story and it’s like two different stories but it’s really not it’s the same story with two different perspectives Sometimes when you read the gospel,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they’re telling the same story, and sometimes you’ll compare them and you’ll say, whoa, look at these differences. Is one of them lying? No, it’s the same story with two different perspectives.
It’s possible for somebody to have a legitimate perspective that is different from yours, to see something totally different. The things that impact our perspective sometimes can be the way that we’re raised.
It can be the culture we live in, the trauma we deal with, the tragedies that we face in life, and all these things impact our perspective. What’s another way that causes disagreement is priorities. We have different priorities.
Now, when I first came to the Open Door Church, there would be people to say to me, now, Pastor Mike, we need to send all the church money up to the Christian school, because that’s really where it’s happening.
And then another person would come up to me and say, now, Pastor Mike, we need to pour all our money in the youth group, because they’re the future of the church. And then another person would say, no, we need to give all our money to the missionaries, and they would say, that’s what we gotta do to get the gospel out.
And then another person would say, well, I’m tired of supporting foreign missionaries, let’s support local missionaries. And it wasn’t that any of them were wrong, it’s just that they all had different priority.
Are you with me? And there are times in ministry, there’s times in your home, and there’s times in the workplace that the reason we’re having conflict is because you might not have the same priority as the other person.
Here’s another reason that we disagree. We have different philosophies. We have different philosophies. I tell people when Dr. Dino Padron was here, he was like an evangelist who was a pastor, and he was having crusades every Sunday.
is having big rallies every Sunday, and God was using that in a great time. There was a great time of harvest. But not everybody has that philosophy. One time Dr. Padrone told me that he had 10 ,000 people in church, and I said, Dr.
Padrone, I don’t mean to be mean, but that’s impossible. You don’t have 10 ,000 parking spots. You don’t even have 5 ,000. And you don’t even have 2 ,000 parking spots. How could you get 10 ,000 people?
And he began to explain to me how he actually was counting people at different places across the state. And that’s fine, I’m not against that. But that was his philosophy. And we have different philosophies.
Different pastors, different philosophies. Different homes, different philosophies. How about this one? We have different preferences. Some of you like it one way, another person likes it another way.
You might like a certain ball team and I like another ball team. You may like music and can’t stand sports and I like sports and can’t stand music. I’m not sure what its point is. But we have different preferences, doesn’t make anybody bad, doesn’t make anybody evil, but we have different preferences in our life.
And again, so many factors can impact our preferences. You might like Walmart and somebody else might like Target. All right, so we have different preferences. Matthew Henry, who was a great Puritan, Bible commentator, preacher in his day, here’s what he said relating to this fact that godly people will sometimes disagree.
He said, even those that are united to one and the same Jesus and sanctified by the one and the same spirit have different apprehensions, different opinions, different views and different sentiments in points of prudence.
It will be so while we are in this state of darkness and imperfection, we shall never be all of a mind till we come to heaven where light and love are perfect. All he’s trying to state is the obvious church.
Don’t go into any relationship thinking we’ll always agree. And that the only way we can get along is if we’re 100% in agreement. That’s just an impossibility. It’s just an impossibility. And I know that there are many Christians that are on the sidelines today that they’re not involved in a church because they could not handle disagreement in the church.
They couldn’t handle it. And now they just burn that bridge, shut down, and don’t want to be a part of any church. The second principle I want you to learn this morning is that you got to realize that in many disagreements, each side is valid.
Each side is valid. life is made up of judgment calls. I want you to go back to verse 38 of chapter 15. The Bible says that Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.
I asked you the question earlier, which one was right? And in my paper, I concluded they both were right. They both were right. Paul had to have somebody on his team who was dependable. He was going out on the missionary journey and he was doing a very difficult task.
He was doing something that was gonna require stamina, determination, endurance, the ability to handle opposition. Remember that on the first missionary journey, the apostle Paul, that they were so upset with him for sharing the gospel that they threw stones at him and they left him for dead.
They thought he was dead. They drug him out to the city limits and they left him there to die. So if it doesn’t take much, and you’re John Mark, and you get a little pushback, and all of a sudden you fold your tent up and said, I’m out of here, I’m taking my football, and I’m gonna go home, it’s not gonna work with the Apostle Paul.
But yet we also understand that somebody’s gotta invest in John Mark. Somebody’s gotta get him to the next level. Somebody’s gotta encourage him. Somebody’s gotta come along and equip him and strengthen him.
They are both right, and they both had valid reasons of why they made the judgment call that they made. In life, hear me, in life, the heavens are not always gonna part, and God is not always gonna say, you do this, or you don’t do this.
This is how God works, my friends. He blesses you with principles in the Bible. He blesses you with the wisdom of the Father. He blesses you with the mind of Christ. He blesses you with the leadership of the Spirit, and you are called within the context of your personality, and the context of your preferences, and the context of your priorities to make the best judgment call that you can make.
And you gotta live with it. You gotta live with it. For the Apostle Paul, he felt like that was the best judgment that John Mark not come. I can’t rely on him. For Barnabas, he felt like we gotta invest in this guy, and we can’t give up on him, and I believe that he could become a great leader down the road.
They’re both right. Many disagreements are valid on both sides. There is diversity in the body of Christ. What’s important to you may not be important to me, but that’s okay. What you’re passionate about may not…
be what I’m passionate about and vice versa, but that’s okay. We don’t always have to agree on every little thing, and we don’t always have to see everything just right, and it’s okay. We might have a disagreement, but both sides are valid, and that’s important.
Third principle I want you to learn, that when you have a disagreement, you need to reach out to those you disagree with, personally and privately. But when I have a disagreement with someone at a level that it’s affecting me, now let me just put this out there.
Okay, I didn’t even put this in my notes, but I just feel that I should tell you this, that when I have a disagreement, one might ask the question, when do I have to personally talk to them about a disagreement?
Because, you know, if we spend our life trying to confront everybody and talk to everybody about a disagreement, I’m going to tell you something. That’s all we’ll be doing in life. Okay, I mean there are times people say I mean one time I came into the church and the lady said I don’t like your haircut Hey, I’m just trying to hang on to what I got much less you like what I got.
Hey man Okay, honestly, I didn’t even give it I just kind of walked off and I said appreciate the input Okay, and I just moved on in life. Okay. I mean sometimes people tell me crazy stuff You just wouldn’t believe it and I learned this from dr.
Dina Padrone. He told me Mike You don’t have to argue with everything just say that’s interesting So if I’m in a conversation with you and I say that’s interesting, that’s your cue. He doesn’t agree with me He just trying to move me along Amen, isn’t that interesting?
But when do I take that time to talk to somebody? Let me share it with you when it affects you It’s affecting your spiritual life It’s setting you back spiritually Number two, when do I talk to somebody when it affects other people spiritual life?
It’s setting them back personally Number three, I know I need to talk to someone if it is affecting the kingdom of God It’s affecting the work of God. It’s affecting the people of God because there are sometimes Disagreements are among people that it’s spreading throughout the community of faith and it’s causing a negative reaction Those are the three times that we need to try to do our best to work it out so that we can get the better Outcome and the cause of Christ can move forward.
But here’s the point I want to leave you with Matthew 5 23 verse 24 says therefore if you bring your gift to the altar and there Remember that your brother has something against you leave your gift Therefore before the altar go your way first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift The word first in the Greek means priority And so he’s saying that the priority is first before you bring your sacrifices to God our Sacrifices of praise our sacrifice of service our sacrifice of worship our sacrifices to God that we should first go make it right with our brother and our sister in Christ.
And there are times that that is necessary. How do I know why? I just told you three ways that you know. But the Bible gives us guidance on our relationships. And there are times that we do need to work it out.
We need to make sure that we handle it. The Bible says in Matthew 18, verse 15, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. So we always start one on one. We always start privately.
We always start personally. That’s the way confrontation should always be. Even when you confront your children, even when you confront your teenager, even when you confront someone in the church, it should always be done.
Personally and privately. Now, if it’s a gross sin that’s affecting you and them and the church, yes, we have to get others involved because we want to correct that problem. We understand that. But I want to tell you that when it comes to your marriage, when it comes to your relationships, all relationships in the church, the work, you should always seek restoration.
That should be your goal. Your goal is not that you’re the policeman, not that you’re here to correct everybody, not that you’re here to change everybody, but that you want restoration. That’s why in Ephesians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul taught us, don’t let the sun go down on your anger.
And what I’m trying to tell you is that if you’re going to make it in your marriage relationships, you can’t go to bed angry at each other. You can’t go to bed with all this festering in your heart. I’m going to tell you it’s going to affect you physically, it’s going to affect you mentally, it’s going to affect you emotionally, and most definitely it’s going to affect you spiritually.
And so if you’ve got to stay up till 3 a .m. to work it out, work it out, because that’s what God wants. Do everything you can to restore your relationships. Number four, refuse to assassinate people’s character.
In this process of disagreeing, did you note that Paul never assassinates the character of Barnabas? Did you note that Barnabas never in any way tries to discredit the ministry of the Apostle? Did you note that the Bible says at the end that the church confirmed the Apostle Paul and blessed them as they were sent out?
Why? Because Barnabas didn’t take it personal, and Barnabas didn’t make it a crusade, and he didn’t make it the focus of his life, that he was going to do whatever he could to destroy the Apostle Paul’s ministry.
And I want to tell you that in life, you’re going to have to learn that there are people that you disagree with, and that it may cause… a separation but you gotta let go and you gotta give them to God and let God do his wonderful work in the heart of that person and you can’t spend your life chasing after that poison to hurt them.
Because like I told you before that trying to get revenge on someone and refusing to forgive them is like drinking poison and hoping that they die. But the truth is that while you’re bitter angry and mad at that person you’re dying.
You’re dying inside. People notice it all around you. You’re negative, you’re critical, you’re hateful, you’re rude, you’re difficult because you’re messed up inside and your relationship with God is wrong and your relationship with others is wrong and you are slowly dying.
What you really need to do is say you know what? I give that person to God. Some of you need to give your children to God. You’re struggling with them. They’re making decisions that you’re not happy with.
They’re making decisions that are dishonoring God. They’re making decisions that are creating friction in the home. Now look, you can spend the rest of your life trying to change them, and you can spend the rest of your life trying to correct them.
But I want to tell you, it’s better to pray for them and give them to God. Give them to God. You can’t pound on them every time you pick up the phone. You can’t pound on them every time they stop by the house.
You can’t pound on them every time there’s a birthday party. You gotta give them to God. Well, I just wanted to say, in 1 Corinthians 9 -6, we see later, after this disagreement, here’s what Paul again says to the Corinthians, do only Barnabas and I have not the right to refrain from working?
And what I just wanted to note is that, tucked inside this bigger picture of teaching how the church needed to support Paul and Barnabas, but Paul and Barnabas chose not to be supported by the church because they wanted the monies and energies to be used to get this church going and off the ground.
Notice who he’s partnering with later on. He never burned the bridge to Barnabas and they came full circle back together. You don’t know how God’s gonna use a disagreement to change someone and how he’s gonna use it to bring you back together.
Number five, now look, there’s only six points, so we’re on number five. Number five, resist becoming bitter. I’ve already talked a lot about it, but I just simply wanna say that conflicts in all of your relationships in the church, in the workplace or in the home, conflicts are opportunities for you to grow and for you to change and for you to experience revival with God.
Every conflict that I’ve had, I know this is hard to believe, but there are some people that do not like Mike Sanders. Aren’t you shocked? I was too. I didn’t know. I thought everybody loved Mike Sanders.
And somebody said, thank God there’s not two of them. Amen. But I want you to know that every time that I’ve had a conflict, a disagreement, and sometimes they’ve led to sharp disagreements, but God has used it to make me a better pastor, to make me a better Christian, to make me a better person, to change me, and literally to revive my heart, to help me get closer to God, and to help me to seek Him and put my attention on Him.
I’m not saying God’s out there causing conflict, and I’m not out there saying God’s looking forward to you having a conflict. But I am saying that when there are conflicts in your marriage and conflicts in your job and conflicts in the church, don’t run, but grow.
Get better. Get stronger. become more enduring. Yes, there’ll be scars, but know that God is making you more like Christ. I mean, if they didn’t like our master, how much more would they not like the servants?
Do you understand that? Now, I want you to see something beautiful. I want you to see the redemption of this relationship that we read about that Luke gives us. In Colossians 4 .10, the Bible said, this is the Apostle Paul writing, Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner greets you.
Mark, I think we heard about Mark, didn’t we? That’s John Mark. That’s John Mark. Turns out he’s the cousin of Barnabas concerning whom you have received instructions. If he comes to you, make his life difficult.
No, that’s not what Paul said, is it? But listen, welcome him. Isn’t that a beautiful story of redemption? You’re burning bridges, but Paul’s building bridges. You’re cutting people off, you’re done with them, but God’s bringing it all full circle, and he’s growing Paul, and he’s growing Barnabas, and who knows that now they’re working together, and now, I mean, after that separation, if you had that separation with Paul and said,
hey, would you send me a letter of recommendation? I’m going to the church at Colossae, and I need you to recommend me. Well, the average Christian, that wouldn’t happen because they’d already be burning bridges, never talk to each other, hate each other, and they’d be on social media attacking each other.
But here’s what Paul did. Somewhere, someway, somehow, they got back together. They worked it out, and he said, let me recommend you to the church at Colossae. By the time Paul wrote Colossians, it appears that there was mending, there was redemption.
There was restoration, and he is recommending to the congregation that the congregation welcome him. I’m not done with this redemptive story. We get to 2 Timothy 4, 11, and the apostle writes to Timothy, the young pastor, Luke alone is with me.
Get Mark. Well, who’s Mark? John Mark. And bring him with you, for he is very what? Useful to me for ministry. Don’t you remember the reason why? Don’t you remember the reason why Paul said he can’t come?
Don’t you remember he couldn’t rely on him? And then in this beautiful story of God’s redemption, he’s saying, hey, guess what? John Mark’s useful. Get him over there because he’s a guy you can depend on.
He’s a guy that’s going to get the job done. Now, look, unless you think that this redemptive story is even finished there, I want you to know, guess who wrote the Gospel of Mark? Hello, John Mark, John Mark.
I guess Barnabas did a pretty good job, didn’t he? Aren’t you thankful for encouragers? Aren’t you thankful when you fail, you falter, you messed up that there’s a Barnabas in your life? Picks you up, encourages you.
So I’m encouraging you finally to resolve, to always agree to disagree. The disagreements can exist in the family of God, and sometimes, unfortunately, they cannot be resolved immediately. Takes time, takes healing, takes restoration.
What we see here is that at the end of this narrative that Luke gives us, that Paul takes Silas, and he goes out with him, and Barnabas takes John Mark, and they go out. And here’s something I want you to know, that God is sovereign even in our conflicts.
That God doubled his effort. I want you to remember this, and I wrote it down, that the cause of God, remember this church, in your conflicts, the cause of God will triumph through all the weaknesses, all the failures, and all the conflicts that exist with his people.
The gospel will march on, just because Mike can’t get along with a personality, God’s not gonna stop his work. Just because I have a different preference than you, God’s not gonna stop the gospel going to the ends of the earth, church.
What I want you to see is that this is a beautiful story of redemption. It is a beautiful story of restoration, and you might be here in the midst of a conflict. You may be at the beginning of a conflict.
You may be a wounded soldier after the conflict. What I want to encourage you to is get to Christ. because there’s no one who heals your heart like Jesus. Whether that conflict was within the whole, in the church, or it is on the job, I want you to avail yourself to an almighty, sovereign God who has a purpose and a plan and that even in our conflicts he wants to heal our wounds and he wants to strengthen our hearts and he wants the gospel to march forward for him.
Can God’s people say that? I got a great story and I’ll let you out of here. Hundreds of years ago, there was a legendary feud between the Hatfields and the… Believe it or not, recently their families got together for a reunion.
They decided to leave the shotguns behind. One person said we’re gonna… Be on our best behavior. He was the chairman of the McCoys. His name is Bo. Believe it or not, Bo’s a minister. And he talks about how this happened and it left 12 people dead in the families, this conflict.
2 ,000 people descended on this special reunion and others came to just see if there’d be a fight. The governors of Kentucky and West Virginia got together to be a symbolic gesture of restoration. The only confrontation this time was during a tug of war and a softball game between the two families.
And as I read that story, I said, if the Hatfields and McCoys can solve their problems, surely the people of God can do even better. We can agree to disagree. Hey, people say, pastor, what are you doing in Chambersburg?
I like to tease them and I say, I’m a missionary for the Dallas Cowboys. I’m trying to win these Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles over to the Cowboys. Now, you know, this guy right here already said it, it ain’t gonna happen.
We can agree to disagree and still get along, can’t we church? We can still love Jesus. We can follow these patterns, these guidelines, and we can still see God’s redemptive work in our hearts. Let’s pray.
Well, the Bible says there was a sharp disagreement regarding John Mark between Barnabas and Paul, and yet God would use this in a powerful way to bring John Mark back into the ministry and working with Paul, as the apostle would later say in Colossians that John Mark was profitable to the ministry, and this is the way God works.
Sometimes there is conflict. and differences but we cannot let these stop the movement and the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I hope you’ve learned some lessons that will help you not only in your family but your church family as well as in your community of faith in walking and talking to other believers.
We hope you are encouraged. I don’t know if you’ve checked it out but on YouTube we have a Hope Worth Having channel. Make sure you subscribe to our channel and make sure you hit the notification button, like those different videos.
They’ll be notified every time a new one is uploaded and we try to put a new one up almost every week so that you can continue to be growing in your faith. There’s also interviews on the YouTube channel.
There are some Q &A’s on the YouTube channel so take advantage of those and I know it’ll help you continue to grow in your faith.
The post How to Agree to Disagree Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Agree to Disagree Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 15:36-41.
God is not always going to say, you do this. This is how God works, my friends. He blesses you with principles in the Bible. He blesses you with the leadership of the Spirit, and you are called to make the best judgment call that you can make, and you’ve got to live with it.
Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and you are listening to Hope Worth Having, radio broadcast. Thank you for tuning in today. When we come to the end of Acts chapter 15, verse 36 through 41, we see there is this confrontation in the church between the apostle and Barnabas, and we’re going to learn some principles.
What do we do when Christians disagree? How do we handle that? What is the way forward? So, I want you to grab your Bible and join me as we study. You have your Bible this morning. I want you to join me in Acts chapter 15, and we’re going to be covering verse 36 through 41.
While you’re turning there, I know that you have the unfortunate experience of having a pastor who likes Charlie Brown. And so, you get to hear stories about Charlie Brown and Lucy, and of course, you’re familiar with the Peanuts cartoon.
And one day, Lucy was talking to Snoopy. This is the little dog, if you’re not familiar. Those of you that are young enough that you have no clue who Snoopy is, then I want you to Google him. He is on YouTube and all that wonderful stuff, and that’s when times were good.
Good cartoons there. But anyway, speaking of time, Lucy said to Snoopy, she said, there are times when you really bugged me. But I must admit, there are also times, Snoopy, when I feel like giving you a hug.
Snoopy looked at Lucy, and he said, that’s the way I am. I am huggable and bugable. And so it is. with our relationships. Each of us know that we need each other, and yet there are many times that we annoy each other, if you’ll be real and honest.
There was a poet who wrote, to live above with the saints we love will certainly be glory, to live below with the saints we know. Well, that’s another story. One of the marks of a mature Christian is the ability to disagree without becoming disagreeable.
We see this in Acts chapter 15, in verse 36 through 41. Chapter 15 was the opportunity where the church leaders came together to reinforce their commitment that the gospel would be the death, burial, and resurrection, and that salvation would be imparted to all people by faith.
that there would be no strings attached, there would be no rules, there’d be no rituals that would be required in order to be a Christian, but that you would come to Christ by faith alone. At the end of that great conference, Luke, who is the human author under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he gives us a narrative of a scenario that takes place you remember if you’ve been studying with us through the book of Acts that Paul and Barnabas had launched out in Acts chapter 13 on the first missionary journey.
And they had completed that journey and they were updating their churches on how things were doing, what God was doing and the impact of the gospel upon people’s lives. And they stayed and they were teaching and they were preaching.
But then we come to verse 36, the Bible says that after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.
Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark. But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.
Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus but Paul chose Silas and departed being commended by the brethren to the grace of God and he went through Syria and Cilicia strengthening the churches.
Interesting here scenario. Note that in verse 36, the apostle is led of God to… to go see how the churches are doing. Paul had recognized that he had a responsibility to not only birth people into the kingdom of Christ and leading them to Jesus that they might know Christ and believe in Christ, but he had a responsibility to disciple them, to help them to grow in their faith.
He wanted to go back and check on them. Many of these believers were in Galatia. You might be familiar with the Bible in which one of the letters that the apostle wrote was to the Galatians. And this was a region that existed in the Roman Empire.
And we know that Paul spent much time preaching the gospel, planting churches in that region. Barnabas was excited about going, but he wanted to take John Mark with him. And Paul said, absolutely not.
If you’ve been following with us, let you know that John Mark… was on that first missionary team. We’re not ever told what or how or why John Mark left the team. But whatever it was, I can tell you that the Apostle Paul was not happy about it.
So much that he said no, he’s not coming on the second journey. We see this great dilemma that you’ve got Barnabas and if you remember back in Acts chapter four, he was the encourager. That’s what his name means, the son of encouragement.
He was always building people up and he was always trying to build relationships and build bridges and get people connected and get them to the next level. We see that even as he was helping Saul, who would later become the name Paul, but the early church was afraid of Saul because he harassed the church.
He dragged people out of their homes. He persecuted the church and when Saul suddenly declares that he’s a Christian, they’re like, yeah, right. He’s a spy. He wants to just kind of infiltrate us and catch us off guard and take advantage of us.
And so it was Barnabas who took that lead to connect Saul to the church. It was Barnabas who would bring Saul to the church at Antioch because he knew that Saul already in his faith was blossoming and growing so fast that he would be a great teacher in the church.
But the Bible says here, there was a sharp disagreement between Paul and Barnabas over this young man, John Mark. Paul was a task -oriented guy. He had a job to get done, things to get accomplished. He was probably very much a strong personality.
He was pretty much a guy who put a plan together and he worked the plan. And he certainly didn’t want to have to depend upon somebody who might ditch him in the middle of the plan. or somebody who might leave them in the middle of the plan.
He needed to surround himself with people who were servants and people who were faithful and people who had endurance and patience and were willing to make it through the persecutions of life when it came to sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
John Mark was a young man. He left. He left. He left. And unfortunately, he made a young man’s mistake. He left the job before it was done. And that irritated Paul. It frustrated him. The Bible says in verse 39, go back to chapter 15 if you will, because I want you to see that the contention became so sharp that they parted.
This sharp disagreement resulted in two great men of God, Barnabas, and Paul separating from each other. And you might ask the question, which one was right? When I was in Bible college, I had to write a paper on this passage of scripture.
Which one was right? And I want you to know that when you read the text, you know, Luke doesn’t help us out here. Luke doesn’t cake sides. He just shares what happened. He’s like a historian who is just writing down the facts, and he’s just giving us the facts, and he’s helping us to see what took place.
And of course, we understand that it’s easy for us to wanna take sides. It’s easy for us to say, well, I’m more of a Barnabas guy. And others of you might say, well, I’m more of a Paul guy. And we take sides and we say, boy, this is the way it should be.
And so really, I want you to know that there’s no sides to take. I want you to see the bigger picture of why Luke would include this in the narrative in the book of Acts. Remember, the church is growing.
And whenever the church is growing, whenever people are coming to Christ, whenever God is doing a mighty work, guess what, the devil goes to work. And he likes to divide. He likes to separate. He likes to cause problems.
He likes to cause people to become annoying and as Snoopy said, buggable. Do you ever think that Pastor Mike would quote Snoopy? Oh, buddy, we’re in for trouble, aren’t we? Well, I wanna share with you some principles on how to agree to disagree.
I think principles that we can lift out of this text that help us to understand how do we agree to disagree because let’s just be honest, not only within the church, within ministry, within the community of faith, and even our own families and our friends.
to be disagreements. And so my first point that I want you to note is that remember, even godly people will sometimes disagree. Even godly people will sometimes disagree. And I know that’s shocking to you.
We think, man, God’s people always getting long, always high -fiving, always hugging, always just agreeing together and thinking everything is wonderful, but I’m gonna tell you something, that’s not true.
And if you’re naive enough to believe that you’ll never have a disagreement in the church, or you’ll never have a disagreement with your family, or you’ll never have a disagreement at the job, or you’ll never have a disagreement with your friend, I’m telling you, you are vulnerable to the attacks of the devil.
You are open to burning bridges and destroying relationships and becoming a hurt, bitter Christian. We gotta grow. And as Paul told the Ephesian believers, we gotta grow up, not down. We gotta grow up and part of growing up is learning that not everybody agrees, even in the family of God.
Not everybody agrees. Sometimes these young couples come in and they wanna get married. And so I take them through a process of learning what it’s gonna take to be married. And we like to talk about how are you guys gonna handle disagreements?
And they giggle at me. And they say, Pastor, we don’t fight. I said, well, just get married and that’ll take care of it. Just get married. And they think there’ll never be any problems. And then they call me back two years later and they’re crying and they’re like, I can’t stand the guy.
He annoys me every day. Hey, anyways, now I want you to know, I know some of you probably don’t agree with me, but that’s okay, because we’re talking about how to agree to disagree. Hey, man, what a perfect time.
I do sometimes recommend to couples not to get married. Now, none of them have ever taken it, but I am batting a thousand. They should have never gotten married. Now, it’s not that, you know, and I’m sure some of you are saying, hey, we’ve been married 80 years, Pastor, and they told us not to get married.
And so I’m all in. But I’m just telling you, there’s some things sometimes I can see. But I want you to know that when you get married, when you have children, I want you to know when you go to work, I want you to know when you come to a church that there’s going to be conflict.
When people come to our church from another church, I say to them, if you’re over here because you’re mad at the last pastor that you ran from, I want you to know it won’t be long before Pastor Mike makes you mad.
And they said, well, how do you know that, Pastor? I said, because I make my wife mad. And if I make my wife mad, how much more am I gonna? to make you mad. So if it’s about who I’m mad at, that’s where I determine where I go to church and where I don’t go to church, I’m gonna tell you, you’re never gonna find that perfect church where you never disagree with the pastor.
Are you with me? It’s like, you know, people get, you know, they get married and then they get divorced. They get married and they get divorced. And one time a lady came to me and she was on number five.
And I recommended to her not to get married because the problem probably was not her spouses, but it was probably her. I mean, after five, wouldn’t you just give up, amen? Maybe you’re the bugable person, I don’t know.
But anyways, the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verse 12, now concerning our brother Apollos, Apollos was one of the pastors at the church at Corinth. And if you’re a student of the Bible, you know that you’re a student of the Bible.
that at the church of Corinth, they all had their favorite pastor, kind of like the open door church. I hear this all the time. Hey, we love Pastor Paul. We love Pastor Peter and we love Pastor Apollos.
And they all had their different gifts and they had their different strengths. And one group said, well, I’m of Paul and I’m of Peter and I’m of Apollos. And then a super spiritual group said, I’m of Jesus, as if they were more spiritual than others.
But here’s the point, here’s what Paul’s instruction is to them at the end of the letter, 1 Corinthians 16, 12. Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit with you, the other brothers, but it was not at all his will to come now.
He will come when he has opportunity. Can you imagine the apostle Paul calling you on the phone and saying, look, I need you to do A, B and C and you say to the apostle, not right now, I don’t got time.
I got something else I’m involved in. That’s literally what took place. I mean, it wasn’t like a cell phone call, okay? It wasn’t like a phone call text message or anything, but that’s what happened.
And I just find that sometimes when I read the Bible, I kind of just see things there that maybe you don’t initially grasp. But here we see a disagreement between Paul and Apollos. Paul says, you need to do this.
And Apollos says, nah, that’s not gonna be what I’m gonna be able to do. The apostle Paul says it was not his will to come now. Now, why do people sometimes disagree? You write these down, okay? Write these down.
Number one, because there’s personality conflicts. Now I could solve 90% of your marriage if you could just understand each other’s personality. 90% of your marriage problems are personality problems.
They are. And that’s why it’s important to learn about the different personalities. A people, and the Bible teaches us that there are different personalities. And we see these personalities coming. through as they’re sharing the stories of the different things that they have done.
But one of the reasons people disagree is because they don’t like one personality over the other, or vice versa. And there are some personalities that they just rub each other the wrong way, just the way it is.
Number two, perspective. I don’t know if you understand, but people have different perspectives on things. You see it one way, they see it another way. And sometimes we disagree, it’s not because it’s wrong, but it’s because we see it differently.
Now let’s just imagine, and I don’t want this to happen, but let’s hypothetically imagine that on the way out, somebody drives off our campus and they have a fender bender. that I’m on one corner of the street and you’re on another corner of the street and the police officer comes and he asks for us to describe what happened and I tell one story and the other person tells another story and it’s like two different stories.
But it’s really not. It’s the same story with two different perspectives. Sometimes when you read the gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they’re telling the same story and sometimes you’ll compare them and you’ll say, whoa, look at these differences.
Is one of them lying? No, it’s the same story with two different perspectives. It’s possible for somebody to have a legitimate perspective that is different from yours, to see something totally different.
The things that impact our perspective sometimes can be the way that we’re raised, it can be the culture we live in, the trauma we deal with, the tragedies that we face in life, and all these things impact our perspective.
What’s another way that causes disagreement is priorities. We have different priorities. Now, when I first came to the Open Door Church, there would be people to say to me, now, Pastor Mike, we need to send all the church money up to the Christian school because that’s really where it’s happening.
And then another person would come up to me and say, now, Pastor Mike, we need to pour all our money in the youth group because they’re the future of the church. And then another person would say, no, we need to give all our money to the missionaries.
And they would say, that’s what we gotta do to get the gospel out. And then another person would say, well, I’m tired of supporting foreign missionaries, let’s support local missionaries. And it wasn’t that any of them were wrong, it’s just that they all had different priority.
Are you with me? And there are times in ministry, there’s times in your home, and there’s times in the workplace that the reason we’re having conflict is because you might not have the same priority as the others.
and the other person. Here’s another reason that we disagree. We have different philosophies. We have different philosophies. I tell people when Dr. Dino Padron was here, he was like an evangelist who was a pastor and he was having crusades every Sunday.
He was having big rallies every Sunday and God was using that in a great time. There was a great time of harvest. But not everybody has that philosophy. One time, Dr. Padron told me that he had 10 ,000 people in church and I said, Dr.
Padron, I don’t mean to be mean, but that’s impossible. You don’t have 10 ,000 parking spots. You don’t even have 5 ,000. And you don’t even have 2 ,000 parking spots. How could you get 10 ,000 people?
And he began to explain to me how he actually was counting people at different places across the state. And that’s fine, I’m not against that, but that was his philosophy. And we have different philosophies.
different pastors, different philosophies, different homes, different philosophies. How about this one? We have different preferences. Some of you like it one way, another person likes it another way.
You might like a certain ball team and I like another ball team. You may like music and can’t stand sports and I like sports and can’t stand music. I’m not sure what its point is. But we have different preferences.
Doesn’t make anybody bad. Doesn’t make anybody evil. But we have different preferences in our life. And again, so many factors can impact our preferences. You might like Walmart and somebody else might like Target.
All right, so we have different preferences. Matthew Henry, who was a great Puritan, Bible commentator, preacher in his day, here’s what he said relating to this fact that godly people will sometimes disagree.
He said, even those that are united to one and the same Jesus and sanctified by the one and the same spirit have different apprehensions, different opinions, different views and different sentiments and points of prudence.
It will be so while we are in this state of darkness and imperfection, we shall never be all of a mind till we come to heaven where light and love are perfect. All he’s trying to state is the obvious church.
Don’t go in to any relationship thinking we’ll always agree and that the only way we can get along is if we’re 100% in agreement. That’s just an impossibility. It’s just an impossibility. And I know that there are many Christians that are on the sidelines today that they’re not involved in a church because they could not handle disagreement in the church.
They couldn’t handle it and now they just. burn that bridge, shut down, and don’t wanna be a part of any church. The second principle I want you to learn this morning is that you gotta realize that in many disagreements, each side is valid.
Each side is valid. Life is made up of judgment calls. I want you to go back to verse 38 of chapter 15. The Bible says that Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.
I asked you the question earlier, which one was right? And in my paper, I concluded they both were right. They both were right. Paul had to have somebody on his team who was dependable. He was going out on the missionary journey and he was doing a very difficult task.
He was doing something that was gonna require stamina, determination, endurance, the ability to handle opposition. Remember that on the first missionary journey, the Apostle Paul, that they were so upset with him for sharing the gospel that they threw stones at him and they left him for dead.
They thought he was dead. They drug him out to the city limits and they left him there to die. So if it doesn’t take much and you’re John Mark and you get a little pushback and all of a sudden you fold your tent up and said, I’m out of here.
I’m taking my football and I’m gonna go home. It’s not gonna work with the Apostle Paul. But yet we also understand that somebody’s gotta invest in John Mark. Somebody’s gotta get him to the next level.
Somebody’s gotta encourage him. Somebody’s gotta come along and equip him and strengthen him. They are both right and they both had valid reasons of why they made the judgment call that they made. In life, hear me, in life, the heavens are not always gonna part and God is not always gonna say, you do this or you don’t do this.
This is how God works, my friends. He blesses you with principles in the Bible. He blesses you with the wisdom of the Father. He blesses you with the mind of Christ. He blesses you with the leadership of the Spirit and you are called within the context of your personality and the context of your preferences and the context of your priorities to make the best judgment call that you can make.
And you gotta live with it. You gotta live with it. For the Apostle Paul, he felt like that was the best judgment that John Mark not come. I can’t rely on him. For Barnabas, he felt like we gotta invest in this guy and we can’t give up on him and I believe that he could become a great leader down the road.
They’re both right. Many disagreements are valid on both sides. There is diversity in the body of Christ. What’s important to you may not be important to me, but that’s okay. What you’re passionate about may not be what I’m passionate about and vice versa, but that’s okay.
We don’t always have to agree on every little thing and we don’t always have to see everything just right and it’s okay, we might have a disagreement, but both sides are valid and that’s important. Third principle I want you to learn, that when you have a disagreement, you need to reach out to those you disagree with, personally and privately.
But when I have a disagreement with someone at a level that it’s affecting me, now let me just put this out there, okay, I didn’t even put this in my notes, but I just feel that I should tell you this, that when I have a disagreement, one might ask the question.
when do I have to personally talk to them about a disagreement? Because if we spend our life trying to confront everybody and talk to everybody about a disagreement, I’m gonna tell you something, that’s all we’ll be doing in life, okay?
I mean, there are times people say, I mean, one time I came into church and the lady said, I don’t like your haircut. Hey, I’m just trying to hang on to what I got, much less you like what I got, amen?
Okay, honestly, I didn’t even give it, I just kind of walked off and I said, I appreciate the input, okay? And I just moved on in life, okay? I mean, sometimes people tell me crazy stuff, you just wouldn’t believe it and I learned this from Dr.
Dina Padrone, he told me, Mike, you don’t have to argue with everything, just say, that’s interesting. So if I’m in a conversation with you and I say, that’s interesting, that’s your cue. He doesn’t agree with me.
He just trying to move me along, amen? Isn’t that interesting? But when do I take that time to talk to somebody? Let me share it with you. When it affects you, it’s affecting your spiritual life. It’s setting you back spiritually.
Number two, when do I talk to somebody when it affects other people’s spiritual life? It’s setting them back personally. Number three, I know I need to talk to someone if it is affecting the kingdom of God, it’s affecting the work of God, it’s affecting the people of God because there are sometimes disagreements among people that it’s spreading throughout the community of faith and it’s causing a negative reaction.
Those are the three times that we need to try to do our best to work it out so that we can get the better outcome and the cause of Christ can move forward. One of the marks of maturity is the ability to disagree without being disagreeable.
It’s gonna happen in the church. You’re gonna disagree with people and sometimes that’s gonna… rise to a level where you’re gonna have to figure out what you’re gonna do. And this is what happened to Paul and Barnabas, but yet God uses this in a way to help expand his kingdom, but also to help both of these men to mature and be more sanctified in their faith.
So every disagreement in our life shouldn’t be looked as a negative as much as, God what are you teaching me through this and how can I be more like Christ as a result of this? So I hope that this has been a great encouragement.
We’ll continue studying this next week. Let me remind you that Hope Worth Having is on Facebook like us and keep up with all the things going on in the church as well as on the ministry and you can live stream from the Facebook page of Hope Worth Having.
So if for any reason you can’t be in your local church or sick or you’re having some challenges relating to your health or something, feel free to pull us up and listen to us live as we teach the Word of God.
The post How to Agree to Disagree Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on God’s Plan for Missions 3. He will be reading out of Acts 13-15.
God doesn’t have one plan of salvation for one group of people and then another plan of salvation for another group of people. But there is one gospel, there is one Lord, and there is one baptism, there is one salvation, and it is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church and welcome to Hope Worth Having. We are grateful that you are here and that you are ready to learn the Word of God. We are continuing our study in God’s plan for missions and we are kind of overlooking Acts chapter 13, 14, and 15 and we are learning about what did God want to do to help launch the church throughout the world with the gospel.
So let’s grab our Bible and let’s get into the Word. We have been studying God’s plan for missions and this morning as we come to chapter 15 we come to the final part of this little series in the book of Acts.
We are reminded the book of Acts runs parallel to the great commission that Christ has given the disciples. If you recall in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8 Jesus told them that they were to take the gospel to first the Jews Jerusalem and then they were to take it to Samaria and then they were to take it to the uttermost parts of the earth.
And as we study chapters 1 all the way through chapter 8 we see that they are doing a great job of reaching Jerusalem. And then we jump into chapter 9 where the Apostle Paul who at the time is Saul and he is converted to Christianity but he was the number one persecutor of the church.
But this led to the spreading of the gospel that as he would invade into the homes of believers that they would spread out and take the gospel. of Jesus Christ to Samaria. We remember that because Christ commissioned the disciples to take the gospel and the disciples now are flooding the gospel into this little region called Samaria and then we come to chapter 13 and we begin to witness how the church is embarking upon this great commission of taking the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth,
to every person on the planet and when we looked at chapter 13 we saw the calling to missions that in God’s plan for missions that he would call people within the local church to step up and to step out of the fellowship and to take the gospel to other places and other regions and other lands and we saw that Barnabas and Paul or who at the time was Saul they would take a team and they would go share the gospel of Jesus Christ and We learned so much about that.
Then we picked up last week in verse 6 of chapter 13, and there we went all the way through chapter 14, unbelievably. But the point is God’s plan for missions also has challenges. There are many challenges for missionaries, and there are many challenges for all of us who share the gospel of Christ.
There is deception. There is frustration. There is opposition. There is persecution. And we walked you through all those different challenges that are before the missionary. This is why it’s essential that you be a people who are praying for the missionary.
Now, when we come to chapter 15, our final section on this plan for missions, I call it the conference on missions. Amazingly, it’s been about 15 years since Jesus had died and rose again when we come to this text in chapter 15 of the book of Acts.
And what we see here is the first church council. Whenever the church had a problem throughout the history of the church, the leaders of the church would gather, they would debate, they would discuss, and they would deal with it, and they would come with an answer.
And this is what you are witnessing in chapter 15. And I want you to see first the dissension that takes place. The Bible says in verse 1 of chapter 15 that certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders about this question.
So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria describing the conversion of the Gentiles. And they caused great joy to all the brethren. And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all things that God had done with them.
of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law. Unfortunately what had taken place as we shared with you last week that there is always the challenge of false teaching and unfortunately some Jewish believers being misguided were insisting it was essential for the male gentile converts to be circumcised.
The Bible says in verse 1 that certain men they are referred to as Judaizers and they were teaching a doctrine that you must work your way to heaven. That the only way you can be saved is if you work your way to heaven.
You and I know different. The Bible says for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves it is a gift of God not of works. And so how is it that you and I are saved? By what Christ did on the cross for us, we place our faith in Jesus Christ.
He washes us and He cleanses us of our sins and He grants us a new life and He gives us a new beginning. But yet the Bible teaches us that in the early church, there was the challenge of teaching of salvation by works.
Now look down at verse four. The Bible says when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders. They reported all things. What were they reporting? They were reporting what God was doing, the evidence of God’s work in the life of the Gentiles.
Remember that I told you how the gospel was going out. It went to Jerusalem. People were getting saved. Remember that Peter baptized over 3 ,000 people on the day of Pentecost. And then you remember that Philip the Evangelist went into Samaria and you remember how many were coming to Christ, but specifically that there was a political leader.
He was a eunuch and he was a man of great means and great wealth. And yet he was wondering about this gospel. He was wondering about this Jesus and Philip explained to him the wonderful news of Jesus Christ and he came to believe in Christ and then was baptized.
It is those kinds of things they were sharing with the leaders of the church. Then we see the discussion in verse six and seven note. Now the apostles and the elders came together to consider this matter.
And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, men and brethren, you know that a good while ago, God chose among us that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.
Peter is giving a defense that God had chosen him to take the gospel out far enough. he is reminding them of how God was converting souls. Jump down to verse 10 and 11. Now therefore why do you test God?
By putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we are able to bear. Remember what is the yoke? It is that you have to be circumcised. You have to follow the Jewish law or you cannot be saved.
Verse 11 of chapter 15. But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they. Meaning that God doesn’t have one plan of salvation for one group of people and then another plan of salvation for another group of people.
But there is one gospel, there is one Lord, and there is one baptism, there is one salvation that we find and it is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we have a question here to consider this morning.
this declaration has been made that we shall be saved in the same manner and that manner is that we must believe in Jesus Christ in what he did on the cross for our sins and the question I want you to consider this morning is how is faith acquired how is faith if I am called to believe how is this faith acquired if I am called to trust how is this acquired look at Romans 10 17 on the screen it says so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God how does God ignite faith in the hearts of your children how does God ignite faith in the hearts of your friends and your family how does God ignite faith in your hearts let me tell you through the hearing of the Word of God now God has not only chosen his message and he is not only ordained his message but he is ordained the means by which it would come about and so I want you to jump back to verse 9 and I want you to see this that as Peter is making the case that it is salvation by faith that he says in verse 9 and made no distinction between us and them meaning there’s no distinction between the Jews and the Gentiles purifying their hearts by what by faith they were forgiven of their sins their hearts became pure before God not because of what they did not because of all their efforts or achievements but rather by their faith in what Christ did on the cross for them God is the one who purifies our hearts he uses the instrument of faith to bring us to forgiveness and to find the true salvation that’s in Jesus Christ many of you have burdens for your friends for your children and for your family members that do not know Christ the key to understand is that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God there is a dynamic to this kind of faith that changes the heart.
Did you see that in verse nine? Purifying their heart. It is not only that God changes us within, but He progressively changes us without. That as God has intrinsically changed us and forgiven us and cleansed our hearts, that He outwardly begins to shape our lives and to mold us into the image of Jesus Christ, that we might reflect the glory of God.
That’s why behavior modification, it isn’t sufficient to save this nation. Trying to get everybody to be moral and to do the right thing will not save this nation. The only way that this nation will turn around and come back to God is if they put their faith and their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now it would make sense. Because Christianity is rooted in Judaism, it certainly would be understandable that there might be some who are misguided in thinking that we must follow the Jewish law. But I want you to remember this.
Jesus Christ, when he sat in that upper room, and there’s nothing distinct about the upper room, I went to the upper room, it was just upstairs. It said the upper room, I thought it was gonna be special, but it was just upstairs.
But Jesus was up in the upper room, and there he sat with the disciples, and he told them that the old covenant was completed in him and that he was instituting a new covenant. A new covenant, when we take communion together, we celebrate what Christ has done in that he has not only paid for our sins, but he is fulfilled, and he has completed all that the Jewish law required.
And now, my friends, we live under a new covenant that is rooted in what Christ did on the cross. What we could not do, this yoke of burden of trying to keep up with the law and follow all the commands and do all the ceremonies that they required that could not be fulfilled in our own flesh, and our own effort was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
And now we have a new covenant, and those ceremonial laws, and all the Judaism of the practices and the rituals, it is all faded away. Why? Because Christ fulfilled it all. Every once in a while, I run into believers, and they say, well, Pastor Mike, you’re not really doing it right.
You’re meeting on Sunday, and really, you’re called to meet on Saturday. And I say, well, I can’t meet on Saturday, I gotta mow the lawn, but I’m just saying, they say Saturday’s the Sabbath. But listen to me, friends, under the old covenant, yes, Saturday was the Sabbath, but it was fulfilled in Christ.
The church meets on Sunday, because this is the day that Christ rose again. We come and we begin our week. This is the first day of the week. Look at your calendar. This is the first day of the week, not Monday, but Sunday’s the first day of the week, and we dedicate this week to God, and we worship Christ, and we begin our week with Him, and we ask for His strength, His grace, His forgiveness, His goodness to be a part of it.
on us so that we might reflect Christ in every relationship, in every activity, in every situation that we find ourselves. And that’s why we understand that we are not under the old covenant, but rather we are under the new covenant that is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so Peter is explaining all this in verse seven through 14 that God is calling the Gentiles and the Jews out, and He is calling them to be believers and that this is the new church and that this is God’s people and it doesn’t matter their ethnicity, it doesn’t matter the color of their skin, it doesn’t matter what their education level is, it doesn’t matter where they came from or where they’re headed to,
what matters is do they know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior? The gospel is not an invitation for you to be more religious. But the gospel is an invitation for you to have a real relationship with Jesus.
And when you get that all messed up, and sometimes parents, we gotta be careful that we don’t mess our kids up thinking that the gospel is about rules and religion and what we really need to help them understand that the gospel is about being connected to the Father and that we have a relationship with the Father and it is through Christ that that is made possible and that relationship purifies our heart and changes our lives from here on out.
I want you to see in verse 19 through 29, and we don’t got time to read every verse, and that is the decision that was finally made. They had this debate, they’re laying it all out there, Peter’s making the case, Paul is making the case, Barnabas is making the case, and they’re all saying, look, God is working and people are being saved and we’re not gonna put this yoke of burden on people.
So look at verse 19 of chapter 15, therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things that are polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled and from blood, we’ll explain that here in a second, for Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city being read in the synagogues every Sabbath,
that it pleased the apostles and the elders with the whole church to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, who was also named Barsebus and Silas, leading men among the brethren, and of course they then write a letter.
Now what’s going on here? What is going on? A decision has been made, and here you’ll note in verse 19 that he says we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God. The word trouble has the idea of throwing something in someone’s path to annoy them or to trip them, and what…
Peter is saying look let’s not do this let’s not throw something in the path of a new believer that frustrates them or confuses them and messes them up in their understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
You and I as believers we have to be careful about this that we don’t become so legalistic in our faith that we throw something in the path of a new believer that not only annoys them but trips them up and causes them to become distant in their fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Moms and dads you need to be alert to this that the things that you prefer are not always the principles of God’s word. Some of you are more worried about the hair of your children than you are the heart of your children and you’ve got to stay alert.
Listen as a believer I have preferences in my life I have things that I like I have things that work for me in my discipline in my habits of walking with the Lord Jesus Christ but it’s not necessarily that it’s in the Bible it’s not necessarily that it’s spelled out in the Bible and so I don’t project those on you.
I don’t sit there and tell you, you gotta do A, B, and C. What I try to do is get up and teach the Bible and principles to you and tell you through the power of the Spirit of God and the wisdom of God and the mind of Christ that you would live out your faith as God has called you to do.
I don’t have a long list of do’s and don’ts. I just don’t. I mean, I tried to make the list, but I started looking at the list and said, Mike, I can’t live up to this, so why make this list? I crumbled up and threw it in the trash, amen?
And what I want you to know is don’t ever put in the path of another believer something that will trip them up in their faith and always distinguish between the difference between what is a principle and what is a preference.
But anyways, my point is to you that you have preferences in all areas of your life. Don’t make them a requirement that causes new believers to stumble. That’s what Peter is trying to teach us. Now, they made it clear in their decision that salvation came through God’s grace, that it wasn’t circumcision, it wasn’t religion, it wasn’t rituals, and the Gentiles did not have to become a Jew to be a Christian.
Now get this, you don’t have to become an American to be a Christian. That in every culture, all Christians have different things that they like in their culture, but that doesn’t mean they’re not Christians.
What you have to do is come to Christ and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to be a Christian. And it’s not just that you’re born an America that makes you a Christian, you must make a personal decision with the Lord.
You must confess that you’re a sinner, acknowledge that he is the Lord, and believe in him that he died for your sins. Now the Bible tells us in verse 20 and 21 that they laid out four little guidelines for them.
They laid out these guidelines for them, and they asked them as new believers to not participate in some of these things. because it would be a stumbling block to the Jewish believer. Look at verse 21.
For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read, meaning the Torah, the law, the first five books of the Bible, the Old Testament, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.
So as Jewish people were coming to Christ they are saying to these new believers don’t be a stumbling block. They’re saying to the old believers don’t throw something in their way that causes them to be annoyed or trip up in their faith but to the new believers they’re saying look you need to be careful what you do where you do it and how you do it.
It’s not that you’re a hypocrite but you don’t want to cause the Jewish believers to be a stumbling block. And so I want you to understand something church that there are things as believers. that maybe we understand that our forefathers and our people that came before us, that maybe it was important to them, that there were certain things that were important to them and that we might abstain from those things when we’re around them because we don’t wanna be a stumbling block to them.
We don’t wanna hurt their faith. This is what we have in Jesus Christ. We have this freedom, not only that we can live for Christ and that we can obey Christ, but we also have this freedom that gives us the wisdom of when we apply how we live our lives before others so that we don’t become a stumbling block.
There are many things that I would be free in Christ to do, but yet when I think about nearly 500 students up there at that school and over another hundred some online, there are things that I do not do because I don’t wanna be a stumbling block to those children.
I wanna be an example to them. I want them to think of Pastor Mike as someone who was an example of how to live the Christian life. And so we’re alert to these things. We try to be understanding and you must be willing as a believer to be mindful of these things.
Remember in Revelation chapter two and verse 14, remember that as Jesus was speaking to the churches, he said to the church at Pergamos that I have a few things against you because you have some there who hold the teachings of Balaam, who kept teaching Bala to put a stumbling block before who?
The sons of Israel, meaning the Jewish people, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality. Certainly sexual immorality is part of the new covenant of being things that we should abstain from.
But the apostle Paul would later teach in 1 Corinthians eight that it would be okay to eat meat offered to idols, that the new believers would eat meat offered to idols, not because they were worshiping God, but just because the meat was cheaper.
And so they would buy it on the black market. because it was the aftermarket, and it was what they could afford because they were experiencing so much famine and poverty in the lands, but it was upsetting the Jewish believers.
And Paul said, when I’m around the Jewish believers, I don’t eat meat offered to idols. But when I’m by myself, it’s no big deal because we know that there’s only one true God, Jesus Christ, amen. We know there’s only one true God.
So he is asking us to use the wisdom of the spirit that we know what we should do, when we should do it, so that we are not a stumbling block. And this is what Jesus addressed to the church at Pergamos, that they had become a stumbling block before the sons of Israel.
This is what you and I have to consider in our faith that as we’re out there, we have to be sensitive to what might be a stumbling block. And so Barnabas and Paul, they were standing up for the Gentile believers.
helping everyone to understand that they have equal access to the gospel, they have equal blessings of the gospel, and this is what God wants. Now we come to the final section of chapter 15 in verse 30 through 35.
I want to read this to you because it’s so beautiful, that after having heard this decision the Bible says, so when they were sent off they came to Antioch and when they had gathered the multitude together they delivered the letter, but the letter certainly includes verse 23 all the way to verse 29.
And when they had read it they rejoiced over its encouragement. What a blessing because the message was don’t be a stumbling block and the message was don’t throw anything in the path of a new believer that annoys them or trips them up in their faith.
It was that we’d be willing to deny self and take up the cross and follow Jesus. That’s the essence of the letter. And when they read it they rejoiced over its encouragement. Verse 32, now Judas and Silas themselves being prophets also exhorted and strengthened the brethren with many words.
Verse 33, and after they had stayed there for a time they were sent back with greetings from the brethren to the apostles. However it seemed good to Silas to remain there, but Paul and Barnabas also remained in Antioch teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others.
There’s a lot of significance in chapter 15. One of them you may not notice, but all of a sudden Saul is now referred to as Paul and from here on out he’ll always be referred to as Paul. A reflection of not only his new life in Christ but his new ministry in Christ that God had given him.
His old life he was a persecutor of the church. He was one who dragged people out of their homes to be brought before the Jewish courts and to be condemned for their faith in Jesus Christ. But now there was a new direction for the church and this new direction is that the church would understand that God accepts all people of life.
of all racists that God saves those who repent of their sins, who turn from their sin and turn from their self, and they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And Romans 10, 13, the apostle Paul would write later that whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Seems like a settled matter for us, but I want you to understand something, church. It wasn’t always a settled matter, but praise God it became a settled matter, but I want you to know the devil is still fighting today, trying to twist the word of God, trying to twist what it means to be saved, trying to confuse new believers, trying to trap people into false doctrine and false faith.
That’s why it’s important for us to remember our mission. What is the church’s mission today? It’s real simple. Our mission is to announce the good news to people in every neighborhood and every nation that they can be servants in Christ’s kingdom.
if they will transfer their allegiance from this world to Jesus Christ, if they will believe by faith that Jesus died on the cross for their sins, then my friends, they can leave the world’s kingdom, which will one day pass away.
And there’s a new kingdom. It’s the kingdom of Christ, and the Bible tells us it’ll be a place and a season where there will be no sadness, and there’ll be no sorrow, and there’ll be no suffering, and Christ will rule and reign on this earth with righteousness and peace.
Our hope is not in politics, though we work hard because we’re just trying to keep the freedoms to tell others. But our hope is in Jesus Christ, and therefore we are missionaries. All of us are missionaries.
We all have our part in this world to spread the gospel. We all have the responsibility to be world Christians who are reaching to the ends of the earth. We understand that God loves every person on this planet, and we understand that God is calling us to believe, to belong, and to proclaim his good message.
Jesus, over 2 ,000 years ago, said, I am the way, the truth, and the light, and no man comes to the Father but by me. And before Jesus Christ ascended into heaven, he gave his high priestly, heavenly prayer to the Father, the inner Trinitarian prayer that blows the minds of Bible scholars that God would pray to God, that the interaction that we witness in John chapter 17, but at the conclusion of this great prayer,
Jesus said to his disciples, as the Father has sent me, I also send you. Church, we ought to help them find the way to Christ, help them define the way of salvation by being fully engaged in the plan of mission.
The Book of Acts traces how the Holy Spirit moves the church outward in its witness. The church in the early days began to kind of focus inward, and so all of a sudden God is working through persecution to push the church out to Samaria and to the othermost parts of the world.
And that’s what we’re witnessing, and we’re seeing that great plan unfold in chapter 13 through 15. So I hope it’s been a blessing to you and it’s been an encouragement to you as you understand how God is working.
I want to remind you that our website, Hopeworthhaving .com, has a lot of good information, a lot of ways for you to keep up with what’s going on in the ministry of Hopeworthhaving, and I hope you’ll take advantage of that.
This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post God’s Plan for Missions 3 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on God’s Plan for Missions 2. He will be reading out of Acts 13-15.
I don’t believe the Bible’s a buffet that we pick and choose what we want and that we kind of just say, well, I like that part, but I don’t like that part. I’m not one of those preachers who said, oh, the Old Testament, we don’t need it.
No, my friends, we need God’s word from Genesis all the way to Revelation. Can God’s people say, Amen? Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders and this is Hope Worth Having. We welcome you to our radio broadcast.
We’re delighted that you’re with us and we want to get back into the book of Acts. We’re kind of surveying Acts chapter 13 through 15. We’re talking about God’s plan for missions, so let’s get our Bibles and let’s get back at it today as we study.
If you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in Acts chapter 13 and we’re going to continue our study on God’s plan for missions. As we come to the book of Acts, the church is launching forth.
We are seeing the church make a deliberate effort to carry the gospel to the whole world. The book of Acts is the story of how the early church understood the words of Jesus Christ when he said in John chapter 20, verse 21, as the Father has sent me, so send I you.
We come to the book of Acts and we learned last week in the first five verses about the calling to missions. We saw in the church at Antioch that God, through the Spirit of God, had called out these two men, Paul and Barnabas, and that they would assemble a team that would begin and launch a missionary journey.
Bible scholars call it the first missionary journey. As we begin in chapter 13 verse 6, all the way through chapter 14 verse 28, we witness this first journey that Paul and Barnabas were on. Their mission, their assignment from heaven, was that they were to go into these particular cities and they would plant Bible -believing churches.
They would preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many would come to Christ, but yet some would resist the gospel. This morning as we understand God’s plan for missions, we’ve learned how the calling to missions works.
But I also want us to understand today the challenge of missions. We are under this impression that whenever we surrender to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, that it will just always be easy.
Well, this morning when we look at the challenge of missions, we understand that God’s plan for the gospel message was not to be just limited to the Jewish people, but it was an inclusive message to go to every home and every heart, that it was a message to be proclaimed to the ends of the earth.
But there would be challenges that not everybody would like, that Paul and Barnabas are out there trying to win people to Christ. We pick up in verse 6 and we note the first challenge of missionary work is dealing with deception.
The Bible says in verse 6 of chapter 13 of the book of Acts, now when they had gone through the island of Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar -Jesus, who was with the pro -counsel, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man.
This man called for Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the Word of God. But Elmas, the sorcerer, for so his name is translated, withstood them, seeking to turn the pro -counsel away from the faith, then Saul, who is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, O full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord.
And now indeed the hand of the Lord is upon you and you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a time, and immediately a dark mist fell on him. And he went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand, and then the pro -counsel believed when he saw him.
what he had been done, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord. A sorcerer, a false teacher, a sorcerer, a magician who dabbled into the occult named Elmas, which is simply a translation of the Arabic word magician, was trying to resist the gospel and trying to deceive those who wanted to hear the Word of God taught.
We understand that this individual was doing everything they could to stand against the advancement of the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet what we witness here is that as Paul and Barnabas are going out, right at the inception of their missionary journey, right out of the gate, they are dealing with deception.
And I want you to note how they deal with that deception. Do you see, Saul? Do you see Barnabas just laying down and saying, now let’s not ruffle any feathers, let’s not upset anybody, let’s just try to all get along so we can go along.
No, would you come back with me to verse nine. Then Saul, who is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit. He’s not doing this in the flesh. He is filled with the Spirit of God, looked intently at him and said, oh, full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?
Friends, he calls out the false teacher. He doesn’t just say, write a letter to him and say, please quit deceiving people, but publicly he calls out the false teacher. He addresses and confronts the false teaching, which is a reminder to all of us this morning that we are called to stand against false teachers and we are called to stand against false teaching.
Jesus warned us in Matthew seven to beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. I’m telling you that today in America, we are captivated by our senses.
We are shaped by our experiences and all too often we are led astray by appearances. And what we need to make sure is that even as we are out there sharing the gospel, whether it is our missionary colleagues who are taking the gospel across the world, or whether it’s our ministry trying to share the gospel across the street, that there will always be this deception that we have to deal with.
There has to be a boldness, a holy boldness, and a spirit filling within us willing to stand against false teaching. Because the devil is working 24 seven to make sure that the gospel does not go to different people, that the gospel does not reach the heart.
and the homes of people. The devil is going to do everything he can to trap people into false teaching. That very much like this man, this pro -counsel, that he was hungry for the word of God. He invited Paul and Barnabas to come and to share the gospel with him.
He invited them to come and teach him the word of God. But yet this sorcerer, this magician, this occultic person tries to step in and resist the true teaching of Jesus Christ and what does the apostle do?
He calls them out. Now when we’re trying to identify false teachers, it can be very confusing because there are many teachings in our land and even in the world there are many religions that are in our land and we have to be alert to these things and how do we identify false teachers?
I want you to remember that it comes down to three questions. that you have to ask when you’re trying to identify false teaching. Within the family of God, within the body of Christ, there are going to be differences.
But that doesn’t mean that’s false teaching. It doesn’t mean that’s heresy. How do we identify what is true heretical teaching? Number one, what do you believe about Jesus? I want to know what people believe about Jesus Christ.
Now think about this. I want to know, do you believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, that he lived a sinless life, that he offered himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind, that he is the savior of the world, and that on the third day he arose from the tomb and that he has ascended into heaven and he is at the right hand of the Father.
What do you believe about Jesus through the years, church? Those of you that have been with me from the beginning of our ministry here, you know that there have been times that we have called out false teachers.
We do not call these false teachers out because we are somehow antagonistic towards them or that we might even be jealous of them or that we don’t even like their style of ministry, but rather we call them out because they do not believe in the same Jesus that you and I believe that is found and presented to us and revealed to us in the word of God many years ago.
And I told the church that Joyce Meyer is a false teacher. And I’ll tell you what, I could have created a firestorm because Joyce Meyer does not believe when Jesus Christ hung on the cross that he was God.
She denies the deity of Jesus Christ. I have the quotes, I have the video clip. I’m glad to present it all to you, but I know that so many are infatuated with the appearances and I know that many are infatuated with the…
razzle, dazzle, and you’re easily sucked in to the false teachers and their ministries, and you buy into the poison that they are feeding you. I understand when your heart is hurting, and you’re wounded, and you’re struggling, that it’s easy to grab the quickest medicine that you can find, only to find it is not the right medicine nor is it the truthful medicine that’ll heal your heart.
The second question that we ask when we’re dealing with deception is what do you believe about salvation? What do you believe about salvation? There’s only two types of teachings about salvation. You either believe that you’re working your way to heaven, you’re being good enough to get to heaven, that you’re doing something or you’re not doing something so that you’ll be accepted and be able to go into heaven,
or you believe that Jesus Christ did all the work on the cross for your salvation. You believe in Ephesians 2, 8, 9 says, For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should what church?
Both. We can’t brag and say, Lord, look at me. I went to church so often I got a pin. I put money towards the church. Look at me, Jesus. I should be worthy to be able to enter into heaven. Friends, I want to tell you that the best of us are not worthy to enter into heaven, amen?
That the best of us, the prophet Isaiah said, that our righteousness is as filthy rags. And friends, I want you to know that even at your best, you fall miserably short of the perfection and the righteousness of God, and that the only way that you and I can be saved from our sins and be worthy to enter into heaven and to live with the Lord Jesus Christ forever and ever is by faith in Jesus Christ.
And what he did on the cross, what Jesus did on the cross, for you to say that, well, I’ll believe in Jesus, but I’ll also work my way to heaven. I’ll kind of combine them together is an insult to the atoning work of Jesus Christ.
What you’re saying is that his work on the cross was not good enough. It was not sufficient enough. And so you’re just gonna come in and you’re gonna kind of fill in the gaps and you’re gonna kind of make it better.
No, my friends, Christ paid it all. Jesus did all that was necessary. You say, well, then pastor, why should I work? Why should I do anything? Well, first you’re created and designed by God to work for the Lord.
But ultimately, why do I work? Because I love Jesus Christ. My labor of love is not… It is not to earn merit, it is not to earn salvation with God. My labor of love for the Lord is because I love Him and I want to show my love to Him and I want to show my gratitude to Him and therefore I am busy for the Lord.
I am active in the cause of Christ. I am doing everything that I can that more people might experience the wonderful good news of Jesus Christ. Don’t you believe church that the work of Christ and the plan of salvation is good news to mankind?
Oh, amen. Now friends, the third question. How do I discern and identify a false teacher? First, what do they believe about Jesus? What do they, number two, believe about salvation? Number three, what do they believe about the Bible?
Friends, I believe the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God from Genesis all the way to Revelation. I don’t believe the Bible just contains the Word of God. I believe the Bible is the Word of God.
And I believe that God breathed his word through his prophets and through his apostles who were designated at a certain time and a certain season that they would reveal to us what God’s word is, the Old Testament, the New Testament.
It all comes together to give us the message of God. It all comes together to point us to the Lord Jesus Christ. I don’t believe the Bible’s a buffet that we pick and choose what we want and that we kind of just say, well, I like that part, but I don’t like that part.
I’m not one of those preachers who said, oh, the Old Testament, we don’t need it. No, my friends, we need God’s word from Genesis all the way to Revelation. Can God’s people say amen? Now friends, if you don’t believe the Bible is the inspired, infallible word of God, if you don’t believe it’s God breathed and came from heaven and delivered to us and preserved for us today in our language that we have been given,
if you don’t believe that, my friends, we can’t work together. Because this is the word of God. And I’m not going to put down the word of God. I’m not gonna diminish the word of God. I believe that faith comes by hearing the word of God.
I believe the word of God will strengthen you, comfort you, encourage you, guide you, teach you, equip you, and train you, and all the things that you might need. God’s word is sufficient to do its effective work in our hearts and the prophet Isaiah said that his word, God’s word, would not return boy.
God’s word will do its mighty work. And so when we’re dealing with deception as we are out there friends, remember that those are the three areas. Now we may have differences. Some of you may want to be a Presbyterian.
Some of you may want to be a Pentecostal. Some of you may want to be a Baptist. Some of you may want to be a Methodist. And some of you may want to have a different title. Whatever titles you want. You slap whatever label you want.
But here’s the only. The only thing I care about, you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. And you see, people say, well, I’m of this, I’m of that, and my grandma was this and my grandpa was that.
Friends, it doesn’t matter. God doesn’t have grandchildren. It’s your relationship with God. I’m a pastor, I have three children, I have three grandchildren, but they all have to give an account to God themselves.
They don’t get any special privileges, because their dad was a pastor. Everybody has to give an account to the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you believe that, church? Oh, I hope so. Friends, the challenge of missions as we’re sharing the gospel, not only locally, but globally, is that we have to deal with deception, but I want you to see the second challenge is dealing with frustration.
We come down to chapter 13. Now, I’ve already told you that Paul and Barnabas, they put this team of people together. It included, obviously, Paul and Barnabas, but it included, Luke, it would include Timothy and Titus, and it would include a young man whose name was John Mark.
But would you notice with me in verse 13? Now when Paul and his party set sail from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia, and John, that is John Mark, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem. Have you ever started out and as you were getting on a journey and you had a task and you had a job and you had an assignment and then all of a sudden your team started falling apart?
Have you ever tried to go out there and share Christ with someone and you were responsible for certain things and other people were responsible for certain things and come to find out that the other people didn’t do their job and now you’re all alone trying to do it yourself?
This is the frustration that the Apostle Paul is experiencing, that he has gone and set out with this team, but all of a sudden, there is a young man who leaves. Now the question is why did John Mark leave Paul and Barnabas?
Luke never tells us. We’ll learn more about John Mark and John chapter 15. We encourage, the story ends well, but in this moment, there is frustration in the heart of the Apostle Paul because people who said they would do something did not do something.
People who promised that they would help never showed up and stepped out instead of stepping up. And so now Paul is frustrated as he is dealing with the departure of John Mark. We don’t know if John Mark left because of a physical problem, an emotional problem, a spiritual problem.
We don’t know. He could have gotten homesick and said I’m coming back. I can’t be away from mamas, fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Have you ever felt like that? Well, whatever the reason was, he’s not there.
And this was so difficult for Paul that we’ll… learn later that it became a point of conflict and dissension between him and Barnabas. We’ll learn about that later but I want you to remember this that as we are serving God people are at different seasons and different levels of their faith and people are going through different things in their life and sometimes the team that you put together may not always be as reliable as you want them to be and they may not be all that they should be and they may not step up when you need them to step up and they may not fill in the gap and help solve the problem and advance the cause of Jesus Christ like you would like them to and what you need to remember is this that when we go into the journey of life and as we are serving God whether we’re on the mission field on a mission trip or we are trying to share the gospel with others that people are flawed how about that how many of you know that nobody’s perfect All of you that are perfect,
would you please stand and make yourself known to this congregation? As I tell people that if you’re perfect, please don’t join an imperfect church, amen? Because you’re gonna mess it all up. You see, friends, as we’re serving with our brothers and sisters in Christ, guess what?
Sometimes they fail us. Sometimes they disappoint us. Sometimes they discourage us. But what I’m trying to say is this, sometimes rather than coming to be a blessing and coming to be a help and to be an encouragement, sometimes we come and we got all of our frustrations and we got all of our angst and we just kind of let it all out and we’re just kind of discouraging people everywhere we go and we’re just dropping all these emotional bombs on people rather than coming to the house of the Lord and people being built up and encouraged and strengthened and excited about serving God and wanting to love God more and love people more,
they walk away frustrated. And I want you to understand something. What does Paul and Barnabas do? Did they quit? Did they fold up their tent? John Mark quit. He went back home. He’s not going with us.
Let’s just give up. No, my friends, your assignment does not stop because one person failed you. Your assignment in heaven that God has called you to do is not finished just because someone offended you.
How many times have I seen this as a pastor through the years of me serving the Lord? How many times people are offended and I can’t get them reengaged. I can’t get them back involved. Somebody said something.
Somebody didn’t do something. Somebody forgot somebody. Friends, great is our reward in heaven. All that I do for God is not based on how people respond. It’s not how people handle situations that I wish they’d have handled better, but it’s based upon my love and my commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.
When you serve God, you are going to face frustrations. I want you to see the third thing. they had to deal with, and that was opposition. Now we come to chapter 13, but I want you to jump down to verse 50.
We’ll back up into this section here a little bit. The Bible says in verse 50 that the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their region.
What we see is that the civic leaders of this area stirred up opposition that drove Paul from the city, drove his whole mission team from the city. What was their response? This is what I want you to see.
Look at verse 51. They shook off the dust from their feet against them and they came to Econium and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Are you with me, church? There are gonna be challenges in serving God.
There’s gonna be challenges in getting the gospel out and there might. even be opposition. You thought everybody would love you. You thought everybody would get behind you. You thought everybody would welcome you.
You thought everybody would hug you. You thought everybody would give you a pat on the back. But the truth is not everybody’s for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I could take you all the way from chapter 2, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8, chapter 12, and now chapter 13 of all the times that the apostles were opposed for preaching, teaching, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now what is happening here in verses 14 through 52 is that Paul is giving an overview as he is sharing the history of Israel through the Old Testament. He was invited to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and he was invited to come to a synagogue.
We’re going to jump in the middle of his sermon and I want you to go to verse 22 of chapter 13. The Bible says that when he had removed him, he raised up for them David as king to whom also he gave testimony and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart who will do all my will.
Man, friends, when I read that sometimes because I know more about David’s life than maybe some other people do is that I say, well, that’s not always true. David many times failed God. David many times disobeyed God, but yet the consensus and the conclusion of his life is that he was a man after God’s own heart and he was a man who desired to do God’s will.
The reason I want to share this with you is this, that God is not so much interested in the perfection of our life as he is in the direction of our life. This morning you may have come here and you may be struggling in your journey of faith.
You may be just kind of conflicted in your faith and not sure and you may be struggling that, hey, how could God ever look upon me because I have failed him so many times. Friends, I want you to know that it wasn’t that David was perfect, it was that every time David failed God, he knew that he needed to run to God, and he came to God, and he asked God’s forgiveness, and the Bible teaches us that God restored him and gave him back the joy of his salvation,
and God was able to use David because David’s heart was a heart that was for the Lord Jesus Christ. My friends, I don’t want you to give up on your family. I don’t want you to give up on your children.
I don’t want you to give up on your brothers and sisters in Christ. There may be detours in our journey of faith. There may be stumbling blocks in our journey of faith. There may be times that we trip and we get trapped, and there may be times that we fall flat on our faith because we have failed.
We failed God, we disobeyed God, we made bad choices, and we made bad decisions, but I want you to know there is a savior in heaven who is more than ready to restore you back into the family of God and back into fellowship with God.
And the Bible teaches us this is why Jesus Christ went to the cross, that he might pay the price and the penalty of our sins, and you and I could enjoy the forgiveness that is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can God’s people say amen? You can read it later, but Paul is describing here how God’s hand was directing the nation of Israel’s affairs, how all of the past was a gift from God, and now the greatest gift has come to them, and that great gift is Jesus Christ.
Look at verse 23, from this man’s seed, meaning David’s seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a savior, Jesus. Jesus is the savior, he forgives us of our sin. I want you to jump over to verse 38.
The Bible says, therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man, what man, who? Jesus, this man is preached to you, the forgiveness of sin. All of the Bible is about Jesus. All of history is his story.
It is about helping every one of us to experience the redemption, the grace, the forgiveness, the mercy that is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you’ve stumbled in here and not sure why you are here, you are here because Christ is calling you to experience his forgiveness in your life.
How did the people respond? We’re back in verse 50. They stirred up. I mean, Paul gives us great presentation of the gospel. It’s powerful, it’s meaningful, it’s benevolent, it’s come get saved, it’s wonderful.
But the Bible says they stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city and they raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas. How did they respond? Verse 51. they shook off the dust from their feet.
Verse 52, the disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit. When you’re out there serving Christ, you’re gonna get pushback. There are times you’re gonna give the greatest presentation. You couldn’t believe it came out of your mouth about how God saves people.
And yet people will resist you, oppose you, and yet what is to be my response? I don’t want you to have a pity party. I don’t want you to quit. I don’t want you to curl up and say, I’m done. I want you to shake the dust off your feet and move forward for the Lord Jesus Christ.
You don’t serve other people. You’re not their servant, you’re God’s servant. Now God will use us to serve others. Yes, I am with you on that. But if the people do not wanna hear the gospel, then our job is not to cry.
Our job is not to quit. Our job is not to get angry, but it’s to shake the dust off your feet and move forward for the Lord Jesus Christ. by friends and move forward for the Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts 13, we see the first missionary journey of the Apostle Paul.
We see his team and one of those individuals was Barnabas and God has set them apart that they would serve. And then we see how the gospel is going forth. And so this is really God’s plan for missions.
God wants us to reach people. We think about our families. We think about our communities. We think about our country. And then we think about the world. And that’s what God wants us to do. This is Pastor Mike Sanders.
And I wanna remind you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.
The post God’s Plan for Missions 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on God’s Plan for Missions 1. He will be reading out of Acts 13-15.
You are here to take the gospel to someone, to be a light to someone. If you’re trying to figure out, why am I here? Why did God not take me home? To be a blessing, to be a light, to be a person who can share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders. It’s hope worth having today where the Bible is taught verse by verse, chapter by chapter. Today we’re in Acts chapter 13 and we’re going to talk about God’s plan for missions.
And sometimes people don’t fully understand what it means to reach other cultures, other nations, and other people groups. But I want you to see this unfold in the book of Acts chapter 13 through 15 and what is God’s plan for missions.
So let’s begin our study together. This morning if you have your Bible I want you to turn with me to Acts chapter 13. And we’re going to begin a series which I’ve entitled God’s plan for missions that is going to cover chapter 13, 14, and 15.
When we come to the book of Acts we are reminded that the book of Acts is tracing how the work of the Holy Spirit is moving the church outward in its witness. You recall that when we started this great study in this great book entitled The Acts of the Apostles that Jesus had commanded his disciples that they were to go to Jerusalem and they were to go to Samaria and they were to go to the uttermost parts of the earth.
When you begin to study the book of Acts chapter 1 all the way through chapter 7 we see this great work that God is doing among the people in Jerusalem that they were literally witnessing the church.
The church being attitude, people believing in Christ every day, the church daily, the Bible says, was added to. But then God brought about persecution and opposition to the church, which caused the disciples to begin to spread out into Samaria, which was the second phase of his great commission to the church.
You recall in chapter seven and chapter eight and even chapter nine how the gospel went into the Samarian region and how God was working effectively and bringing people to true salvation. We come all the way now to chapter thirteen, and this is the inception or the inauguration of the church going beyond Samaria.
For we have not forgotten the commission that Christ has given the church and that it is to go. to the uttermost parts of the earth, that the promise that God has given that he will be with us is not that we would just huddle together and that we would just rejoice together and that we would be satisfied together, but the promise of his presence is that we would go to the ends of the earth with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The book of Acts also contains the record of Paul’s ministry. In Acts 13, we see the first missionary journey coming together that the Apostle Paul would lead. He and his team, which would include Barnabas, were set apart and set forth from the church in Acts 13.
Pick up with me in verse one this morning of Acts 13. Now in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaiian, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul.
As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “‘Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul “‘for the work to which I have called them.’ “‘Then having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, “‘they sent them away.’ “‘So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, “‘they went down into Seleucia, “‘and from there they sailed to Cyprus.
“‘And when they arrived at Salamis, “‘they preached the word of God “‘in the synagogues of the Jews. “‘They also had John as their assistant.'” Now Acts 13 is a unique chapter in the New Testament, because it’s a milestone text as it marks a radical shift in the mission strategy of the church.
The strategy that the early church had did not result from hours of studying data, analyzing trends, and debating the best course of action. Instead, During a season of worship and praise and prayer, they heard the voice of the Spirit of God and they obeyed that voice.
That voice told them to separate two men out of the church and that they were to lead a missions team to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. This morning, I want us to focus our attention on the calling of mission.
Our text is verses one through five. There’s three things I want you to learn about the calling of missions. For this lays the foundation for us as a people of God and as a church family, what is gonna be the theology and the philosophy of our missions program at the Opendoor Church.
You’ll see first in the midst of this calling that there was the place of their call. the place of their call, the missionary work involves churches sending people. What was this place? Well, we see in verse 1, it says, the church that was at Antioch.
We come down to verse 2, the Bible says, they were ministering, praying, worshiping, and fasting, and the Holy Spirit said, Now separate to me, Barnabas, and Saul, for the work which I have called them.
The place that God called his people to serve was in the local church. When we say, where will the future missionaries come? Where will the future ministers of God, where will the pastors come from? Where will the servants of God come from?
They will come from the church. That’s why it’s essential that the church be missions -minded, that the church be a place where the fire of God is felt and the knowledge of God is learned. That we understand that this is a place where our faith is inspired and our faith is rooted, and that our faith is challenged.
We see this displayed several times in the book of Acts, chapter 9 and verse 20. The Bible tells us, referring to the disciples who were at Damascus, that immediately he preached Christ in the synagogues, that is, that he is the Son of God.
What God had done is that he had raised up Saul, and as he came to Christ, and as he believed in the Lord, he began immediately to preach Christ. Where did he go? He went into the synagogues, where the Jewish people met.
He went to tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ, but it was through the local church that he was called. We jump over to chapter 14 and verse 27 of Acts. The Bible tells us in verse 27 that when they had come and gathered the church together, the church never knew anything about not being together.
That was just their practice. and their pattern and they always came together but the Bible says that they reported all that God had done and that he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles what was happening is that Barnabas and Saul who had already gone out on their first missionary journey and they were reporting back to the church all that God had done how people were being saved lives were being changed and that there was the transformation of the gospel in the hearts of many lives but the church had gathered together and we see how the church is this special place in the calling of missions jump over to chapter 15 and verse 3 so being sent on their way they passed through Phoenicia Samaria describing the conversion of the Gentiles and they caused great joy to all the brethren the place of the call is the church Why is it essential for you to be connected to a local church family?
Well, certainly one of the reasons is that this is the place that God uses to call out His future servants. This is the place that He is calling all of us to missionary work. This is the place that God is doing His effective work.
And though we understand that we are the temples of God in our own bodies and that the Spirit of God dwells within us, that there is something unique and there is something special, when the people of God come together in that place that He has granted to them and given to them, that in that place, the anointing of heaven and the call of God is upon the people of God that when they are inspired in their faith,
that they are to go forth and to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Bible says that it was in this place, the church at Antioch. I’m back in verse two of chapter 13 that they ministered to the Lord.
That meant that they were spending time in prayer. It wasn’t that they were isolated, that the church was separated, but the church had come together and they had prayed because remember what I’ve always taught you, God has chosen to work through prayer.
And He’s not only chosen to work through your individual prayers and personal prayers, but He has chosen to work together through corporate prayer. If anything stands out in the study of the book of Acts, it is how often the church came together and prayed.
Because it was in that moment that as they were having this powerful prayer meeting, that they received direction from the Spirit of God. And that these directions were that they were to separate Barnabas and Saul who would later be Paul.
And they were to be sent out to another place. It must have been exciting for the church at Antioch to see that God would pick among them two individuals who would go forth with the gospel. Now we propose a question to you this morning to consider.
How do you How does a church send missionaries? Well, I think it has to begin with prayer, doesn’t it? That we’re always praying, Lord, raise up among us your servants. Not that we are not all servants of God, but God is calling some to special tasks and special responsibilities, not only within the church, but that He is calling them to go to the regions beyond.
That He is calling that each and every one of us would recognize that a part of our prayer time personally and corporately is to pray that God would raise up and that He would call men and women to serve Him.
But there is not only the responsibility that we are to pray for one another, but we also recognize that we must be willing to part with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Is there anything more difficult than to have God, to call?
a couple, a family, an individual out of our church, and we love them so much, and we’ve spent so much time with them, and they’ve been a blessing to the church, but God has called them to another field.
It’s not easy because some of you, they’re your family, they’re your children, but I want you to know it is of the highest honor that God would choose a church, and that God would choose someone in your family to be able to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, because what it says is that God has high trust in your child or has high trust in that individual that they would carry the gospel of Jesus Christ,
which is the greatest treasure of all the world. It supersedes the gold and the money and all the stocks and bonds of this world. It exceeds it all that they would take the treasure of heaven and take it to the people of the world.
A church must send missionaries by not only praying, but also partying, but also they must be willing to pay for the missionary. Perhaps a better word is that we’re to support financially missionaries out of our church.
I like to be a part of a church that is missions minded and that they understand the value of not just saying, brother, we’re praying for you, and hope that they do well, but that we get behind them financially.
You say, Pastor Mike, why do we do faith promise giving? Because it’s the challenge upon you and I as the brothers and sisters of Christ to step up our game above and beyond our tithing and above and beyond our regular giving to the church that we would give extra to support the missionary and that we take the plan of that as we co -opt together as a family that we can do more together than we could ever do by ourselves.
And that as we stand with these missionaries and we help them to meet the needs that they have that we are able to support them to fulfill the special calling that is upon their life. Now, when you might ask the question, how can I get involved?
and missions. Well, I want to just tell you right out of the gate that it always begins with prayer. And so we bring in these missionaries. We ask them to set up a table. We ask them to give you a prayer card.
And I know it might be old -fashioned and I know it might be outdated, but I’m just telling you that you need something to remind you to pray for missionaries. But the bottom line is I would encourage you as God’s people that whenever we have a missionary, make sure you get their prayer card and make sure that you’re praying for these missionaries.
No missionary is coming in this pulpit unless they have been vetted and approved. It’s not that I’m trying to be mean and difficult, but I want to make sure that they align with us and that we’re committed to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ and that we’re working together to advance the cause of Jesus Christ.
And so if you see someone up here, you’ve got to know that the elders and the deacons and the pastors are all behind this person and we need to get behind them and we need to support them with our prayer.
Every missionary will tell you that the most thing that they value is your prayer. The second way that you can get involved in missions is to connect. And what I’m trying to tell you this morning, Church, is that you gotta find a way to get to know these missionaries.
You sign up for their email list, you sign up for their newsletter, you sign up for any possible way that you could communicate to them, you send them birthday cards, you send them anniversary cards, you send them encouragement cards, you send them emails and you send them text messages and you let them know that they are loved and they are appreciated.
There’s hardly a week that doesn’t go by that people don’t hand me a card or send me a card and say, pastor, we love you and we appreciate you. Do you understand how all this keeps me encouraged? And I live in this wonderful luxury of encouragement and this beautiful place where people are supportive of the pastor, but I want you to know that there are missionaries out there who never get a word of encouragement.
Every day they’re out there slugging, the devil’s beaten down on them. And I don’t know if you know this, but missionaries are real people with real emotions. What would it mean to a missionary if you were to connect with them in just a small, tangible way and let them know that they are loved and appreciated and that you are praying for them?
With today’s technology, there just is no excuse why we can’t connect with our missionary families. The third thing I would challenge you to do to get involved in missions is to give. God never called me to go to the regions beyond, but he did call me to use my platform to rally his people to get behind his missionaries.
Listen, here’s where I tell people to start. Would you start with one dollar? I’ve never had anybody say to me, pastor, I can’t give a dollar to the missionary. Every one of us, no matter who we are, where we’re at in our faith, I think we have enough faith to say, I wanna support the missionary.
You can do that. You can give through our giving box. You can give online. You can give through our app, however you choose. to give, you can make it happen and give to missions so that we can continue to get behind these folks.
I want to thank you, church. Recently, our church did a scripture assembly. We assembled over 38 ,000 Bible booklets, amen? Wasn’t that wonderful? But I want to tell you something that a few weeks later, we completed raising over $7 ,000 to help those Bible booklets to go to the mission field.
And I want you to give glory to God this morning, a great hand of praise. Just two weeks is all it took. And God’s people rallied around. They gave over $7 ,000. Now, look, missionaries don’t have money to buy Bibles.
So we got behind Beacon of Truth Ministries, and we put those Bible booklets together. Those Bible booklets are going to go to the mission field free of cost. And we said, not only are we going to help put put them together, but we’re gonna pay for the shipping, we’re gonna pay for the printing, and we’re gonna pay for the ink, we’re gonna pay for the paper, and we’re gonna pay for whatever it costs so that it can get into the hands of the missionary and the missionary can get it into the hands of people who need the Lord Jesus Christ.
Don’t you understand church more important than anything that’s going on in this world politically that the most important thing in this world is that people come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior?
That is why we give our time. That is why we give our talents. That is why we give our treasure. That is why we sacrifice. And if it’s just a dollar, just start there. If your faith is only a dollar, then start there.
Praise the Lord. Let’s start right at a dollar and say, I’m gonna give to the missionary one dollar a month, one dollar a week, whatever God lays on your heart. Give as God has purposed in your heart, the Bible says.
And then friends, watch God grow. Watch him grow your giving. Watch him continue to show you that he’ll meet every need in your life. But anyways, the fourth way to get involved is to go. Now, it doesn’t matter to me whether you go across the street, around the world, go.
Who’s stopping you from randomly knocking on people’s door, randomly visiting people, or who’s stopping you from sharing Christ? The way that God intended is not that we had a special day to visit, but that every day we’re interacting with the community and that we’re sharing Christ, inviting people to church, and helping them to know the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so whether you’re doing that where you work, or whether you’re doing that on a mission trip, it doesn’t matter to me, let’s just all be involved in going. Missionary work always involves people. So I want you to see the second part of this call is not only the place of their call, but the people who were called.
We’re introduced in verse one that we have prophets and teachers. These prophets and teachers, they taught the word of God and they instructed the local congregation. in Antioch, and they would share God’s word with the people.
We’re introduced to them. A list is given to us who these individuals are. But what we see is out of the midst of them is this, that when God calls a person, he always calls a person who’s already busy for him.
Now, some of you might say, I wanna go to the mission field, then get busy. Well, no, I’m gonna wait till God calls me, and I’m gonna wait till the heavens rend, and he gives me a special assignment.
No, here’s how God works. God calls and opens new doors for those who are already active in the gospel. That’s how God works. Jesus taught us that if we’re faithful in the little, that he will make us leaders or rulers of much.
And the point is, we have this responsibility to stay busy. that long before we get this opportunity, God wants us to take the first opportunity he gives us, some of you are praying, and you’re praying about being a Sunday school teacher, you’re praying about helping out in the nursery, you’re praying about helping in the children’s ministry, you’re praying, and listen to me, my friends, God is not on vacation.
What God wants you to do is get busy. He wants you to get up from your prayer time and get involved and find a place to serve. And let me tell you, those are the people he’s gonna call. Those are the people that he is gonna call, those who are already active, serving God, and they are involved.
So we should cooperate with Christ in discovering and setting apart people who are actively serving God, and that we should do everything we can to help those people to be able to sense that God has got a special calling on them.
Jesus said, you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
Don’t misunderstand, God is not a genie up there that anytime you pray and ask him, he’ll give you whatever you want. But let me tell you this, that God is more than ready. He is more than ready to answer your prayers that are according to his will for those who are actively bearing fruit for his cause.
If you are a person who said, I’m not gonna be involved anymore, and I’m just gonna sit on my tough and never do anything for God anymore because of A, B, or C, then, friends, you’re putting a lid on your prayer life.
But when you get involved and serve God, and you start bearing fruit for God, then you’re gonna see God’s hand of blessings and power upon your life, and that as you are bearing fruit, he is answering your prayers according to his perfect will because the people that have a anointing from God are not people who just sit in the pew.
God did not call you to come sit in the pew and just soak in the word and do nothing, but God has called you. I want you to come sit, hear his word, soak it up, and get out there and serve. Find your place in the church.
Find your place in the community. Find your place and get active for Jesus Christ. Get up off the couch and get back to serving Jesus Christ and be a people who are faithful to his calling. I am asking you to stay busy for the Lord Jesus Christ.
The people who were called were busy. They were busy for God. Now the third thing I want you to see here is the purpose of their call. So we see here in verse three, they fasted, they prayed, they laid hands on them, and they sent them away.
Now let me just say something here about the laying on of hands. Again, we’ve seen this several times in the Old Testament, in the New Testament. The laying on of hands was the church confirming the call.
The leaders of the church would lay hands upon those servants. It was what we often refer to as an ordination service. It was saying that we approve the call, we believe the call, and we are sending forth this individual to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we have people sometimes, and they don’t want to be approved by the church. They just wanna do their own thing. They don’t want to be submissive to the leadership of the church. And I want you to be careful of those people who just pop up and throw up a sign and think that they are from God.
Listen, my friends, there is a process. There is an approval process. And why is it that God would have this special laying on of hands by the church, that the missionaries would be sent by the church is so that we would protect the people from false teachers.
You know there are people out there who claim to be something when they are nothing. When you know that there are false teachers who are wolves in sheep’s clothing, who are devastating people’s spiritual lives, and there are too many that submit themselves to these individuals just because they threw up a sign and rented a room and say, I’m a pastor, and they got their ordination on the internet,
which I don’t see in the Bible. Ordination doesn’t come from the internet. It comes, you are sent by the church. You must be sent by the church, and you must be alert to this church, and you must be aware of this.
And if there is something that emerges out of the Bible, that a pattern that we can follow, it is that the church sent forth the people, and they acknowledged the call by laying on of hands. Nothing magical about the hands.
Nothing mystical about the laying on of hands, but a symbolic expression from the church leadership that we stand with this person, and we stand for this person, and we believe that they have a special calling upon their Lord.
lives. Be alert to that. What is the purpose? We come to verse four. We see two things that emerge in verse four and five. The Bible says, so when being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus, and when they arrived in Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they also had John as their assistant.
The purpose is twofold. It’s real simple. It’s nothing profound, but it’s there. Reach the world, number one, and preach the word. Here it is, church. Every Christian is called to do something to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ.
You can’t get around it. It’s in Matthew 28. We are called to go, and therefore all of us must understand that we minister under a divine mandate, and that mandate is that we would reach the world. In Acts chapter 13 and verse 47, the Bible says, for so the Lord has commanded us, I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.
You are here to take the gospel to someone, to be a light to someone. If you’re trying to figure out, why am I here? Why did God not take me home? Why did God just leave me on this planet? To be a blessing, to be of light, to be a person who can share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Hear me church, you don’t have to be afraid. When your job is done, God will call you home, but you’re not leaving a minute early before your job is done. God has an assignment on every believer. He has a task upon every believer.
And that task is to be fulfilled by that believer. Whatever skill sets, whatever talent he has given you, you are to use it to reach the world. To be a missionary, you must reach people. But the key is that you must be willing.
Barnabas and Saul were willing. Willing to depart, willing to go, willing to sacrifice, willing to make an effort. And so here’s a simple question for you to consider this morning. Are you willing? Are you willing to give out a track?
Are you willing to invite someone to church? Are you willing to pray for someone who talks to you about a need? Are you willing to strike up a conversation? Are you willing to pray for your children and grandchildren to be saved?
Are you willing church? Because this is where it starts. This is where it starts. We said our first purpose of the call was to reach. The second is to preach. There’s much that can be said, but let me simply say this.
Every one of us are missionaries, and we are missionaries with a… message. We have a unique gospel message that deserves a hearing and we have a responsibility to take it to the ends of the earth. We are called to bring a message of hope to people that we meet every day.
And I pray that God will move upon each of us and that we will sense that call. We’ll understand God may call some out of our church to go to the regions beyond. He is called all of us to be active serving Him in the advancement of the kingdom of Christ.
Let me tell you what will save America. What will save America won’t come from the White House. It won’t come from Congress. It’s going to come from the church house. When the people of God get out there and start witnessing and leading people to Christ, that’s when America will change.
One soul at a time. The Book of Acts is the story of how the early church understood the words of Jesus when he said, as the Father has sent me, so send I you. Now that the church has faced persecution, it’s spreading out beyond Jerusalem and it’s sharing the gospel with new people and now it is spreading like wildfire.
That’s the plan of missions, is to make disciples of all nations, of all people groups. So I hope that as you see this plan, that you’ll pray for the fulfillment of this plan throughout this world. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post God’s Plan for Missions 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Dealing With Pride 2. He will be reading out of Acts 12:20-25.
Why should I go to work and give my best every day that it may bring glory to God that people might see my good works and that they would give glory to my God? Hear me church, nothing brings more glory to our God than the salvation of souls.
Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders and we are coming to you from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania where I serve as the senior pastor of the Opendoor Church and we have this wonderful ministry called Hope Worth Having.
It’s a ministry of the radio, television, internet and social media where we are proclaiming the Gospel to every heart and to every home. Thank you for joining us today. In this broadcast we’re going to be in Acts chapter 12, verse 20 through 25.
We’re continuing our study on dealing with pride. So join me as we begin. Insisting that we get what we deserve, that we take the approach that somehow we are worthy of these things, this royal apparel, that we are somehow given things that we demand in our life.
What happens is that pride begins to emerge and we begin to think that we’re really something. When everybody around us is pretending because they are appeasing us, they’re trying to keep us from having an emotional blow up, they spend their entire life walking on ice around us afraid to upset us and always giving us exactly what we want.
But we don’t get upset. Some people find themselves in relationships like that. Some parents have attempted to raise their children like this. And they wonder what’s wrong with Johnny. When you spend your life giving Johnny everything that he wants and trying to appease him with all of his selfish desires, it is no wonder that he grows up self -absorbed.
It’s no wonder that he feeds off the appeasement of others, which build more and more pride in his heart. I know that you love your little Johnny, and I want to give you some advice. Number one, don’t let the grandparents raise little Johnny.
Amen. Grandparents aren’t designed to raise children. I know some of you have to, and we certainly… are praying for you, but somehow you gotta get out of grandpa mode, and you gotta get into mom mode or dad mode, and that when this child does something wrong, we’ve gotta deal with it, we gotta address it, because if you just keep on handing them a sucker, or you keep on handing them candy, and you keep on handing them a Mountain Dew,
hoping that it will appease them and make them happy and like you, you’re gonna raise up a child that is gonna be destructive in society. Are you with me? Number two, this is just Mike Sanders’ parental advice to you, okay?
And you say, okay, is do not wait until your children are 16 to realize there’s a problem. The greatest truth every parent could learn is that their child is born a sinner, in need of a savior. And the very heart of every child is this heart that is deceitful, a heart that is destructive, the Bible says, who can know it?
Sometimes people say to me, they say, pastor, I’m gonna follow my heart, and I say, please don’t. You follow your heart, and you may go down the wrong path, because your heart doesn’t always know what’s best, but I tell you that you don’t build your life on your feelings, you don’t build your life on your emotions, you build your life on the truth and the promises of God.
And when you understand that your child is a sinner in need of a savior, and little Johnny, I mean, you don’t have to have a training session on how to have a meltdown at Target, and how to lose your senses, fall on the ground, kick and scream, yell.
I mean, no mom and dad saying, let me teach Johnny how to do that, right? Can’t get them everything that they want. You gotta teach them to work for it, you gotta teach them to be humble and talk to them.
teach them to make effort and that everything’s not gonna be handed to them in their life. Can I give another piece of advice? Like I wouldn’t, right? Some of you have grown children. Are you with me?
This is where you’re gonna get mad at me, okay? Don’t worry, I am capable of dodging the tomatoes. Would you quit bailing out your kids? Would you quit bailing them out? Your kids need to learn to not trust you, but trust the Lord.
They need to look to the Lord Jesus Christ for their hope, their strength, and their help, and these parents that are always covering and making up and bailing out their children are only deepening the pride that’s in their heart and they think that they are worthy of it and they deserve it.
and they are very much in this progress of pride that we see in the life of Herod in that there is not only unresolved anger that has never been dealt with, there is appeasement that is constantly going on because we want to keep them happy.
God is more interested in the character of your children than he is the comfort of your children. And God is more interested in the holiness of your children than he is in the happiness of your children.
And let me just throw this out there. I know it’s just a lot of stuff flooding in my mind at heart right now. But think about that prodigal son’s father. He had the capacity, the ability to step in at any point while his son was walking down the hog pen trail getting ready to bottom out into that he would live with the hogs and the pigs.
Dad could have stepped in any time. Paid the bills, covered the debts, but he never did. Because God was doing an effective work in the life of that young man and he would have never came to himself until he bottomed up and there is many a young person that’ll never look to Jesus until they’re flat on their back.
But yet you keep jumping in. You’re the Holy Spirit. You’re gonna save the day. You’re gonna make that one difference when you are really only slowing the process of God’s redemptive work in the heart of that child.
Not only do we see anger and appeasement, but we see adoration as part of this progress of pride. We jump down to verse 22 of chapter 12. The Bible says the people kept shouting the voice of a God and not of a man as.
Herod was putting on this show as he was making this orientation, as he was declaring this speech, who knows what he was talking about. It was so irrelevant and insignificant that Luke does not even record the substance of what he said, but rather reminds us that he was a raid and royal apparel.
And according to the historian, the Jewish historian, Josephus, he was wearing a garment that was made of silver. It was flashy, it was dynamic. And so he was putting on this show and the people were shouting, it is a God.
He’s a God, not even a man. They began to adore him, flatter him. They began to give him words of praise that were not even appropriate for the moment, but elevated him in his own mind, thinking that he was superior to everyone and that he was above even God himself.
I need to drop a word. This idea that if our kids show up to a ballgame, they deserve a trophy. Time magazine put out an article and said, this generation is called the self -esteem generation. Like no other generation, they have been told how wonderful they are and they believe it.
And they are shocked when they have to show up to work. They are shocked that they have to have evaluations and they have to have progress reports and they are shocked when they receive critique in the real world about their job performance because they have been told all their life that they were so wonderful and they just showed up to a T -ball game and all of a sudden were handed out medals and trophies to them,
telling them they’re the greatest thing since peanut butter. And you say, peanut butter? I know it’s sliced bread, but I like peanut butter. And my point to you is be careful that you yourself are not only emerging yourself in the adoration of others, but that you are giving it out so much that it is really not authentic and it is really not worthy and that you are feeding the beast of pride in the hearts of yourself as well as others.
Life is not gonna be, everything’s wonderful every day. There’s true challenges, there’s true suffering, there’s true sorrow in this world and what we have to teach our young people is how to endure, how to power through, how to look to God in these moments of sufferings and difficulties and that life cannot always be where you’re on a stage and you’re receiving adoration.
and you’re receiving accolades yes when you achieve something yes when you accomplish we celebrate your good work we celebrate God’s good work in your heart but my friends when you’re done we need you to get out there and make a difference because every day is not a graduation ceremony and every day is not a t -ball game with trophies and medals and candy so we see this adoration unfolding in the heart of Herod which only feeds his pride in his life and I want you to note the punishment of pride in verse 23 the Bible says then immediately then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him now why because he did not give glory to God The Bible says pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
We see first the messenger of punishment. It was an angel and sometimes God sends angels to be his instruments of judgment. I found Acts chapter 12 to be an interesting chapter because we saw in Acts chapter 12 verse seven through 11 that there was a delivering angel that delivered Peter out of prison.
And then we saw in verse 15, there was a personal angel. Remember I taught you a few weeks ago that in Judaism they believe that every person is assigned an angel. And when the young lady came to the door and Peter was knocking wanting to let them know that he had been set free, she went back to tell the folks that were praying and they said, no, you just saw his angel.
Not a angel, but his angel because they believed in their heart that every person was assigned an angel. Jesus affirmed this truth in the gospel of Matthew chapter 18 when he reminded us that we are to receive the little children unto him and that we are to allow the little children to come to him and that we are to never offend or hurt these little children.
Why? Because their angel is before the throne of God every day. So God reminds us that yes, we do have an angel signed to us. Some of you have probably been assigned many angels because of your behavior and your risk -taking and some of your choices.
The Lord decided we better send 10 ,000 angels to take care of that person, but there are not only delivering angels, personal angels, but I want you to know there was a death. angel. In verse 23, the angel immediately struck Herod.
And I want you to see the motive because he did not give glory to God. The crime for which God would judge Herod was he would not give glory to God. Remember what the scriptures teach us that God gives more grace.
The Bible says therefore it says God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble. God opposes every heart that lifts itself above him and towards him. God opposes pride in the life of every individual but the heart that is humble before God.
He keeps pouring grace. upon grace upon grace on that individual you say why is it that that person seems to have so much grace manifested in their life it may be that they are humbly coming before god on a daily and moment by moment basis receiving the grace of god because he responds to humble hearts but Herod he said look at me look at me look how wonderful I am he didn’t give glory to god the scriptures teaches us in 1st Corinthians 1 31 he who glories let him glory in the Lord you and I have no grounds for pride or boasting in ourselves we are aware of what the bible says for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves it is a gift of god not of works lest any man should boast you’re not gonna be able to stand before god and say lord look how many times I went to church lord look at what I did for you and look at all the things I accomplished for you oh my friends if that becomes your motivation and if you think that somehow you’re gonna have credentials that you can bring to god that will give you entrance into heaven and that your religion or the manifestation of your faith and your determination and your perseverance is gonna somehow make you more favorable to god than any other person that I’m telling you you will fall short you will fall short for the only way that you and I can enter into the pearly gates of heaven the only way that our sins can be forgiven is through the eternal work of christ on the cross as he rose again affirming that god has accepted his sacrifice that he gave his life for you and he gave his life for me it’s not my work that saves my soul,
it is the work of Jesus Christ on the cross that brings eternal life to all who believe in Jesus. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
My friend, have you turned from the world? Have you turned from the flesh? Have you turned away from your sin and turned to Jesus Christ and received him as your Lord and savior? Have you come to God and said, Lord, I am a sinner and I wanna just bow before you and ask you to do an eternal work in my heart and to save me from my sins?
You don’t get to come to God and say, Lord, look at me. Every once in a while I hear people say, man, if that person gets saved, look what all they could do for God. Are you kidding me? That’s not how God works.
God chooses the foolish things of the world, the weak things of the world. And the Bible tells us, why does God do this? Why does He choose the most insignificant and the most unlikely people? It is because that He would receive all the credit and all the glory and all the praise for whatever is done in and through, around any of us.
Yes. The scriptures remind us in Isaiah 42 .8, I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. In the Westminster Catechism, we are reminded that what is man’s primary purpose?
The answer is simply this, man’s primary purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Your entire life is about bringing glory to God, even those minute tasks, even those what you might find in your life to be insignificant moments.
It’s all about bringing glory to God. Why should I raise these children to love God and to love people? It is that they may bring glory to God. Why should I go to work and give my best every day and do my best every day?
It is that it may bring glory to God, that people might see my good works and that they would begin to give glory to my God. Why should I make every effort to reach others who are hurting and struggling and suffering because it brings glory to God?
Hear me, church, nothing brings more glory to our God than the salvation of souls, nothing. And that’s why there is nothing more significant that you could be a part of than the ministry of reaching others for Jesus.
I want you to see the misery of the punishment in verse 23. Hang in there, then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give glory to God and he was eaten by worms and he died.
Again, historian Josephus, he was a Jewish historian. He recorded that Herod suffered terribly for five days before his death. In life, sometimes we see people, we learn what to do. But other times, we see people and we learn what not to do.
And I propose this question to you this morning for you to consider in relating to Herod’s life, that if God’s wrath breaks out against a man for not giving God the glory in a speech, how much greater danger must hang over the heads of those who refuse to give God glory in their journey of faith?
If God would judge a man who did not believe in him, because he did not give glory, how much more would he judge us, who know better, who love God, who have the spirit residing in us, how much more would he hold us accountable for not giving glory to him?
When the apostle taught on the Lord’s table in 1 Corinthians 11, he reminded the believers in verse 31 of chapter 11 that if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. His point was saintly this, if you would deal with it now, God would not have to deal with it later.
That’s why every day in this struggle of pride that each of us wrestle with, and it doesn’t matter who you are, how long you’ve been living for Jesus, that we all must be cognizant of this battle that exists within our hearts, and that we must bring the sin of pride and confess it to God on a daily basis, asking the Lord to judge that sin and address it, and be confident of this, that if we confess our sins,
he is faithful. faithful and just to what church? Forgive us, cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. You see, Jesus took the judgment of sin on the cross for you and he took it for me and therefore I do not have to bear that judgment when I bring it to Christ.
I am washed, I am cleansed, and I am forgiven, and I am given a brand new start in Jesus Christ. Don’t wait. Don’t wait. Though pride has embedded in your heart and you have become addicted to adoration and appeasement, and anger controls your thoughts and your decisions before you finally come to Jesus and say, please slay pride in my heart.
The final truth that we see in this text, and I won’t take you long, I won’t keep you long, but it is one that you can consider for your own self, and that is the parting of pride. In verse 24, what is the response?
Remember that this man, he already murdered James, one of the apostles, he threw Peter into jail. He was a man who was out to destroy the church and the word of God, but what is the response? The word of God grew and multiplied.
I remind you church, that there is no political leader, there is no government that can ever be a threat to the church, because our God is sovereign. While Christians should be salt and light in the world, it’s easy for us to be deceived into believing that political power alone will help our church or the cause of Christ.
It will not, God can take care of any ruthless leader. Move them out of the way, judge them so that the gospel will go forward. Do not be discouraged church. Do not be shaken by the circumstances of this world and the political drama that unfolds on day -to -day basis.
Do not be driven by your emotions of what you see on a news station or what’s popping up on your phone, but rather you be driven by the confidence and the promises of the sovereignty of God and the cause of his purposes in this world.
Volitaire was a man who tried to stop the ministry of the word. He wanted every Bible to be burned and destroyed, but 25 years after his death, his house was sold to the Geneva Bible Society to be used to store newly printed Bibles.
God’s word will never stop. When we deal with pride, God’s word spread, and we see God’s people are serving. And I just want you to see there in that last verse how Barnabas and Saul just picked up the baton and got busy.
They could have spent all their time in grief. They could have spent all their time in depression about James being martyred in the beginning of the chapter. They could have been all hiding and fretting because Peter was thrown into jail.
They could have been shook into their core as they witnessed the advancement of Herod the king as he was making political negotiations and people were praising him. But in a moment, God humbled and destroyed the kings of this earth and he laughs.
at their arrogance and Barnabas picks up the baton and says let’s carry on the work of Christ. There are times church that God calls home our loved ones. He calls home our friends. He calls home the patriarchs of our churches but I promise you this he is not calling on you and I to quit and give up.
There are times that the political atmosphere is oppressive and difficult but God does not call us to run and hide but he calls us to be victorious marching forward. Rest assured church that if in any moment the Lord calls Mike Sanders home that you take a couple minutes show up to the funeral slap me a high five and say pastor we’re so happy you’re in heaven and you get back to work and serve Jesus amen.
Do not spend all your time whining and crying and complaining or maybe some of you might be rejoicing and partying. We finally got rid of him. God is so awesome. I’m just teasing maybe not at all but church we got to move forward for Christ and don’t be so self -absorbed that it’s all about you because it is about the glory of God.
Pick up the baton and let’s get busy for Jesus Christ. Would you pray with me? It’s not natural for us to be humble. It’s not natural for us to put others first. It’s not natural for us to seek the will of God and the plan of God.
So it requires us to deal with our pride and that’s something that we have to bring to the altar every day of our life and making sure that we are confronting it and that we are willing to slay it, if you will, and get it under the surrender of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that’s when we can maximize our life for Christ. So we’re grateful for the opportunity to learn about this and even though it’s been a little bit difficult, I hope that it has touched your heart and challenged you in different areas of your life.
We want to encourage you to check us out on hopewithhaving .com. If you haven’t had a chance to get to our website, you can learn more about our ministry, more about what we are doing. We also have a newsletter you can sign up for.
So if you go to hopewithhaving .com and just click on the newsletter, then you can take advantage of receiving that material, keeping you updated on the ministry. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post Dealing With Pride 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Dealing With Pride 1. He will be reading out of Acts 12:20-25.
These parents that are always bailing out their children are only deepening the pride that’s in their heart. There is appeasement that is constantly going on because we want to keep them happy. God is more interested in the character of your children than he is the comforter.
Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders and we welcome you to the Hopeworth Having radio program. We’re going to be in Acts chapter 12 but this time we’re moving to verse 20 through 25 and we’re going to talk about dealing with pride.
Is there anything that is constantly attacking us like pride? We have to remember that pride is always trying to swell up. We see this in the life of Herod and I want you to see how the Lord teaches us to deal with pride not only in our hearts but also being able to make sure that we deal with pride in the hearts of others.
So let’s begin our study today. Perhaps the most destructive word in any language is the word pride. It was pride that damned Satan and his angels. It is pride that has destroyed many churches, families, and individuals.
The Bible says for all that is in the world the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but it is of the world. Pride leads to spiritual defeat. The book of Proverbs reminds us that there are six things that the Lord hates.
Seven that are an abomination to him. He tells us that one of those things that God hates is haughty eyes. D .L. Moody was a great evangelist of the 18th century. historians have said that he was a man who literally took the nation of England and the nation of America by each hand and shook them for God.
He said one time in his sermon that God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves. Again, the book of Proverbs tells us that when pride comes then comes shame. But with the lowly or the humble is wisdom.
In our text today in Acts chapter 12 verse 20 through 25 we are learning how we can deal with pride. I know that the immediate reaction might be I don’t have any pride, Mike. Well friends, here we go.
We need to address pride. The truth is it doesn’t matter whether it’s the pastor, the people. We’re all struggling with pride. We’re all working through it, and when we come to our text, we are introduced to a man whose name is Herod.
Herod was appointed by Rome to rule over the province of Judea. He is referred to as Herod the King. He was the grandson of Herod the Great, who had murdered his father, Aristobulus. Herod the Great was a blood -thirsty ruler.
You might remember in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 2, in verse 16, when our Lord and Savior was born, that the Bible says that Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became furious.
And he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem, and in all the region who were two years old and under, according to the time that he had been ascertained from the wise men. So Herod’s grandfather was a murderous man, but the Herod that we’re introduced in chapter 12 is not Herod the Great, it’s Herod the King.
You recall in our study a few weeks ago that Herod, that he had set up 16 soldiers to guard Peter in prison. Remember that he had begun to persecute the church, and he was upset that the advancement of the Gospel was making such a impact in the community, so he had James slain, murdered.
He threw Peter in jail with 16 guards around him. God demonstrating his power sent one angel to free Peter, reminding us that there is no power of mankind that can thwart God’s plan. There is nothing in this world that can stop the advancement of the Gospel of the Lord.
Lord Jesus Christ. There are times that you and I feel the oppression and maybe the persecution of others upon us that somehow it might hinder the advancement of the kingdom of Christ, but I assure you that God is sovereign and that he is in control.
And to help us understand that, I remind you of what the Psalmist said in Psalm chapter two. In Psalm chapter two, verse two, after the question had been asked, why do the nations rage or why do the heathen rage and the people plot a vain thing and the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us break their bonds and pieces and cast away their cords from us.
Note verse four, what is God’s response? He who sits in the heavens shall laugh. “‘The Lord shall hold them in derision. “‘Then he shall speak to them in his wrath “‘and distress them in his deep displeasure.'” The point is that it’s very laughable to God that finite man would even try to stop the advancement of his purposes and his causes upon this earth.
And so when we come to Acts chapter 12 and we begin to close out this chapter, we are reminded that God is giving to his church more evidence of his sovereignty over everything that the church faces.
Yes, the church had lost one of its leaders to martyrdom. And yes, the church had witnessed one of its leaders thrown in jail and the angel set him free. And now we see in Acts chapter 12 that we have a king who has lost control of his emotions.
We pick up in verse 20 of chapter 12 of the book of Acts. The Bible says, now Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyree and Sedan, but they came to him with one accord and having made blast the king’s personal aid, their friend, they asked for peace because their country was supplied with food by the king’s country.
So on a set day, Herod arrayed in royal peril, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them. And the people kept shouting the voice of a God and not of a man. And then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give glory to God.
And he was eaten by worms and died. But the word of God grew and multiplied and Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem and he returned from Jerusalem. And when they had fulfilled their ministry and they also took with them, John, whose surname was Mark, how do we deal with pride?
I want you to notice the progress of pride. In verses 20 through 22, we see how pride can progress in our lives, how it can take hold of our hearts and lead us down a path that is destructive. The book of Proverbs tells us again in Proverbs 21 .4 that a haughty look, a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked are sin.
What is this progress? I think the first thing that begins to initiate pride in each of our heart is anger. It’s anger. Would you note again in the text, the Bible says that Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyree and Sedan.
I did all the research and I could. and there is no one that really understands what this anger was about, and why he was so upset with these groups of people, but he had this attitude of anger that had begun to take deep root into his heart.
And it laid the seeds of pride, and it began to control his choices and his thoughts and his decisions in life, and as a result, he saw himself as an invincible person, a person who could just decide whatever he wanted and he could destroy whoever he wanted and he could take life if he wanted to take life.
He could attack whoever he wanted to attack. It was the attitude of anger that had never been resolved in Herod’s heart. The Bible reminds us that human anger does not achieve God’s righteous purpose.
There’s something about anger in our hearts that the Scriptures remind all fathers to not provoke their children unto anger. It’s anger that is never dealt with that can lead our children to be arrogant, arrogant, prideful, young people who could care less about God and want nothing to do with loving Jesus.
The Bible says a fool utters all his anger, but a wise man keeps it back and steals it. It’s essential in your life that whether it’s you, your children, family, friends within the church, doesn’t matter what the scenario, their circumstance, that you do not let anger to be the bed seed of pride in your heart.
Too many believers have unresolved anger in their hearts. Too many believers have not come to grips with what is really causing these emotional outbursts in my life. What are these things that are clouding my thoughts and affecting my decision making?
Many times God is calling us to come to the foot of the cross and to confess that anger to him and to see his redemptive work in our hearts and bring those matters to the Lord Jesus Christ. It may be something in the past.
It may be something in the present. It may be something that you’re seeing about to happen in the future. But whatever it is that is rooting anger in your life, God is calling you to address it. We like to suppress our emotions.
We like to deny it. But God is calling you to confess it to him. When you come before the Lord Jesus Christ and you are transparent and you bring these matters, these issues, these unresolved thoughts in your heart, then you bring them to Christ.
God’s work, God’s grace begins to be effective in your life. We not only see that the progress of pride is anger, but it’s appeasement. Look in verse 21 of the text. You note that the scripture says, so on a set day Herod, a raid in royal apparel, sat on his throne and he gave an oration to them.
Recall that Herod was angry with Tyree and Sadan. He had leverage on them because he was the one that provided food to them and they realized that even though this individual was not emotionally stable and he was not someone that they could rely upon, he was not a trustworthy person, they would have to make an agreement with him for the sake of the people.
And so they began to appease him and they began to feed his ego. They began to give him things that he wanted. Remember, I’ve taught you in the past that whenever you read the scriptures, you’re getting snapshots.
You’re getting, if you will, kind of a picture of what is taking place. Sometimes all the details are not there, but what we do understand is that there was this negotiation that went on between verse 20 and 21 and the resolution or the agreement was that they would appease Herod and they would give him royal apparel and he would sit on a throne and he would be able to stand before a large crowd and this large crowd,
no matter what he said, no matter how horrible his speech was, they were going to give him whatever he wanted. They would clap. They would praise him. They would respond in a way. that fed his ego. That’s what happens when we live in a context of always wanting everything in our life, demanding that people appease us, demanding that it be our way or the highway, insisting that we get what we deserve,
that we take the approach that somehow we are worthy of these things, this royal apparel, that we are somehow given things that we demand in our life. What happens is that pride begins to emerge and we begin to think that we’re really something.
When everybody around us is pretending because they’re appeasing us, they’re trying to keep us from having an emotional blow -up, they spend their entire life walking on ice around us, afraid to upset us, and always giving us exactly what we want.
But we don’t get upset. Some people find themselves in relationships like that. Sad to say, some parents have attempted to raise their children like this. And they wonder what’s wrong with Johnny. When you spend your life giving Johnny everything that he wants and trying to appease him with all of his selfish desires, it is no wonder that he grows up self -absorbed.
It’s no wonder that he feeds off the appeasement of other, which build more and more pride in his heart. I know that you love your little Johnny. And I want to give you some advice. Number one, don’t let the grandparents raise little Johnny.
Amen. Grandparents aren’t designed to raise children. I know some of you have to, and we certainly are praying for you, but somehow you’ve got to get out of grandpa mode and you’ve got to get into mom mode or dad mode and that when this child does something wrong, we’ve got to deal with it, we’ve got to address it, because if you just keep on handing them a sucker or you keep on handing them candy and you keep on handing them a Mountain Dew,
hoping that it will appease them and make them happy and like you, you’re going to raise up a child that is going to be destructive in society. Are you with me? Number two, this is just Mike Sanders’ parental advice to you, okay?
And you say, okay. is do not wait till your children are 16 to realize there’s a problem. The greatest truth every parent could learn is that their child is born a sinner in need of a savior. At the very heart of every child is this heart that is deceitful, a heart that is destructive.
The Bible says who can know it. Sometimes people say to me, they say, pastor, I’m gonna follow my heart. And I say, please don’t. You follow your heart and you may go down the wrong path because your heart doesn’t always know what’s best.
But I tell you that you don’t build your life on your feelings, you don’t build your life on your emotions. You build your life on the truth and the promises of God. And when you understand that your child is a sinner in need of a savior and little Johnny.
I mean, you don’t have to have a training session on how to have a meltdown at Target and how to lose your senses, fall on the ground, kick and scream, yell. I mean, no mom and dad saying, let me teach Johnny how to do that, right?
Can’t get them everything that they want. You gotta learn, teach them to work for it. You gotta learn to teach them to be humble and teach them to make effort and that everything’s not gonna be handed to them in their life.
Can I give another piece of advice? Like I wouldn’t, right? Some of you have grown children. Are you with me? This is where you’re gonna get mad at me, okay? Don’t worry, I am capable of dodging the tomatoes.
Would you quit veiling out your kids? Would you quit veiling them out? Your kids need to learn to not trust you, but trust the Lord. They need to look to the Lord Jesus Christ for their hope, their strength, and their help, and these parents that are always covering and making up and bailing out their children are only deepening the pride that’s in their heart and they think that they are worthy of it and they deserve it and they are very much in this progress of pride that we see in the life of Herod in that there is not only unresolved anger that has never been dealt with,
there is appeasement that is constantly going on because we want to keep them happy. God is more interested in the character of your children than he is the comfort of your children. And God is more interested in the holiness of your children than he is in the happiness of your children.
And let me just throw this out there. I know it’s just a lot. a lot of stuff flooding in my mind at heart right now. But think about that prodigal son’s father. He had the capacity, the ability to step in at any point while his son was walking down the hog pen trail, getting ready to bottom out into that he would live with the hogs and the pigs.
Dad could have stepped in any time, paid the bills, covered the debts, but he never did. Because God was doing an effective work in the life of that young man, and he would have never came to himself until he bottomed up, and there is many a young person that’ll never look to Jesus until they’re flat on their back.
But yet you keep jumping in. You’re the Holy Spirit. You’re gonna save the day. You’re gonna make that one difference when you are really only. slowing the process of God’s redemptive work in the heart of that child.
Not only do we see anger and appeasement, but we see adoration as part of this progress of pride. We jump down to verse 22 of chapter 12. The Bible says, the people kept shouting the voice of a god and not of a man as Herod was putting on this show as he was making this orientation as he was declaring this speech.
Who knows what he was talking about? It was so irrelevant and insignificant that Luke does not even record the substance of what he said, but rather reminds us that he was a raid and royal apparel. And according to the historian, the Jewish historian Josephus, he was wearing a garment that was made of silver.
It was flashy, it was dynamic, and so he was putting on this show and the people were shouting, it is a god. He’s a god, not even a man. They began to adore him, flatter him. They began to give him words of praise that were not even appropriate for the moment, but elevated him in his own mind thinking that he was superior to everyone and that he was above even god himself.
I need to drop a word. This idea that if our kids show up to a ball game they deserve a trophy. Time magazine put out an article and said this generation is called the self -esteem generation. Like no other generation, they have been told how wonderful they are and they believe it.
And they are shocked when they have to show up. to work they are shocked that they have to have evaluations and they have to have progress reports and they are shocked when they receive critique in the real world about their job performance because they have been told all that all their life that they were so wonderful and they just showed up to a t -ball game and all of a sudden were handed out medals and trophies to them telling them they’re the greatest thing since peanut butter and you say peanut butter I know it’s sliced bread but I like peanut butter and my point to you is be careful that you yourself are not only emerging yourself in the adoration of others but that you are giving it out so much that it is really not authentic and it is really not worthy and that you are feeding the beast of pride in the hearts of yourself as well as others Life is not gonna be everything’s wonderful every day.
There’s true challenges, there’s true suffering, there’s true sorrow in this world, and what we have to teach our young people is how to endure, how to power through, how to look to God in these moments of sufferings and difficulties and that life cannot always be where you’re on a stage and you’re receiving adoration and you’re receiving accolades, yes, when you achieve something, yes, when you accomplish,
we celebrate your good work, we celebrate God’s good work in your heart, but my friends, when you’re done, we need you to get out there and make a difference. Because every day is not a graduation ceremony.
And every day is not a T -ball game with trophies and medals and candy. So we see this adoration unfolding in the heart of Herod which only feeds his pride in his life, and I want you to note the punishment of pride in verse 23.
The Bible says, then immediately, then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him. Now why? Because he did not give glory to God. The Bible says pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
We see first the messenger of punishment. It was an angel, and sometimes God sends angels to be his instruments of judgment. I found Acts chapter 12 to be an interesting chapter because we saw in Acts chapter 12, verse 7 through 11, that there was a delivering angel that delivered Peter out of prison, and then we saw in verse 15.
15, there was a personal angel, remember I taught you a few weeks ago that in Judaism, they believed that every person is assigned an angel. And when the young lady came to the door and Peter was knocking, wanting to let them know that he had been set free, she went back to tell the folks that were praying and they said, no, you just saw his angel.
Not a angel, but his angel because they believed in their heart that every person was assigned an angel. Jesus affirmed this truth in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 18 when he reminded us that we are to receive the little children unto him and that we are to allow the little children to come to him and that we are to never offend or hurt these little children, why?
Because their angel is before the throne of God. You’re free. day. So God reminds us that yes, we do have an angel signed to us. Some of you have probably been assigned many angels because of your behavior and your risk -taking and some of the choices.
The Lord decided we better send 10 ,000 angels to take care of that person. But there are not only delivering angels, personal angels, but I want you to know there was a death angel. In verse 23, the angel immediately struck Herod and I want you to see the motive because he did not give glory to God.
The crime for which God would judge Herod was he would not give glory to God. Remember what the scriptures teach us, that God gives more grace. The Bible says, therefore it says God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
God opposes every heart that lifts itself above him and towards him. God opposes pride in the life of every individual, but the heart that is humble before God, he keeps pouring grace upon grace upon grace on that individual.
You say, why is it that that person seems to have so much grace manifested in their life? It may be that they are humbly coming before God on a daily and moment by moment basis receiving the grace of God because he responds to humble art.
We got to remember that God is always working, and he is calling us to walk humbly before him. And that means we need to remember that pride can be our downfall. So we hope what you’re learning here in Acts chapter 12 about pride will continue to help you and all of us together to deal with pride in our hearts.
You may not have ever read our book called Dynamic Devotions. It’s available on HopeworthHaving .com and this is just a series of devotions day by day that you can read, be inspired, and encouraged. Make sure that you go to the website and that you make that selection and any donation of any amount will send you a copy of that book to you so you can continue to grow in your faith.
This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post Dealing With Pride 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Power of a Prayer Meeting 2. He will be reading out of Acts 12:1-9.
And even if you have a hard time articulating what you want to say to God, the Bible says even the groanings of our heart through the Spirit of God are launched into heaven and he understands your plight, he understands your problems.
And my friends, he is effectively working in response to your prayer. Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Opendoor Church. I serve there as the senior pastor and we welcome you to the Hope Worth Having radio program.
Hope Worth Having is about reaching people with the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Today we’re in Acts 12 and we’re going to be continuing our study in the power of a prayer meeting. So join me as we jump into this text.
And the psalmist said, in thy presence is fullness of joy and at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Do you think anybody goes to heaven as they’re disappointed? You think anybody steps out of this land and steps into the immortal land of heaven and thinks wow, I wish it would be so much more?
There’s nothing to be afraid of. We’re not afraid of danger. The second reason that we recognize God is in control is because we’re not afraid to suffer. God uses suffering. He used suffering to make the church stronger.
He used suffering to teach the church that they can’t rely upon a personality like James. They can’t just look to Peter for all their answers. They must look beyond those church leaders and they must look to Jesus Christ.
And so the church was called to gather together and to come to God almighty and to come to him because whence cometh my help, does it come from the… of political figures. Does it come from the religious leaders?
Does it come from the church leaders? No, it comes from Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, amen? I want you to know that you and I understand that even in the midst of suffering, God can use suffering to make you a stronger Christian.
God can use suffering to make our church a better church. I have to just be real with you this morning if you’re okay with that. Not that I’m not ever real with you, but just want to say that. But I think our church is stronger after COVID.
I think we’re more united, more caring, more loving and more understanding and more sensitive. And I think that there’s something special that God has done among our people. And I think we’re more grateful for the opportunity to be with God’s people and to gather and understand how quickly the freedoms that we have to live our faith can be gone in a moment.
And there’s a special work that God has done. among you and I, as his people. We know God is still in control because we’re not afraid to trust God’s care. That’s what prayer does, prayer says, Lord, we trust you.
We’re not gonna look to the world for the answers, we’re gonna look to you. There was a problem that activated the prayer meeting, but I also want you to see the people that assembled for the prayer meeting in verse five.
Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by who? Go ahead, you can answer, the church. Let’s try that again. I know it’s been a week, you guys have been out of sync, haven’t you?
Peter was therefore kept in prison by constant prayer was offered to God for him by who? Do you know who the church is? It’s you, it’s not these buildings, it’s not these facilities, it’s not this beautiful campus that God has entrusted to this family of fellowship, of believers.
The church is you, it is the people of God, it is the saints of God that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is not only a global church that encompasses the entire world, but there are local churches of fellowship of believers like the Open Door Church and other churches in our community that worship Jesus Christ and believe he is the only way to heaven.
And I tell you that God had assembled the church in this trying time. You can imagine how devastated they were that their leader, James, the brother of John, was killed with the sword and how they were grieving and now Peter was in jail wondering what is gonna happen to this ragtag collection of people who somehow have been moving forward, advancing the cause of Christ.
Would the movement of Jesus stop? No, my friends, for God had called. Peter’s faithful friends come together and pray. From its inception the early church has demonstrated an earnestness and a constantness in its prayer life.
Would you just walk with me through Acts chapter 1? We’ll start there with the thread that exists of the people of God committed to prayer and I want you to know not just prayer individually but together.
I know some of you say pastor I can pray at home. I can pray while I’m driving on the road, yes, but keep your eyes open. But I want to say this, there’s something special and there’s something powerful when God’s people pray together.
In Acts chapter 1 and verse 14 we see these all continued with one accord in what church? Prayer and supplication. We jump over to chapter 2 and verse 42 as Again, Luke is describing this unique unity that exists in the family of God.
And in verse 42, he says, they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in what? Prayers. We come over to Acts chapter four. And again, we come down to verse 23.
And you remember that again, the church was facing a little persecution from the religious elite. The Sadducees were upset at Peter and John, and they had preached the gospel to them. The high priest, Caiaphas, was upset.
And here we see the church praying, verse 23. And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them, verse 24. So when they heard that, they raised their voices to God with one accord and said, Lord, you are God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them.
We jump over to chapter six, when the church was facing the problem of organization and so much growth going on the church that the needs of different people in the church were being neglected. The apostles said to the church, you’ve got to pick out some leaders to help.
You’ve got to pick out some servants, some deacons to help with the task. We pick up in verse four, why would they want to do that? Why would they want to get more people involved? Look at verse four, that we will give ourselves continually to what?
Prayer. Now we’re over here in Acts chapter 12, and we see that the church in verse five is offering prayers. to God, offering prayers to God. We sometimes minimize prayer and we say, well, all we can do now is pray, as if that’s all we can do.
Oh, we wish maybe we could do something more or maybe something more effective, but I want to say to you, each and every one of you, this morning that the most powerful and the most effective ministry at the Open Door Church is prayer.
And not only should each and every one of you be committed to pray daily, but you and I should be committed to coming together and praying together as God’s people. I think about, I was thinking about last night as I was just going over my notes and thinking about what I wanted to say this morning to you.
And I was thinking about how we have all these classes across our campus, whether they’re adult classes, youth classes, children’s classes, and how beautiful it must be for God to look across this 52 acre campus and see the people of God.
divided up in these groups and classes and that they are praying to him together as the family of God. Oh, I know some of you missed it, didn’t you? Some of you didn’t come this morning because Sunday school’s not important to you because praying together is not important to you.
But I’m gonna challenge you this morning to step out of your comfort zone and step out of your worldly thinking that it’s not important to be with God’s people and it’s not important to be in a class praying together before the church comes together in a worship service.
We have people across this campus praying together, learning the word of God together and I think it is a powerful hour in the life of the open door church. I would strongly encourage each one of you that if you’re not connected to a class or you have neglected or you have allowed COVID to get you out of the habit of connecting with God’s people in prayer that you would once again step up your game and say prayer is important and prayer is valuable and coming together and praying together with God’s people and whether that’s on a Sunday morning or whether that’s on a Wednesday evening or whether that’s on another day or night.
Some of you are gathering together on Tuesdays and Thursdays and some of you are gathering on Wednesday mornings and some of you might gather together on a Saturday morning. Whatever it is, I just want you to know there’s nothing that is thrilling the soul, if you will, of our heart, of our God, like seeing his people praying together.
Some of you may not think prayer is that important but I’ll tell you what’ll change your marriage and what’ll change your family is praying together. There’s nothing that unites a husband and wife and there’s nothing that unites the family together like prayer.
I want to encourage you to pray with your spouse. I want to encourage you to pray with your… children, you see my children are growing up, it’s okay, keep praying with them. Can I have prayer with you?
I told the people up in Binghamton, I was preaching through the book of Amos, and we were talking about Amos and he was praying for his nation, praying that God would turn them around. But I told them about, there’s really only two people in my life that have ever turned me down to pray.
And I’m not kidding with you, I’m not lying to you, I’m just telling you what happened and isn’t anything to do with Mike, it just happened, but there was only two people, and when they turned me down, the next day within 24 hours, they were gone, they had died.
All I’m saying is this to you, is don’t underestimate the power of prayer and don’t devalue it in your life. and know that when God gives you the opportunity and you are given the invitation to pray with a prayer partner, to pray with a pastor, to pray with other people in the church, elders, deacons, leaders, spouses, children, whoever it might be, dear friends in your classes and your groups and your Bible studies,
that you do not neglect this moment and that you understand how precious it is and there is no other time that you are closer to the throne of God than when your heart is bowed before God Almighty with God’s people praying to Jesus Christ, Amen, go ahead.
What we see about their prayer is that it was consistent. It was not something that the church just did randomly but rather it was regular, it is something that they made an important part of their life.
It was the life of the church and people say, well, prayer is boring or prayer is not that important or I can just do it another way or another’s time but listen to me, my friends. We’re called to be a consistent people.
When we pray, we’re saying, Lord, I need you and I not only need you every hour, Lord but I need you every moment. We are humbling ourselves. Prayer is a reflection of our hearts and when our heart is so prideful that we’re too good and we’re too busy to gather with God’s people to pray, it is only telling the Lord where our heart is.
Their prayers were not only consistent but they were fervent. They were fervent, they were passionate, they were authentic, they came right from the heart. I know some of you say, well, I just don’t know what to say when I pray.
Well, just speak from your heart like you’re talking to anybody. You may not have the fancy words and you may not even always be theologically in line but that’s okay because God knows the heart, Amen.
And you remember the thief on the cross, he had been a pretty rough dude because it’s not like every day the Romans were wanting. and to crucify people, but this guy had lived such a life that not even the Romans, and all of their humanism, and all of their secularism, and all of their pluralism, not even the Romans could put up with this guy in society anymore, and they said we’ve gotta crucify him.
We gotta get him outta here, because he is a mess, and he is a menace upon society. And so they were going to crucify him on this cross, and while he was on the cross, he saw the Lord as savior, Jesus Christ.
He saw the holy God being crucified unjustly, and he said to Jesus, remember me. Now some of you deep theologians, you would never let him into heaven, because he didn’t pray the right sinner’s prayer.
He didn’t say it the right way, and he didn’t walk down an aisle, and he didn’t bend a knee. My friends, he’s on the cross, he can’t bend a knee. But let me tell you what God looks at, your heart. You’re worried about your words, but God is watching your heart.
Remember me and Jesus said, today you’ll be with me in paradise. Unfortunately, many people have prayed the sinner’s prayer, but they never meant a word of it. They’re still living in their sin, thinking maybe they’re okay with God.
It is with the heart, the Bible says, man believes unto righteousness. So we see that God looks at a heart when we are praying. Thomas Watson, the great Puritan preacher, said that the angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel to go to prison and get Peter.
Now I want you to remember this about prayer. Why is prayer so important to you and me? In God’s sovereignty, in his wisdom, he has chosen to work through the prayers of his people. You want to move the heart of God?
You want to see God activated in your life? Feast not in praying to him. Keep coming to him with your prayers, because this is how God has chosen to work. It is no wonder that the Apostle Paul said to the Thessalonians, brethren, pray for us.
Is there anything more special than to be on anybody’s prayer list? I’m so grateful for the many of you who remind me that you are praying for me, the cards you send, the text messages, the emails, the letters that you sent to me, the one -on -one communication, and saying, pastor, we are praying for you.
I am touched and I am moved, because it is special to be on your prayer list. And we need to learn to pray for each other. and we need to do it together. God’s ear is always open when we come to Him in prayer.
We see that even though the church was earnestly praying in verse five, we jump down to verse 16 of chapter 12, and they’re kind of astonished that God answered the prayer. Now Peter continued knocking, and when they opened the door and saw Him, they were astonished.
Have you ever prayed like that? You prayed to God and you didn’t think He would answer it, but then all of a sudden, bam, it happens. The door opens. The life is changed. A decision is made. Wisdom is given to you.
I wanna ask you a question. Do you trust in God to answer your prayers? Do you believe that God would answer your prayers? Here’s a powerful truth. God answers prayer. Wow, I know you wanted something deeper.
But when you hang out with a bunch of New Yorkers, it doesn’t get too deep up there. I’m just teasing. Last year, I was preaching at this conference and as soon as I got done, I was trying to get out of New York as quick as possible because I didn’t want them to lock me down because of COVID.
And so I was flying through those little towns and a little police officer, he pulled me over. I guess you shouldn’t drive 55 in a 30. But I started dropping names and I started letting them know I was a pastor and I was at a Bible conference and thank God it saved me from a ticket.
But this time I drove as slow as I could and I told Terry, I said, if they locked me up because of COVID, hopefully they’ll let you go and you go tell the people to pray that I could get out of jail.
You see, God answers prayer, church. And that’s why you should be a praying people. The third thing I want you to see is that the peace that attended the prayer meeting. I want you to go back to verse six of chapter 12.
It’s just amazing as I was reflecting on this verse this week that the Bible says when Herod was about to bring him out, Peter knew that he was gonna die. He knew that this was the end of his life, that Herod was just waiting for the Passover to be over but the Bible says that night, Peter was what?
Bound with two chains. Have you ever tried to sleep with two chains? Two soldiers and the guards before the door were keeping the prison. I mean, he knew his life was over and the people are praying for God to release him.
It’s an impossible situation. What is Peter doing? Tossing and turning, being fretful and just upset and full of anxiety? No, he slept. The Bible says he gives his beloved sleep. Peter slept, why? Because he was assured of God’s care.
You may be facing something that has caused you to be very anxious, something that has caused you to toss and turn at night, but let me assure you what the psalmist said in Psalm 29, 11, that the Lord will give strength unto his people and the Lord will bless his people with peace.
It’s something to go through the storm with peace, isn’t it? It’s something to walk through the fiery trials of life and still have the peace of God in your heart. You wanna talk about being a testimony for God?
It’s not melting down every time there’s a problem in your life. It’s not melting down every time there’s a disagreement. It’s not getting angry and upset every time a mistake has happened, but it’s walking in the peace of God.
It’s experiencing the peace of God when the pressures of life are on you. Peter’s peaceful submission to the Lord. Lord, you’re in charge to live as Christ, to die as gain. Whatever your plan is, God, I’m all in.
I want you to see the fourth thing, the pardon that answered the prayer meeting. In verses seven through 11, we see Peter’s supernatural deliverance. We read it to you earlier. We see that Peter is liberated from prison by an angel.
And I want you to see that as soon as God has made the exit, as soon as God has made the way forward, that Peter showed instant obedience. Did you see that? I want you to go back to the text and notice that the Bible says in verse seven, Behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him and a light shone in the prison, and he struck Peter.
The Greek word has the idea of he hit him hard. I mean, Peter slept so good that he had to be slapped upside the head to wake up. And the angel raised him up and said, rise quickly. He said, get up. And as soon as he obeyed, what happened?
His chains fell off his hands. You’re waiting for the chains to fall, and then you’ll obey. God’s waiting for you to obey, and then the chains will fall. This is the way God works in your life, is as soon as you obey him when you don’t understand, as soon as you trust him, when it doesn’t all make sense, as soon as you look to him, that’s when the chains fall in your life, and that’s when God starts blessing and doing miracles in your life.
Let’s go on. The angel said to him, gird yourselves and tie on your sandals. He’s saying, get dressed, Peter, get dressed. And it was after that he got dressed that the Bible says that he went out and he followed him.
He didn’t know what was done by the angel. He was kind of- in a haze, and he didn’t quite clearly grasp everything that was unfolding, but it was in that moment that they came to the iron gate that leads to the city, which opened to them of its own accord.
You see, the angel said, get dressed. The angel said, get out of here. And that’s when God started doing miracles in the life of Peter. Are you there yet? I know that you’re waiting for all the answers before you trust and believe.
But God wants you to trust and obey, and the answers are soon to follow you, church. A church that understands that no matter what our circumstance, prayer is always the best thing we can do, is a church that will always obey God and see Him do a miraculous thing.
The psalmist said in Psalm 18 .6 in my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God. He heard my voice out of his temple and my cry came before him, even unto his ears. You think God has checked out?
You think God is not listening to you? But not only does God answer prayer, God hears your prayer. And even if you have a hard time articulating what you wanna say to God, I want you to know that the Bible says even the groanings of our heart through the Spirit of God are launched into heaven before the throne of God and he understands your plight, he understands your problems, he understands your emotions and feelings.
And my friends, he is effectively working in response to your prayer. The final thing that I want you to see very quickly in verses 12 through 19 is the joy that accompanied the prayer meeting. We see verse 14 that the little girl Rhoda, she came, she was a servant in the house and the Bible tells us that she came to the door and when she recognized Peter’s voice because of her gladness or her joy,
she did not open the gate, she left the guy standing there. I mean here, this guy’s life’s being threatened and he’s trying to hide and he’s trying to get away and he’s trying to run from Herod, but he wants the people of God to know and he comes and knocks on the door.
She won’t let a man, she’s so excited, she’s so ecstatic, she runs in and she announced to the crowd that Peter stood before her at the gates. But you’ll notice in verse 15, the Bible says they said to her, you are beside yourself, which means you’re crazy.
Yet she kept insisting that it was so and they said it is his angel. Underscore that line because you know the Jews believe that when you die, that your angel, your guardian angel will appear to your family to assure you that you are aware.
Okay, in the presence of God. So that’s why they said to her, it is his angel. It is his angel. But it was not his angel, it was Peter. And what does Peter do? He gives a joyful testimony of how God delivered him.
When God answers prayer, there is great joy. How meaningful it must be for the people of God to come together and to seek God on a matter. How meaningful it must be for prayer partners to call one another and pray for a matter.
How important it is for a class to be praying for one of their classmates. And to see God answer that prayer and see God do a miracle and see God part the waters and see God provide a breakthrough. How special and joyful it must be when we see the Lord answer prayer, amen.
I mean, some of the reasons we don’t have joy in our life is because we’re not experiencing the power of a prayer meeting that brings joy to your life. That if you would value prayer more, not just individually, but corporately, if you would come together and you would pray and you would see God answer these prayers in your life, your heart would be bubbling, your heart would be overflowing, you would be a joyful warrior for God out there in this crazy world.
What did the people learn? They’ve learned in Peter’s deliverance that there is no earthly king and there is no earthly president and there is no earthly governor that can succeed for long in hindering the kingdom and the cause of Jesus Christ.
Let the political people do whatever they think they gotta do, but the cause of Christ will march on. It’ll march on. It’ll march on without Mike Sanders. It’ll march on without you. It’ll march on because God will always raise up a generation and there will always be a remnant in every generation that loves Jesus Christ and let the political leaders get together and conspire trying to hinder the work of God.
Let the Herod’s rise up and be dictators and try to hinder the work of God. But Jesus Christ, through the power of his people praying together, will have his cause, his gospel, reach the ends of the earth.
There is no enemy on this planet that can thwart the God’s will for reaching the world with the gospel. But what does God say when people pray? I leave you with Psalm 50, verse 15. Call upon me in the day of trouble.
I will deliver you and you shall glorify me. Would you pray with me this morning? God is still in control. That is the most important thing we can learn. Even in these troublesome times that we live in, we need to remember that God is in control.
And what is the result of it? That we’re not afraid. We’re not afraid of danger. We’re not afraid to suffer. And we’re certainly not afraid to trust God that He will care for us. And so that’s what the power of a prayer meeting is.
It does work in us effectively. And it not only draws us together as the people of God, but it draws us to God Himself. Well, if you haven’t been to our Facebook page, Hope Worth Having Facebook page, check us out.
Like our page. Again, we’re putting out daily posts, sometimes several times a day. Videos we’re also putting some of our blogs on there now and we’re just trying to get the message of the gospel and God’s Word to as many hearts as possible.
And so I hope you’ll check us out on Facebook This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post The Power of a Prayer Meeting 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Power of a Prayer Meeting 1. He will be reading out of Acts 12:1-9.
The church was called to gather and to come to God almighty because with cometh my help does it come from the political figures does it come from the religious leaders does it come from the church leaders no it comes from Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior amen.
Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders and today we begin our 19th year on radio. Thank you for joining us we’re going to be in Acts chapter 12 and we’re going to be talking about the power of a prayer meeting God uses prayer God works through prayer and when God is getting ready to do something great he first moves his people to prayer so let’s see that manifested as we look at the early church in Acts chapter 12 and let’s study about the power of a prayer meeting.
Stan Guthrie in his article that he wrote entitled Doors Into Islam in a magazine entitled Christianity Today said these words about a unique experience that had taken place in Afghanistan. He said after watching the Jesus film and listening to Christian radio on July the 15th 2001 Samuel not his real name took a monumental step for an Afghan and a Muslim.
He received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Soon thereafter as Western AIDS were either arrested or expelled from Kabul the Taliban came looking for him. They told Samuel that he was of working for foreigners which had been legal and they then threw him in jail and for the next 14 days they beat Samuel at least once a day with a five -foot steel cable.
After the last of these sessions, he fell unconscious in the prison cell floor. That night, Samuel had a dream. In it, a luminous man wearing bright white clothes appeared to him. The visitor, whom Samuel would later describe as having very beautiful feet and shoulder -length hair, spoke kindly to him.
Then he said, get up. In the dream, the visitor led Samuel out of the prison cell. Going to the front gate, the ex -Muslim met another man who was wearing bright green, which many Muslims associate green with God’s blessings.
This man led him out of the prison. Then all of a sudden, Samuel awoke from his dream. And when he looked up, he found that prison cell doors were open. He walked through it to find the front gate of the prison unguarded and open.
A close western associate said that Samuel walked out and he walked into the night as a free man. When we come to our text this morning in Acts chapter 12, we have a very similar incident that takes place for the Apostle Peter.
As we come to this text we must be reminded that God is teaching us that He is always delivering His people either through a trial or He is delivering His people from a trial. This certainly would include any kind of persecution that God’s people might face.
We see in this passage a beautiful picture of God’s pattern for deliverance for those who look to Him. I’ve entitled this message the power of a prayer meeting and as we analyze Acts chapter 12 verses 1 through 19 I want you to see some important points that will help us as we face the challenges of the days that are before us.
In these uncertain times and unusual days God is calling us to be a people of prayer. You will note in Acts chapter 12 verse 1 the Bible says now about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church that he killed James the brother of John with a sword and because he saw that it pleased the Jews he proceeded further to seize Peter also.
Now it was during the days of unleavened bread so when he had arrested him he put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him intending to bring him before the people after Passover.
Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church. And when Herod was about to bring him out that night, Peter was sleeping, bound with two chains between two soldiers and the guards before the door were keeping the prison.
Now behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him and a light shone in the prison, and he struck Peter on the side and he raised him up saying, arise quickly, and his chains fell off his hands. Then the angel said to him, gird yourself and tie on your sandals, so he did.
And he said to him, put on your garment and follow me. So he went out and he followed him and did not know that what was done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they were past the first and the second guard post, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city which opened to them of its own accord, and they went out and went down one street, and immediately the angel departed from him.
When Peter had come to himself, he said, now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel and has delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people. So when he had considered this, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathering together praying.
And as Peter knocked at the door on the gate, a girl named Rhoda came to answer, and when she recognized Peter’s voice because of her gladness, she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter stood before the gate.
But they said to her, you are beside yourself, yet she kept insisting that it was so. So they said, it is his angel. Now Peter continued knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.
But motioning to them with his hand to keep silent, he declared to them how the Lord had brought him out of prison, and he said, go, tell these things to James and to the brethren, and he departed and he went to another place.
Then as soon as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers about what had become of Peter. But when Herod had searched for him and not found him, he examined the guards and commanded that they should be put to death, and he went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there.
What an amazing story that we read about here in Acts chapter 12. But at the crux of this miraculous, story that is unfolded in Acts chapter 12 is that we see several times that God’s people have gathered together and they have prayed and that’s why I think it’s important for us to learn about the power of a prayer meeting and I hope today that as you walk away that you not only have a sense of the value of prayer in your own personal walk with the Lord Jesus Christ but that you would once again even in these unique times understand how important it is for the church to gather and pray together that it’s not just that God has called us to pray individually to him which is rightly so but that he has also called us together as his people to come together and corporately pray to the Lord Jesus Christ and that the Bible teaches us that where two or three are gathered in his name there is Jesus Christ in the midst so what do we see first and that is the problem that activated the prayer meeting We are introduced in verse 1 to a man who is called Herod the King.
He is literally, his literal name is Herod Agrippa. Now you might think in your mind and remember that there was a king back in the Gospel of Matthew at the birth of Christ who had ordered that all the children, all the children that were born to be murdered and to be killed, all the male children.
But this is not the same Herod, this is the grandson of that Herod. And like his grandfather, he was a cruel dictator who did not value life nor cared about Christianity. Herod Agrippa was the son of Herod the Great and many describe him as an insane person.
Historians say that he had created an intense persecution upon Christianity, not because so much that he was against Christianity, but he saw it as an advantage for him politically. You remember in the scriptures that the Bible says in verse 3 of chapter 12 that because he saw, meaning Herod, that it pleased the Jews.
He proceeded further to seize Peter, meaning that he began to persecute the church and of course that unbelievable scenario. In verse 2 we have this clip that he killed James, one of the apostles. He was the brother of John.
Herod is trying to pick off one leader at a time of the church and so he goes after James. He sees that the Jewish people, the Jewish religious elite, that they like this. They’re excited about it and so then he says let’s go after Peter.
But he had to wait because it was the season the scriptures teach us in verse 3. It was during the days of unleavened bread which always were the seven days before the Passover and it was a special festival for the people of God as they were preparing to receive the Passover.
The Bible tells us that James was killed. James was the first of the apostles to be martyred. We know that from history and from the Scriptures that all the apostles were martyred for God except for one.
John the Revelator, he would end up on the Isle Patmos and he would be isolated from population and he would be one who would die on the Isle Patmos after he wrote the book of Revelation. There’s no doubt that the church was distressed.
The threat of martyrdom was upon the people of God and we find that Peter was in a perilous condition as a leader. He was the visible representative. He was the spokesman for the church in the early days.
And here Herod has come after him and has now thrown him into prison. We might think it’s strange that bad things should happen to such good people. Why would God, as He is advancing the cause of Christ, why would He allow James to be murdered, and why would He allow Peter to be thrown into jail?
We might think in our hearts that have this kind of a mindset that those who are faithful to God should live trouble -free lives, but that’s not true. I want you to understand that whenever you stand up, speak up, for the Lord Jesus Christ, that you run the risk of pushback, and you run the risk of there being friction not only in your family, but in your community and on the job.
And believe it or not, sometimes when you stand up for Christ, there might be even those within the family of God that might push back on you. But I want you to remember that in God’s sovereign will, that He is always working even when there is trouble amongst us, even when there is persecution, even when there are trials.
We may curse the darkness, and we may curse the political figures, and we may be upset at them and want to protest and riot and somehow try to overthrow the government, thinking that that is the resolution of all of our trials.
But I assure you, that is not the strategy of the early church. That when they found themselves under political pressure and under political persecution, that what we learned from them is that they were a people of prayer, and that they understood that their weapons were not of this world, but their weapons were spiritual weapons, and that God was calling them to not only pray individually, but collectively as the people of God.
When we come to God in our problems, we are literally saying to Him just by our actions that God is still in control. I must remind you that as a pastor, I must remind you that as a pastor, how do you know that God is still in control?
Disappointed I was in so many Christians who seem to be so frazzled and shaken to their core of their faith when we experience COVID upon the land. How many Christians look to retaliate to political figures and rally on downtown squares and try to fight the battle of the world with worldly weapons when what God was really calling the church to do was to come together and pray.
You be careful of political figures and people who claim to be Christians who wanna lead you down a rabbit hole that is not honoring to God, for God has not called us to advance the kingdoms of this world, but he has called us to advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
My friends, God is still in control when there is persecution. God is still in control when the leaders of the church are martyred for the cause of Christ. God is still in control even when we find opposition in our life.
We recognize that God is in control because we remember three important truths, that no matter what, we are not afraid as believers of danger. I mean, I have to be honest with you, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
Too many Christians look at death as such a sad thing and such a terrible thing, but for the child of God, it’s our promotion, it’s our graduation, and we step out of this world, this sad, sinful, sorrowful world, and we step into a glorious place, a place that is prepared for the people of God, a place in the presence of God, and the psalmist said, in thy presence is fullness of joy, and at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
Do you think anybody goes to heaven as they’re disappointed? Do you think anybody steps out of this land and steps into the immortal land of heaven and thinks, wow, I wish it would be so much more? There’s nothing to be afraid of.
We’re not afraid of danger. The second reason that we recognize God is in control is because we’re not afraid to suffer. God uses suffering. He used suffering to make the church stronger. He used suffering to teach the church that they can’t rely upon a personality like James.
They can’t just look to Peter for all their answers. They must look beyond those church leaders and they must look to Jesus Christ, and so the church was called to gather together and to come to God almighty and to come to him because whence cometh my help?
Does it come from the political figures? Does it come from the religious leaders? Does it come from the church leaders? No, it comes from Jesus Christ. Christ, our Lord and Savior, amen? I want you to know that you and I understand that even in the midst of suffering, God can use suffering to make you a stronger Christian.
God can use suffering to make our church a better church. I have to just be real with you this morning if you’re okay with that. Not that I’m not ever real with you, but just want to say that. But I think our church is stronger after COVID.
I think we’re more united, more caring, more loving, and more understanding and more sensitive. And I think that there’s something special that God has done among our people. And I think we’re more grateful for the opportunity to be with God’s people and to gather and understand how quickly the freedoms that we have to live our faith can be gone in a moment.
There’s a special work that God has done among you and I as his people. We know God is still in control because we’re not afraid. to trust God’s care. That’s what prayer does, prayer says, Lord, we trust you.
We’re not gonna look to the world for the answers, we’re gonna look to you. There was a problem that activated the prayer meeting, but I also want you to see the people that assembled for the prayer meeting in verse five.
Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God, or him, by who? Go ahead, you can answer, the church. Let’s try that again. I know it’s been a week, you guys have been out of sync, haven’t you?
Peter was therefore kept in prison, by constant prayer, was offered to God, for him, by who? Do you know who the church is? It’s you. It’s not these buildings, it’s not these facilities, it’s not this beautiful campus that God has entrusted to this family of fellowship, of believers.
The church is you, it is the people of God, it is the saints of God that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is not only a global church that encompasses the entire world, but there are local churches of fellowship of believers, like the Open Door Church and other churches in our community that worship Jesus Christ and believe he is the only way to heaven.
And I tell you that God had assembled the church in this trying time, you can imagine how devastated they were, that their leader, James, the brother of John, was killed with the sword, and how they were grieving, and now Peter was in jail, wondering what is gonna happen to this ragtag collection of people who somehow have been moving forward, advancing the cause of Christ, would the movement of Jesus stop?
No, my friends, for God had called Peter’s faithful friends. To come together and pray, from its inception, the end. the early church has demonstrated an earnestness and a constantness in its prayer life.
Would you just walk with me through Acts chapter one? We’ll start there with the thread that exists of the people of God committed to prayer. And I want you to know, not just prayer individually, but together.
I know some of you say, pastor, I can pray at home. I can pray while I’m driving on the road, yes, but keep your eyes open. But I want to say this, there’s something special and there’s something powerful when God’s people pray together.
In Acts chapter one and verse 14, we see these all continued with one accord in what church? Prayer and supplication. We jump over to chapter two and verse 42, as again, Luke is describing this unique unity that exists in the family of God.
And in verse. 42, he says, they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in what? Prayers. We come over to Acts chapter four, and again, we come down to verse 23, and you remember that again, the church was facing a little persecution from the religious elite, the Sadducees, were upset at Peter and John, and they had preached the gospel to them.
The high priest, Caiaphas, was upset, and here we see the church praying, verse 23, and being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them, verse 24.
So when they heard that, they raised their voices to God with one accord and said, Lord, you are God who made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that is in them. We jump over to chapter six, when the church was facing the problem of organization and so much growth going on the church that the needs of different people in the church were being neglected.
The apostles said to the church, you’ve gotta pick out some leaders to help, you’ve gotta pick out some servants, some deacons to help with the task. We pick up in verse four, why would they wanna do that?
Why would they wanna get more people involved? Look at verse four, that we will give ourselves continually to what, prayer. Now we’re over here in Acts chapter 12, and we see that the church in verse five is offering prayers to God, offering prayers to God.
We sometimes minimize prayer and we say, well, all we can do now is to help. was pray, as if that’s all we can do. Oh, we wish maybe we could do something more, or maybe something more effective. But I wanna say to you, each and every one of you, this morning that the most powerful and the most effective ministry at the Open Door Church is prayer.
And not only should each and every one of you be committed to pray daily, but you and I should be committed to coming together and praying together as God’s people. I think about, I was thinking about last night as I was just going over my notes and thinking about what I wanted to say this morning to you.
And I was thinking about how we have all these classes across our campus, whether they’re adult classes, youth classes, children’s classes, and how beautiful it must be for God to look across this 52 acre campus and see the people of God divided up in these groups and classes and that they are praying to him together as the family of God.
Oh, I know, some of you missed it, didn’t you? Some of you didn’t come this morning because Sunday school’s not important to you because praying together is not important to you. But I’m gonna challenge you this morning to step out of your comfort zone and step out of your worldly thinking that it’s not important to be with God’s people and it’s not important to be in a class praying together.
Before the church comes together in a worship service, we have people across this campus praying together, learning the word of God together, and I think it is a powerful hour in the life of the open door church.
I would strongly encourage each one of you that if you’re not connected to a class or you have neglected or you have allowed COVID to get you out of the habit of connecting with God’s people in prayer, that you would once again step up your game and say prayer is important and prayer is valuable and coming together and praying together with God’s people and whether that’s on a Sunday morning or whether that’s on a Wednesday evening or whether that’s on another day or night,
some of you are gathering together on Tuesdays and Thursdays and some of you are gathering on Wednesday mornings and some of you might gather together on a Saturday morning. Whatever it is, I just want you to know there’s nothing that is thrilling the soul, if you will, of our heart, of our God, like seeing his people praying together.
Some of you may not think prayer is that important, but I’ll tell you what’ll change your marriage and what’ll change your family is praying together. There’s nothing that unites a husband and wife and there’s nothing that unites the family together like prayer.
I want to encourage you to pray with your spouse. I want to encourage you to pray with your children. You see, my children are growing up. It’s okay, keep praying with them. Can I have prayer with you?
I told the people up in… Binghamton, I was preaching through the book of Amos and we were talking about Amos and he was praying for his nation, praying that God would turn them around. But I told them about, there’s really only two people in my life that have ever turned me down to pray.
And I’m not kidding with you, I’m not lying to you, I’m just telling you what happened and isn’t anything to do with Mike, it just happened, but there was only two people and when they turned me down, the next day within 24 hours, they were gone, they had died.
All I’m saying is this to you, is don’t underestimate the power of prayer and don’t devalue it in your life and know that when God gives you the opportunity and you are given the invitation to pray with a prayer partner, to pray with a pastor, to pray with other people in the church, elders, deacons, leaders, spouses, children, whoever it might be, dear friends in your classes and your groups and your Bible studies,
that you do not neglect this. this moment and that you understand how precious it is and there is no other time that you are closer to the throne of God than when your heart is bowed before God almighty with God’s people praying to Jesus Christ.
Amen, go ahead. What we see about their prayer is that it was consistent. It was not something that the church just did randomly but rather it was regular, it is something that they made important part of their life.
It was the life of the church and people say, well, prayer is boring or prayer is not that important or I can just do it with another way or another’s time but listen to me, my friends. We’re called to be a consistent people.
When we pray, we’re saying, Lord, I need you and I not only need you every hour, Lord, but I need you every moment. We are humbling ourselves. Prayer is a reflection of our hearts and when our heart is so prideful that we’re too good and we’re too busy to gather with God’s people to pray, it is only telling the Lord where our heart is.
Their prayers were not only consistent but they were fervent. They were fervent, they were passionate, they were authentic, they came right from the heart. I know some of you say, well, I just don’t know what to say when I pray.
Well, just speak from your heart like you’re talking to anybody. You may not have the fancy words and you may not even always be theologically in line but that’s okay because God knows the heart, amen?
And you remember the thief on the cross, he had been a pretty rough dude because it’s not like every day the Romans were wanting to crucify people but this guy had lived such a life that not even the Romans and all of their humanism and all of their secularism and all of their pluralism, not even the Romans could put up with this guy in society anymore and they said, we’ve gotta crucify him.
We gotta get him out of here because he is a mess. and He is a menace upon society. And so they were going to crucify Him on this cross, and while He was on the cross, He saw the Lord as Savior, Jesus Christ.
God always delivers His people. He’s either delivering them through a trial or from a trial or out of a trial. And that’s what we’re seeing in the Apostle Peter’s life. And what is it that people of God are doing?
Praying. So much can be resolved in prayer. And I hope that you’re taking that opportunity to tap into the power of prayer, and not just individually, but collectively with the church family. Well, we want to encourage you to check us out on our YouTube channel.
We are there, hope worth having. Just type that into the search button. And there we have all of our sermons that we’ve been teaching, as well as we have. some interviews and different Bible studies and we hope you’ll take advantage of them and we encourage you to continue to access extra resources to help you to grow in your faith.
This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post The Power of a Prayer Meeting 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on God’s Pattern for the Church 2. He will be reading out of Acts 11:19-30.
But my goal is to get you to take that next step, whatever that next step is, that God would challenge you to go to the next level in your faith and helping you to become deeper and stronger in your faith so that people notice that you are like Jesus Christ.
Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders from The Open Door Church and I want to welcome you to our radio broadcasts, Hope Worth Having. We’re delighted to have you with us today and we’re going to be in the book of Acts chapter 11 and we’re studying verse 19 through 30, continuing our study that we began last week on God’s pattern for the church.
So we’re excited that we can look at the scriptures and see that pattern of how God wants us to operate in this world. So let’s get our Bibles and get right into it today. It’s not a rejection of you, it’s a rejection of our Savior.
You don’t have to take it personal. Your job is just to plant the seeds. You don’t have to live in the fear of rejection but we also may have the fear of failure. We might think, man, I really can’t do a good job and I don’t want to mess this thing up and I don’t want to be the reason because I failed to do the presentation right that I might cause somebody to go to hell and be separated from God forever.
I want to tell you as I’ve been out there trying to engage people in spiritual conversations, there’s many times I fumbled the ball, misquoted the verses, couldn’t remember a Bible verse. Have you ever been there?
Am I the only one left? You all ever have those moments? But you know what? God gloriously works because people are saved through the power of the Spirit and the Word of God not because Mike Sanders said a certain thing or did it a certain way.
And that’s how the Lord works and there have been times I’ve thought, man, I did everything like I should be, crossed every T, dotted every I, why doesn’t this person get saved? because it has to be a work of God.
So you don’t have to be afraid of failure. The third reason I think we don’t engage in evangelism is because of ignorance. We may not just know how. We just are not aware. The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 3, 15, to sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready, always, to give an answer to every man that’s asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.
It’s good to take training classes. It’s good to read books on evangelism. It’s good to learn more how we can effectively engage people in spiritual conversations. But ultimately, I want you to know that you need to live a life that is so honoring to God that people say, man, why are you so joyful?
Why do you have so much hope? And you just answer. You just give the reason. Of why you are a person of hope and that reason is because you have put your faith and your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ You would be amazed how many times that you are in situations Where you can share your faith and you can share the hope of Christ with others.
You just have to be alert to it You’re already there. You just have to be aware of it Now in the book strangers next door immigration migration and missions if you’ve not read that book you need to read it But in this book it reminds us that there are more unchurched people groups who live within the boundaries of the United States Than any other country besides India and China.
There are 361 different people groups even within our own Country so we have a great responsibility To take the gospel and God is bringing the world to us and we should share Christ with them We should be open to engaging in evangelism.
This is what the early church did remember our Lord and Savior That in the gospel of Luke 19 and verse 10 He said the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost The second thing that I want you to see is the pattern of the early church relating to that they were committed to Discipleship, let’s go back to verse 22 and let’s look it says then the news of these things all these people getting saved God’s mighty work in these particular places the news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem And they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch When he came He had seen the grace of God.
He was glad Encourage them all that with purpose of heart. They should continue with the Lord When we think of discipleship, discipleship is the birth and the growth of a believer by which we become more like Jesus every day.
When we are discipling others in the church, we’re calling them to a higher commitment to Christ. We are calling them to a deeper walk with the Lord. Jesus said in Matthew 10, 25, it is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher and a servant like his master.
Jesus is our master, Jesus is our teacher. It should be the desire of every Christian to be like Christ. When the Jerusalem church heard how great things were happening as these new converts were coming to the Lord, Jesus, that the Jerusalem church wanted to help establish these new converts in the faith and so they sent their best discipler.
His name was Barnabas. Barnabas is a name that refers to the son of encouragement. That is what Barnabas means, to be an encourager. Barnabas was a great example of what being a true encourager entails.
Scripture frequently sums up a person’s life in a single sentence, and we see that in Barnabas in verse 24. Go back to verse 24 of chapter 11. He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.
And a great many people were added to the Lord. Barnabas’ original name was Joseph. We’re introduced to him in chapter four of the book of Acts. But he had a graciousness about him. He had a way about him where he was always encouraging others.
And so the apostles gave him the nickname Barnabas. Which means the son of an encouragement. That’s a great name, amen. Would you like to be known as that, as an encourager? Barnabas was known for his willingness to seek out those who were struggling.
And to encourage them along the way in the work of the Lord. Did you see that back in verse 23? That he was glad, and what did he do? He encouraged them all. What did he encourage them all? That with purpose of heart, they should continue with the Lord.
This was the message of Barnabas. And not only was he encouraging the church at Antioch, these new believers, but he took the initiative to reach out to Saul, who would later become Paul, and to get him connected to the church at Antioch.
Barnabas played a key role in helping the church to receive Saul into the family of God. You know the story how Saul was a persecutor of the church, and there was great fear among the church family. Here, Saul is now claiming to be a believer.
Is it possible that he might try to infiltrate us? Is it possible that he might turn against us? No, Barnabas was the man who stepped up and said his faith is genuine and we need to recognize that God’s hands on this man and we need to let him be a part of the church family.
So he was a true encourager, a discipler. And Barnabas and Saul would take time for a whole year teaching and developing the church. Look at verse 26. When he had found him, meaning Saul, he brought him to Antioch.
So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many a people and the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. Each of us would be a better person. If we would be like Barnabas and if we had some Barnabas in our life.
We need to think of those terms of when it relates to discipleship. So many times we look at discipleship as more formal. We see it as something like classes, which I think that’s certainly a part of it.
But you know, I think sometimes more is caught than taught. And we need to remember that we need people that will help us along the way, that we need those encouragers in our life. We need people who will help us to stay faithful for the Lord.
And we need to be those kind of people to others in the church family. The Bible teaches us that the word encourage has the idea of putting courage into someone. And that’s the way I see Barnabas as he is going to the church at Antioch as these new believers are coming to Christ and they really don’t even have an Old Testament or a background that much in Judaism.
They’re Gentile believers. They’re just coming to Christ and they’re trying to leave their old lifestyle behind and they’re trying to follow a Savior. They’re trying to give their life fully to Christ and Barnabas was that encourager helping them along the way.
And he connected them to a good teacher of the Word of God, Saul. We all need encouragement to keep growing. I want to challenge you in your own life to think about who can I encourage this week? Who could I send a text message?
Who could I send a card? Who could I pick up the phone? Who could I have lunch with? Breakfast with? Who could I encourage? Look, God has not just called us to sit and soak but he certainly called us to serve.
And as we serve him, as we think about others, think about many times of how in my own life how God had always had different people in my life to encourage me in the faith. It wasn’t that they were scholars or that they somehow had all this Bible knowledge but they were just faithful people who loved God and who were always encouraging me to live for Jesus.
Jesus Christ. Many of you know my story and how I came to Christ and I was invited to ride the bus to church, little church of about 50 people and that was on a high special day. But anyways, our bus driver, he couldn’t even read.
He had to leave school early to take care of the family. And yet he was such an encouragement to me, my brother and sister. To this day, all of us are active in our churches. All of us married to Christian spouses, all of us having Christian families and here God used this man greatly in our lives because he was an encourager.
I wanna challenge you to think about people not only in our own community of faith here at the Open Door Church but others throughout the community, others throughout the region that you could encourage because God has called us to encourage people in their walk of faith.
What was the outcome of the discipleship? in the church? What was the outcome of having a man like Barnabas who was encouraging others and a man like Saul who was teaching the Bible? What was the outcome?
Well, look at verse 26 at the end. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. They were first called Christians. Most likely it was the Romans who looked at their lives. They saw something distinct and different about them.
Be a Christian, the word literally means little Christ. Little Christ. How wonderful for others to recognize by your actions and your beliefs that you are very much like Jesus. That’s what it means to be a Christian.
So as these new converts are being discipled in the faith, they are becoming more like Jesus. I want to challenge you to A, be that person who is every day striving to be more like Christ. Also be that person that is striving to help others be like Christ.
And there’s a key component to that that is important because sometimes we let the perfect destroy the good or be the enemy of the good you might have heard. And that is that we must learn to accept people where they’re at in their faith and help them to take that next step.
As a pastor, I recognize that not all the people are going to be committed as some of the people. I got to understand that I have a core in my church. I have people who are going to be here a few times a year and people are going to be here a few times a month.
Now some of you, you’re here all the time. It’s so wonderful. But my goal is to get you to take that next step. Whatever that next step is, that God would… challenge you to go to the next level in your faith and to encourage you to become more devoted followers of Christ, more committed in your walk and helping you to become deeper and stronger in your faith so that as you are living your life in your homes,
as you’re living your life in the workplace, as you’re living your life in the community, that people notice that you’re different. Not in a weird way, but that you are like Jesus Christ. Now I want you to notice the third pattern in the church.
We learned already, first of all, that they were active in evangelism, committed to discipleship. But the third pattern is that the church was devoted to ministry. They were devoted to ministry last week.
Pastor Seth shared with us a lot about ministry and service and he did a great job. We appreciate his message and I’m not here to reiterate it. But I just want to add a few more things to it, not that it needed anything added to it.
But according to the passage, I have to stay true to the passage so I couldn’t really get around it. But in verse 27 through 30, it says, in those days the prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabus stood up and showed by the spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar.
Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. The entire Roman world was experiencing a crippling famine.
According to Josephus, in his historical books, he has written that Claudius was an emperor from AD 41 to AD 54. And the famine had reached a pinnacle in 44 through AD 48. And so this is what Luke is recording about that the church and really literally the Roman empire is experiencing this great famine.
And so the church decides they’re going to do something about it. The believers, rather than just sitting on the sidelines, say, you know what, we’re going to get involved and we’re going to be willing to help out.
Look at verse 29, the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. And that’s something how the new Gentile believers in Antioch were desiring to show the grace of God that they had been shown.
They were so grateful for the believers in Jerusalem and Judea who had come down and shared the wonderful treasure of Christ with them. They now wanted to share their own. tangible treasures with others and bringing relief of the suffering that the Jewish believers were experiencing.
The Apostle Paul referenced this in Romans chapter 15 in verse 31. He does this in other passages but this is what I want to bring to your attention. He says to the believers in the city of Rome he wants them to pray for him.
He says when you pray, pray that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints. As Paul was traveling he was raising funds to help bring relief for the church in Jerusalem and he was praying that they would be responsive and accepting.
It might have been difficult for the Jewish believers who kind of were the founding of the church relating to Jerusalem being the first place where the local church had emerged. and been born. But now they would be receiving.
Sometimes it’s hard for us to receive, right? But God had established a new way to test the faith and the commitment and devotion of the believers at Antioch by calling them to show grace to those who had brought the grace of God to them.
I want you to know three things about this service that I think is important when we minister to God. First, that our service should always be practical. That is, it should be tangible. You know, sometimes we say, well, I’m going to pray for you, and I think that’s good, and I know prayer is powerful, and I believe every aspect of prayer, God works through prayer, I’m all in.
Let’s make sure that when we’re trying to help others and minister to others, that we are practical. And it could be as simple as a meal, it could be simple as helping with a circumstance, it could be simple as Pastor Seth taught us to just listen and be an encourager.
What I want you to note is that the way that we show people that we love our neighbor is by practically finding ways to do things that demonstrate God’s love for them. When we go down to the rescue mission, what a wonderful ministry, Pastor Paul oversees that, and every month we go down there.
It isn’t enough for us to just teach the gospel. It isn’t enough for us to have a testimony of the gospel. It is not enough for us to sing about the gospel. We must bring something tangible, and every group brings food and feeds these folks that are struggling in their life, and I know God honors that.
Remember that Jesus, throughout his ministry, found practical ways to serve people. You don’t need a list from me. You just need to be led of the Spirit, and you need to let God’s wisdom be poured into your heart and mind.
as you think of practical ways. The second thing I want you to note about this ministry, that it was accountable. It was accountable. Of course, it required money, and of course they were giving each according to his ability.
There was no mandate on a percentage. There was no pressure. It was just according to their ability. And here, how was it handled? Look at verse 30. This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.
What we see here is there’s accountability. It’s not just that it’s out there randomly, recklessly, or even spontaneously. It is that there is a structure, there is order, and there is accountability.
And the reason for the accountability is to make sure that God would receive all the glory and that we could be blameless before the world. Human nature without accountability will always lead to demise and That’s why it’s important.
It doesn’t matter who we are Whether it’s church leadership or it’s any of us serving for the kingdom of God. We must all be accountable Every once in a while run into Christians even sometimes leaders not within our own church, but other areas They don’t want to be accountable Well, why wouldn’t ya?
Doesn’t accountability help us to stay true to the Lord doesn’t accountability help us you have a ministry God is entrusted to you Don’t be afraid to have people help you give input into your ministry to be Accountable so that your ministry can continue to strive.
We often have this conversation With ministry leaders and that is what is going to happen when you’re gone What is your legacy plan? I? Remember I was sitting down with brother Dave Arnold you remember brother Dave Arnold and he was in my office and I said brother Dave what is your legacy plan?
What’s gonna happen when God calls you to home? He said my legacy plan pastor Mike is heaven. I Said okay, that’s good Dave But how are we gonna make sure these pastors are taken care of as they support so many pastors in Sierra Leone?
How are we gonna make sure that these schools are continue to being built after you’re gone? No ministry should ever be built on a personality or a person We should always be built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, but people come and go You must recognize that but when we build it upon Christ and we establish a Plurality of leaders and we establish a ministry that is accountable.
This brings honor and glory to Christ The last thing I want you to know is that it was a partnership There are three things about this ministry that we see at the church at Antioch is that it was practical it was accountable and it was a partnership.
Would you look at verse 30 again? Would you underscore the two names there, Barnabas and Saul? What you’re gonna see as you study throughout the scriptures from chapter 11 all the way to chapter 15, Barnabas and Saul, eventually Barnabas and Paul, eventually Paul and Barnabas, a partnership that they have together in serving the Lord Jesus Christ.
I wanna remind you that all ministry is not a solo act, but ministry is a partnership, and we have a partnership in the gospel together. Why? Remember this church, we can do far more together than we can do individually.
We can support more missionaries together as a church family than we can individually. We can accomplish more for Christ together than we can individually. Never do ministry alone. And I know what some of you are saying to me.
Well, Pastor Mike, if you want to do it right, you got to do it yourself. I know some of you are like that, but let me tell you something. You’re not helping the next generation. You’re not equipping the next generation.
You’re not building the next generation. When you do it all yourself and you don’t pass on those opportunities and those blessings to others and the opportunities to learn and grow and develop, you are limiting the gospel, the reach of the gospel from one generation to another.
And you don’t want to be a part of limiting it. You want to do more together. Some of you say, well, it just takes so long, Pastor. It takes so long to have to train somebody. It takes so long for me to have to teach them and they can’t remember half of what I teach them.
And then I know how some of you are. It’s got to be your way or the highway, right? I know how some of you are. It’s your way or the highway, but you know what? It’s okay. Everybody has different styles.
Everybody has a different way. We don’t have to all be like each other. I’m thankful that we don’t have cookie cutter Christianity. It’s okay to have a different style. Your style may be different than mine.
I may be more confrontational in my witnessing and not afraid to knock on a door or to walk up to a stranger and share Christ. You may be different in how you do your witnessing. It’s okay. As long as you’re witnessing, I’m a hundred percent in.
We all have a ministry that we do and we’re called to do. And our ways of ministry, our styles may be different, but we need to remember that God is calling us to serve together. I think about where would I be if there wasn’t different pastors throughout the years as I was going to Bible college who said, come on, Mike, come serve for a summer with me and let’s work together.
I think about when I became a new believer, how my pastor used to take me to the hospital and teach me how to make hospital visits. I think about different people who through the years have let me work right alongside of them because I’m telling you that more is caught than taught.
And you’ve got to be that kind of person who says, I’m committed to a partnership, I’m not gonna do ministry alone because one day, I know it’s hard for us to believe this, but one day we’re not gonna be here.
So who’s gonna step up and take your spot? When I first came to the Open Door Church, I told the staff, it was me, Carl, and Pastor Carl, I should say, Pastor Art Brown. How many of you remember Pastor Art Brown?
What a great man of God, a great soul winner. This is another story, but every time I think of him, well, I was one time out in the lobby and I was on my way somewhere and I was running late and Pastor Art wanted to tell me something.
I said, Pastor Art, just send me an email. He said, Pastor Mike, we don’t do emails here. He said, we built this church, me and Dino, and Dino, and Dino, and Dino, and Dino, and Dino, 30 West, cup of coffee, and on a napkin.
I said, okay, brothers, put it on a napkin and lay it on my desk. Heh heh heh heh. All right, I’m all in. But, I remember when I first came, we was in a staff meeting, and I said, I need you guys to work yourself out of a job.
And after the meeting, Pastor Art came to me, he said, are you trying to get rid of me? And I said, no, brother, I’m not trying to get rid of you. And he said, well, you said, we need to work ourselves out of a job.
And I said, what I meant, and what I was trying to say, is let’s get other people involved, so that when the Lord calls us home, that we got somebody to step up and fill in the spot. And you know, every once in a while, I run into different ones of you, and I see, you know, things that you’re doing.
And I remember, Pastor Art took you out on visitation, didn’t he? He showed you how to do it. Some of you go out and you visit the hospitals, you visit the shut -ins, you visit different people, you check in on people for us.
You know why you’re doing that? Because there was a man named Pastor Art, who didn’t do ministry alone, and he partnered with you to help you learn, you watch him, and you learn how to do it. And friends, that’s what ministry is about.
It is a partnership. So I want to encourage us to dedicate our lives to service the Christ, who gave his life for each of us, so that we could have eternal life. Let’s pray together. [“The Spirit of Life”] We are called to be on mission, and the principal theme in the book of Acts is the triumph of the gospel in all the world.
That’s our mission, continue to take the gospel to every person, to every heart, and to every home, as we sing. the pattern that is laid out so clearly in Acts chapter 11, I hope that each of us will a be a part of that pattern as a individual believer, but corporately that you’re connected to a Bible believing church that is exemplifying the New Testament church in the book of Acts.
We got to be careful. Sometimes we want to be like the church down the street or we want to be like the church that is the biggest in America, when really what we need to do is strive to be like the church in the book of Acts.
And that’s what God honors and that’s what he blesses. And that’s what he uses to make disciples and to bring people into the family of God. Well, I want to encourage you to make sure you check out our website, hopeworthhaving .com.
On that website, you can get an update of what’s going on in our ministry, a lot of resources available as well as we are archiving all of our preaching and teaching. So make sure you check that out and remember that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post God’s Pattern for the Church 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on God’s Pattern for the Church 1. He will be reading out of Acts 11:19-30.
There are 361 different people, groups, even within our own country. So we have a great responsibility to take the gospel, and God is bringing the world to us, and we should share Christ with them. It’s Hope Worth Having radio program from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and I’m Mike Sanders, senior pastor of the Open Door Church, and delighted to be with you today.
Thank you for tuning in. We’re going to be in Acts chapter 11. This time we’re going to begin in verse 19 through 30. We’re going to talk about God’s pattern for the church. Many times churches look to other churches on how to do church, but really what we need to do is look into the book of Acts because that’s God’s pattern for the church.
So a lot to learn here and a lot for us to unpack. So let’s get right into God’s work today. I want you to take your Bible, and I want you to join me in Acts chapter 11, verse 19 through 30. I want you to remember that God is always at work.
And not only is God always working, but He wants you and I to join in in what He is doing. Not only just within our own families, but what He is doing literally around the world. When Jesus in John chapter 17 was praying, and as He was praying to the Father, He said, as you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.
In essence, Jesus is reminding us that each of us have been sent by God that we are on assignment from heaven. That God has a plan, He has a purpose, and that as He is working out His great cause in this world, that each of us as His servants are called to be on mission.
for God. We must wake up every day recognizing that God has an assignment for us, that there are people who are going to cross our paths, that God is calling us to serve and minister to, that there are things that are going to unfold throughout the day that God is bringing about His great purpose and glory in the lives of others.
When we come to Acts chapter 11 as we’ve been tracking through this book, we cannot forget the overarching theme of the book of Acts. It is the triumph of the gospel in all the world despite the politics, despite the persecution, despite the problems and the circumstances.
The gospel is triumphing. The gospel is moving forward and that’s what we see as we read from chapter to chapter as Luke shares with us. the details of different stories, we are overwhelmed and touched in our heart that this gospel that Jesus Christ has given to us, this good news that teaches us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and we are all in need of a savior.
And Jesus Christ is that savior and he went to the cross and died for our sins and whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. As we come down to chapter 11, verse 19 through 30, we see the early church’s mission of spreading the gospel is continuing to the Gentiles.
You might recall that in Acts chapter one, verse eight, that Jesus gave the commission to the disciples that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.
At the outset, the church was doing great in spreading the gospel in Jerusalem and even parts of Judea. But it’s really not till Acts chapter 10 that we see the gospel going farther and wider into the uttermost parts of the earth, into Samaria and places that had never heard the gospel.
It is in Acts chapter 10 that we see kind of a transition as Peter comes to the full enlightenment and understanding that what God has called clean, we cannot call unclean. And that Christ is the fulfillment of all that the law required and therefore the good news of the gospel goes beyond just Jerusalem and it goes beyond just a particular race of people and it is to be taken to every heart and it is to be broadcast to every whole.
Peter has that unique experience with Cornelius where he is able to go into the home, share the gospel. of Christ, and not only does Cornelius come to Christ, but his whole family comes to Christ. It is a momentous change in the hearts of the disciples.
We pick up in verse 19, and we see the Bible says, now those who were scattered after the persecution, you got to stop there because you have to remember that that persecution certainly not only began in chapter 4 and chapter 5, but we see it reemerging in chapter 8.
But what was happening is the people of God were being spread out, God working even in persecution, and the Bible says that that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but to the Jews only.
But some of them were men from Cyprus, and Cyrene, who when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. Here’s what I want you to see. And the hand of the Lord was with them.
And a great numbered believed and turned to the Lord. Verse 22, then news of these things came to the ears of the church of Jerusalem. And they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. And when he had came, he had seen the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart, they should continue with the Lord.
For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith and a great many people were added to the Lord. Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.
So it was that for a whole year, they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. In these days, prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch.
Then one of them named Agabus, stood up and showed by the spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples each according to his ability determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.
This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. In this short passage, we see God’s pattern for the church, God’s pattern for believers, God’s pattern for us as followers of Christ.
And I want to point these three things out to you because this becomes our template as believers. This becomes our template as a local congregation. The first pattern I want you to see is the church was active in evangelism.
Verse 19 through 21, we see that the gospel went as far as Phoenicia, and this was a area that we would know today as in the Middle East towards the Lebanon area. And so the gospel is going from Jerusalem, Judea, even farther out into Phoenicia, but you also know that the gospel went to Antioch.
We go back to our text and we see in verse 19 that they were preaching the Word in Antioch. Then we come down to verse 20, but some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene who went and they had come to Antioch and they spoke to the Hellenists.
What were they preaching? The Lord, Jesus. They were lifting up Christ. We see that the Cyprus and the Cyrenians, they were Greek speaking people who were spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ, and they took it to Antioch, which was a major city in the Roman Empire.
The third largest city in the Roman Empire. And what was the result of their evangelism? What was the result of them preaching, teaching, proclaiming, talking about Jesus? Well look at verse 21 again, the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.
You and I have a mandate upon us that as we look and see how the early church operated, we have a responsibility to be fully active in evangelism. Each and every one of us has a responsibility to share the gospel of Christ with those in our world.
You might recall when Jesus in the gospel of Luke chapter 8, he had cast out a demon in the life of a man, and his response to this man who was so full of thankfulness and praise towards Christ, Jesus said to him in verse 39 of chapter 8 of the gospel of Luke, return to your home and describe what great things God has done for you.
And the Bible tells us that this man went his way proclaiming throughout the city what great things Jesus had done for him. That’s really what evangelism is, is we’re just telling other people of the great things that God has done for us.
How Christ has saved us from our sin. I remember many years when I first came to the open door church that one of the members had passed away, he was promoted to heaven, but his daughter was not a fan of Christianity nor did she even want to have to endure any kind of a funeral service.
And as I was sitting down with her trying to help her plan for the funeral service, she told to me right to my face. She said to me, now Pastor Mike, I don’t want you telling people how to be saved at this funeral.
And I was kind of taken aback and I was listening to her and of course she gave me her reasoning and I said, well I can certainly appreciate you have a different opinion than your father. But are you okay if I share a little bit about his faith and how he came to Christ?
And she said, oh sure, that’d be great. I said, wow, this is awesome. Because here’s the thing, people, we all get saved the same way, man. And so I was glad to brag about her dad and how he came to Christ and I just kind of interjected and once I was up there, there’s nothing they could do.
But I said, hey, this is how you get saved. And so I want you to know that that’s what we do. We brag about Christ. Some of you might feel like, man, it’s just so hard for me to be engaged in evangelism.
You might feel intimidated by it. You might feel like you’re inferior and there’s no way that you could do that. But I want you to know that we need to keep it simple. You don’t have to memorize long sets of verses.
You don’t have to memorize all these different formulas on how to be saved because we all get saved the same way. Now you might ask the question, why don’t we do this? Why don’t people evangelize? Well, I just jotted down three reasons why.
Number one is that we believe the myth that people are not interested in spiritual issues. But I want you to note that in a recent Gallup survey it discovered that 65 million Americans have no church home.
And that 34 million of them said they would attend if somebody would just invite them. How about that? 34 million people are waiting for an invitation. It is rare church. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen.
It is rare for someone to just pop in and just come to church. I remember during the COVID days when we were all watching the service online and we were here, me and the band and the sound people and streaming people in the back there.
But there was this gentleman who just came. He just came. We didn’t have a greeter. So I had to run out there and greet him. And so I said, hey, this is what’s going on. You understand? And I said, but you’re welcome.
And so he was my one audience. He sat in the back row there. I haven’t seen him back since. But anyways, it is rare for people to just pop in. But when they’re invited by a friend, when they’re invited by a family member, when they’re invited by someone that they come across or that they meet, what a blessing that is.
And so I don’t want you to be under this impression that somehow people do not want to talk about spiritual issues. The second reason we don’t engage in evangelism is because of fear. We might have the fear of others in that we’re not sure how they’re gonna respond.
We’re not sure what their reaction will be to us and maybe that they would not like us anymore or maybe that they would be upset that we have shared the gospel with them. Remember, their rejection is not a rejection of you, it’s a rejection of our savior.
You don’t have to take it personal. Your job is just to plant the seeds. You don’t have to live in the fear of rejection but we also may have the fear of failure. We might think, man, I really can’t do a good job and I don’t wanna mess this thing up and I don’t wanna be the reason because I failed to do the presentation right that I might cause somebody to go to hell and be separated from God forever.
I wanna tell you as I’ve been out there trying to engage people in spiritual conversations, there’s many times I’ve fumbled the ball, misquoted the verses, couldn’t remember a Bible verse. Have you ever been there?
Am I the only one left? Do you all ever have those moments? But you know what, God gloriously works because people are saved through the power of the Spirit and the word of God, not because Mike Sanders said a certain thing or did it a certain way.
And that’s how the Lord works. And there’ve been times I’ve thought, man, I did everything like it should be, crossed every T, dotted every I, why doesn’t this person get saved? Because it has to be a work of God.
So you don’t have to be afraid of failure. The third reason I think we don’t engage in evangelism is because of ignorance. We may not just know how, we just are not aware. The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 3 .15, to sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready, always, to give an answer to every man that’s asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.
It’s good to take training classes. It’s good to read books on evangelism. It’s good to learn more how we can effectively engage people in spiritual conversations. But ultimately, I want you to know that you need to live a life that is so honoring to God that people say, man, why are you so joyful?
Why do you have so much hope? And you just answer. You just give the reason of why you are a person of hope. And that reason is because you have put your faith and your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You would be amazed how many times that you are in situations where you can share your faith and you can share the hope of Christ with others. You just have to be alert to it. You’re already there. You just have to be aware of it.
Now, in the book Strangers Next Door, Immigration, Migration, and Missions, if you’ve not read that book, you need to read it. But in this book, it reminds us that there are more unchurched people groups who live within the boundaries of the universe.
United States than any other country besides India and China. There are 361 different people groups, even within our own country. So we have a great responsibility to take the gospel, and God is bringing the world to us, and we should share Christ with them.
We should be open to engaging in evangelism. This is what the early church did. Remember our Lord and Savior that in the gospel of Luke 19 and verse 10, he said, the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
The second thing that I want you to see is the pattern of the early church relating to that they were committed to discipleship. Let’s go back to verse 22, and let’s look. It says, then the news of these things, all these people getting saved, God’s mighty work.
In these particular places, the news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem and they set out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. When he came, he had seen the grace of God. He was glad, encouraged them all that with purpose of heart, they should continue with the Lord.
When we think of discipleship, discipleship is the birth and the growth of a believer by which we become more like Jesus every day. When we are discipling others in the church, we’re calling them to a higher commitment to Christ.
We are calling them to a deeper walk with the Lord. Jesus said in Matthew 10 .25, it is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher and a servant like his master. Jesus is our master, Jesus is our teacher.
It should be the desire of every Christian to be like Christ. When the Jerusalem church heard how great things were happening as these new converts were coming to the Lord, Jesus, that the Jerusalem church wanted to help establish these new converts in the faith and so they sent their best discipler.
His name was Barnabas. Barnabas is a name that refers to the son of encouragement. That is what Barnabas means, to be an encourager. Barnabas was a great example of what being a true encourager entails.
Scripture frequently sums up a person’s life in a single sentence and we see that in Barnabas in verse 24. Go back to verse 24 of chapter 11. He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.
Barnabas’ original name. was Joseph were introduced to him in chapter four of the book of Acts. But he had a graciousness about him. He had a way about him where he was always encouraging others and so the apostles gave him the nickname Barnabas, which means the son of an encouragement.
That’s a great name, amen. Would you like to be known as that as an encourager? Barnabas was known for his willingness to seek out those who were struggling and to encourage them along the way in the work of the Lord.
Did you see that back in verse 23? That he was glad and what did he do? He encouraged them all. What did he encourage them all? That with purpose of heart, they should continue with the Lord. This was the message of Barnabas.
And not only was he encouraging the church at Antioch, these new believers, but he took the initiative to reach out to Saul, who would later become Paul. and to get him connected to the church at Antioch.
Barnabas played a key role in helping the church to receive Saul into the family of God. You know the story how Saul was a persecutor of the church and there was great fear among the church family. Here Saul is now claiming to be a believer.
Is it possible that he might try to infiltrate us? Is it possible that he might turn against us? No, Barnabas was the man who stepped up and said, his faith is genuine and we need to recognize that God’s hands on this man and we need to let him be a part of the church family.
So he was a true encourager, a discipler and Barnabas and Saul would take time for a whole year teaching and developing the church. Look at verse 26, when he had found him, meaning Saul, he brought him to Antioch.
So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many of people and the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. Each of us would be a better person if we would be like Barnabas and if we had some Barnabas in our life.
We need to think of those terms and when it relates to discipleship. So many times we look at discipleship as more formal, we see it as something like classes, which I think that’s certainly a part of it, but I think sometimes more is caught than taught and we need to remember that we need people that will help us along the way, that we need those encouragers in our life.
We need people who will help us to stay faithful for the Lord and we need to be those kind of people to others in the church family. The Bible teaches us that the word encourage has the idea of putting courage into someone.
And that’s the way I see Barnabas as he is going to the church at Antioch as these new believers are coming to Christ and they really don’t even have an Old Testament or a background that much in Judaism.
They’re Gentile believers, they’re just coming to Christ and they’re trying to leave their old lifestyle behind and they’re trying to follow a savior. They’re trying to give their life fully to Christ and Barnabas was that encourager helping them along the way.
And he connected them to a good teacher of the word of God Saul. We all need encouragement to keep growing. I wanna challenge you in your own life to think about who can I encourage this week? Who could I send a text message?
Who could I send a card? Who could I pick up the phone? Who could I have lunch with, breakfast with? Who could I encourage? Look, God has not just called us to sit and soak, but he certainly called us to serve.
And as we serve him, as we think about others, think about many times of how in my own life, how God had always had different people in my life to encourage me in the faith. It wasn’t that they were scholars or that they somehow had all this Bible knowledge, but they were just faithful people who loved God and who were always encouraging me to live for Jesus Christ.
Many of you know my story and how I came to Christ and I was invited to ride the bus to church, little church of about 50 people, and that was on a high special day. But anyways, our bus driver, he couldn’t even read.
He had to leave school early to take care of the family. And yet he was such an encouragement to me, my brother and sister. To this day, all of us are active in our churches, all of us married to Christian spouses, all of us having Christian families, and here God used this man greatly in our lives because he was an encourager.
I wanna challenge you to think about people not only in our own community of faith here at the Open Door Church, but others throughout the community, others throughout the region that you could encourage because God has called us to encourage people in their walk of faith.
What was the outcome of the discipleship in the church? What was the outcome of having a man like Barnabas who was encouraging others and a man like Saul who was teaching the Bible? What was the outcome?
Well, look at verse 26 at the end. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. They were first called Christians. Most likely it was the Romans who looked at their lives. They saw something distinct and different about them.
Be a Christian, the word literally means little. Christ, little Christ. How wonderful for others to recognize by your actions and your beliefs that you are very much like Jesus. That’s what it means to be a Christian.
So as these new converts are being discipled in the faith, they are becoming more like Jesus. I want to challenge you to A, be that person who is every day striving to be more like Christ, but also be that person that is striving to help others be like Christ.
And there’s a key component to that that is important because sometimes we let the perfect destroy the good or be the enemy of the good you might have heard. And that is that we must learn to accept people where they’re at in their faith and help them to take that next step.
As a pastor, I recognize that not all the people are going to be committed as some of the people. I gotta understand that I have a core in my church. I have people who are gonna be here a few times a year and people are gonna be here a few times a month.
Now, some of you, you’re here all the time. It’s so wonderful. But my goal was to get you to take that next step. Whatever that next step is, that God would challenge you to go to the next level in your faith and to encourage you to become more devoted followers of Christ, more committed in your walk, and helping you to become deeper and stronger in your faith so that as you are living your life in your homes,
as you’re living your life in the workplace, as you’re living your life in the community, that people notice that you’re different. Not in a weird way, but that you are like Jesus Christ. Now, I want you to notice the third pattern in the church.
We learned already, first of all, that they were active in evangelism, committed to discipleship, but the third pattern is that the church was devoted to ministry. They were devoted to ministry last week.
Pastor Seth shared with us a lot about ministry and service, and he did a great job. We appreciate his message, and I’m not here to reiterate it, but I just want to add a few more things to it, not that it needed anything added to it, but according to the passage, I have to stay true to the passage so I couldn’t really get around it.
But in verse 27 through 30, it says, in those days the prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them named Agabus stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar.
Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. The entire Roman world was experiencing a crippling famine.
Well, God is at work and He wants you to join Him. And part of what He is doing is He’s certainly working through the church. And He has a special plan for the church, so I’m grateful for that. And we are reminded that every one of us as believers are on mission.
Have you signed up for our newsletter? We have a Hope Worth Having newsletter, so we encourage you to go to our website, hopeworthhaving .com and you can just sign up for the newsletter and we can send it to your email.
We can physically send it to you however you want it, but sign up, keep up with what’s going on in the ministry and how God is working. And we thank you again for being a part. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post God’s Pattern for the Church 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Seek God’s Guidance Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 11:1-7.
But I’m here to assure you that God is effectively working in your circumstances and that God knows the future. He has a plan and he is carrying out his redemptive purpose in the life of your family through the circumstances of your life.
Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders and we are broadcasting from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. It’s hope worth having. It’s time to learn the Word of God and thank you for tuning in. And so we’re back in Acts chapter 11.
We’re learning how to seek God’s guidance in your life. We sometimes feel like the journey of faith may be so aimless, but truth is God has a plan. He has a purpose and we just need to be sensitive to his leadership in our life.
So let’s dive in Acts 11 and get to learning the Word. And so God’s Word is a lamp unto my feet, but it is a light unto my path. It not only reveals where I’m at with God, but it shows me my next steps.
It is a light to my path. It shows me where I need to go. Now hear this. God will never call you to do anything that contradicts his Word. Do you understand that? Many, many years ago when I pastored in Indiana, I know this is hard to believe, but it’s the honest God truth.
God is my witness that there was a man and woman who came into my office and they said, Pastor, God has told us that we should leave our spouses and marry each other. And I said, no, he hasn’t because it’s not in the Bible.
There’s nothing in the Bible that teaches in principle or in detail that teaches us that. What the Bible teaches us is total love. different. So sometimes you may be led astray by the world, the flesh, or maybe even the devil.
But I want you to be assured that how do I know God’s will? It aligns with the Word of God. That’s how I know. So when you are seeking God’s guidance, seek it through the confirmation of His Word. Second of all, you are to seek God’s confirmation or God’s guidance through the conviction of your spirit.
Now go back to verse 11. Here Peter, he is being called to make changes in his life that are deep -rooted in his faith of Judaism. Now the new covenant is upon him. It is the confirmation of God’s Word that helps him to make this change.
But in verse 11 and 12, we see the conviction of his own spirit. The Bible says at that very moment, three men stood before the house where I was. having been sent to me from Caesarea, then the Spirit told me to go with them, doubting nothing, moreover, these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house.
The Spirit of God had convicted the heart and the Spirit of the Apostle Peter that this is what he is supposed to do, that this is what God was calling him to do. And friends, I want you to understand something that the Spirit of God lives in all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Spirit of God, just like he pointed Peter into the direction that he wanted him to make and the change and the person that he wanted him to go see, that God works in his Spirit through you. We are led by the Spirit of God every day.
We must get up every day and ask the Lord to lead us and to guide us through his Spirit. We are not to be led of the flesh, we are not to be led by the world or the philosophy of the world, but we are to be led of the Spirit of God.
You see, what Peter is pointing out is that the providence of God in this situation was being unfolded before him and the Spirit was leading him to go to this man’s house, share the gospel and how wondrous was it that this man got saved, his whole family got saved, this man gets baptized, his whole family gets baptized, the Spirit of God had convicted him that this is what he needs to do and there are times that the Spirit leads you to talk to someone,
the Spirit leads you to text someone, the Spirit leads you to call someone, the Spirit leads you to send a call. It’s hard to someone, to reach out to someone, to minister to someone, to just be a blessing to someone, and when the Spirit of God is leading you, you know that you are following the will of God in your life.
Now you might wonder, how do I know when the Spirit is leading me? How do I know when the Spirit is leading me? Well, let me give you a few things that’ll help you understand the leadership of the Spirit.
First of all, is prayer. Prayer will always help you to sync up with the Spirit. When I take time to just shoot arrows of prayer to God, Lord, are you leading me? Is your Spirit telling me to do this?
Are you telling me not to do this? Some of you have been prompted to get out of your bed in the middle of the night, and to pray for your children and your grandchildren. It’s the Spirit of God that is moving you.
And you don’t know, and you may never know until you get to heaven all that the power of that prayer did for your children and your grandchildren and how it may have protected them from a very difficult situation from the attacks of the devil or the attacks of this world upon their lives.
But I assure you this, that as we are praying, we are gonna be more sensitive to the Spirit of God. The second key word to knowing the leadership of the Spirit is peace. You see, there is a peace that comes from God.
The Bible tells us that He gives us a peace that passes all understanding, may not make sense to the world, may not even make sense to our own understanding. Remember in our scripture reading that we learned in Proverbs three that we’re not to lean on our own understanding, but we’re to acknowledge Him in all of our ways.
One of the ways that I acknowledge Him is I seek Him in prayer and He gives me His peace in my heart to know, listen to what the prophet Isaiah said. He said, you will keep Him in perfect peace. Whose mind is stayed or focused on you because He trusts in you.
You see, I want you to know that I can know the leadership of the Spirit in my life through the peace that God gives me. That as I am praying, I am seeing God at work and I recognize that He fills my heart with His peace.
And so I reach out, I minister, I walk up to that stranger and I share the gospel of Christ or I administer to whatever their particular need is. This is the work of God in your life. Church, we have to be more sensitive.
We have to recognize that God is always at work. He is not only at work in me and through me, but He is at work around me. And He wants to use you like He used Peter to help others to know Christ. Have you ever thought about that?
What if Peter would have said, you know what God, I’m not doing that. I don’t know Cornelius. I’m not going there. I’m gonna just stay at home where it’s… more comfortable. I’m just gonna do my own thing and I’m gonna let Cornelius do his thing.
But no, he was led of the spirit. The spirit told him to go and he went. He went. Friends, I want you to know that you can be sensitive to the spirit and you can be led of the spirit by prayer, by peace, and let me give you the third one by God’s principles or God’s Word.
Now again, the spirit will never lead you in contradiction to the Word of God. The spirit will lead you through the Word of God. The Word of God and the spirit work simultaneously together in your life.
That as you’re reading the Word of God, He is prompting you. He is convicting you. He is challenging you to get out of your comfort zone. He is calling you to a particular task. He is calling you to a particular cause.
He is calling you to a particular mission. And so we must be sensitive to these principles in God’s word that are instructing us and leading us and even convicting our own spirit that we should do this.
I promise you that every day of your life, God wants you to make an impact upon someone. He wants you to make an impact upon someone. Some of you would like to make impact upon people that you don’t even know, but I would recommend you start with the people you do know.
God wants you to influence the people that you know, and then he’ll use you in a greater way as you are faithful and saying, Lord, how can I be a blessing to my children? How can I be a blessing to my grandchildren?
How can I be a blessing to my spouse? How could I be a blessing to my church family? How can I be a blessing to the people that are already all around me? Every day, help me, Lord, to respond in grace and to be led of the spirit of God in ministering to people.
As I’m seeking God’s guidance, I not only want him to guide me and confirm to me his will through his word, but I want him to convict me in my spirit. Now, the leadership of the spirit is a unique thing that we must understand.
Sometimes as believers, we don’t know, is this the flesh, is it the devil, is it the world, is it the spirit? Keep in mind this, as you are trying to discern the leadership of the spirit, that the devil and the world and the flesh are always condemning you, but the spirit of God is always encouraging and building you and calling you to a greater work.
Many times I meet with, believers who feel very convicted in their life. Perhaps maybe about unresolved sin in their hearts, maybe unresolved anger, and there is some bitterness in their life, and there are struggles in their hearts about these things.
And they say to me, Pastor, is this God speaking to me? Or is this the world? Listen, the devil condemns you. The devil says you’re a loser. The devil says you don’t have a relationship with God. The devil tries to tell you that you’re never going to amount to anything.
But let me tell you what the Spirit says. The Spirit says you’re more than a conqueror. The Spirit says that you are led in triumph with God Almighty. The Spirit says that Jesus Christ went to the cross, and if you confess your sins and you bring it to God, and if you’re honest with Him and humble before Him, He’ll take that sin and He’ll cast it as far as the east is from the west to be remembered no more.
The Spirit tells you that you have a new creation, a brand new start in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the work of the Spirit. It is not the work of the devil. And so I want you to listen what you’re hearing.
I want you to discern what you’re hearing and that’s how you’ll know whether you are being led of the Spirit or you’re being led of the devil or the world. Now the third way that we seek God’s guidance is not only through His word and through the Spirit, but I want you to see through the circumstances of your own decision.
In verses 13 through 17, here what we see is an amazing unfolding that these circumstances seem to take place in the life of Peter that he cannot fully explain. But he says in verse 13, he told us how he had seen an angel standing in the house who had said to him, send men to Joppa and call for Simon whose surname is Peter.
Now while Peter is receiving a vision, you remember in chapter 10 that Cornelius was receiving a vision and God was bringing the saint and the sinner together that the sinner might find Christ. God was working providentially in the life of Cornelius and he was working providentially in the life of Peter.
It’s no accident that your path is crossing people who are hurting. It’s no accident that God is putting people into your life that are struggling. You might feel like hey man, this is too much drama.
I can’t handle all this mess that people are in, but I’m here to tell you that God is bringing about people in your path so that you can minister to them and make a difference in their life. How wonderful is that?
A major theme in this passage of scripture and even through the whole book of Acts is God’s role in directing Cornelius into the path. of Peter and this became a historic encounter. It would be the gateway that would lead the church to leave behind Judaism and all of its trappings that had been holding back the church of reaching the world with the gospel.
It would not only be historic but it would be transformative for the life of Cornelius and it would be transformative for the life of Peter and it would be transformative for the life of the church because from this moment on as we are studying the book of Acts we are gonna see the church propel into the uttermost parts of the earth and even through the life of the Apostle Paul as they will share the gospel to hundreds and thousands of people who now are in heaven because of this one moment.
Have you ever considered how historic the moment was? when God brought a soul winner into your life. How profound it was the moment that someone shared the gospel with you and how that has had a ripple effect upon your family, not just your life, but the life of other people.
I think about that often, about that pastor in Oklahoma who went in for coffee every morning at a gas station where my mother worked and how he would get a cup of coffee and every time he paid for that coffee, I’m not even sure the coffee was good.
But he invited my mother to come to church and she started out resistant, but she said, you know, I got these three kids that are driving me crazy. He said, man, I got a bus that’ll pick them up. And on that day, the first time my brother and sister and I ever heard about Jesus, we didn’t even know about God, gospel, church, Jesus, nothing.
But somehow in the providence of God, he brought us to that church and put us on the front row. But here I was on the front row and I remember it was this side of the church, church, little small church, wasn’t even 50 people there that Sunday.
But in the providence of God, somebody in the church paid for a bus, somebody paid to have gas put in it and somebody got up and said, let’s have this bus ready. And on that day, the preacher preached on Jesus and that day, three children walked forward and received Christ as their savior.
I told you church last summer that my wife and I were able to visit my mother in Oklahoma and in the living room, she received Jesus Christ as her savior. I told you, church, yes, go ahead, amen. I told you, church, and I’m not, I know that the things don’t always work out like this, but I’m just telling you how it is profound.
That my sister is married to a wonderful man who loves Jesus, her children love Christ, my brother is married to a wonderful lady who loves Jesus Christ, and their children love Christ, they’re all active in their church, they’re all active.
When I was talking to my mother about being baptized, she said, I’m not sure about that, Mike, because she’s afraid of water and she’s having some physical health problems. I said, well, mom, the sprinkler’s outside in the front yard, maybe we could just run you right through the sprinkler in a wheelchair.
I said, we just can’t let the church know this. We didn’t do it that way, don’t worry. But I just want you to know, I think about God was working in the heart of a preacher. He was working in the heart of my mother.
It brought about our salvation and that ripple effect today. What I’m trying to say to you is this, don’t ever look at any person crossing your path. Don’t ever look at your circumstances as something as being an accident.
Some of you might feel like that you are just hanging in there by faith or that you are hanging by luck, good or bad, perhaps more bad than good. But I’m here to assure you that God is effectively working in your circumstances and that God knows the future.
He has a plan and he is carrying out his redemptive purpose in the life of your family through the circumstances of your life. That your circumstances are not by chance or accident, but God is sovereignly bringing things together.
This is what Peter is sharing with the church in verses 13 through 17. He is saying, man, look at verse 17 at the end, who was I that I could withstand God? Who am I that I could withstand God? Who are we church that we can withstand what God is doing and where he is working and what he is up to.
It is no accident that people cross your path for he has a purpose that may have significance beyond the moment and be historical in the life of the church. We think about a young man that perhaps you have heard about many.
His name was D .L. Moody. D .L. Moody was a young boy who walked into a shoe store. That shoe store owner was a sole winner and he shared Christ with D .L. Moody. D .L. Moody got saved and would grow up to become one of the great evangelists of the world.
The Bible declares that God can use any person and he can use them in any way and D .L. Moody was very uneducated. He never went to Bible college, never went to seminary, but he was a man that God literally used.
Historians say that D .L. Moody metaphorically took England in one hand and America in the other and he shook them for God. In his ministry, there was a young man named Mordecai Hamm who came to Christ at one of D .L.
Moody’s evangelistic crusades. Mordecai Hamm, again, another young man, very uneducated, but he would grow up to be an evangelist for God. and he would crisscross America, more particularly the South, and he would preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Mordecai Ham held an evangelistic crusade in Charlotte, North Carolina. There was a young boy whose name was Billy Graham, who would come to Christ at that meeting and crusade in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Billy Graham would come to know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. And Billy Graham would become one of the world -renowned evangelists preaching the gospel, not just in America and England, but through all the world, literally every continent, every country telling people about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Billy Graham would have a son. His name would be Franklin Graham. Franklin Graham would grow up hostile to the gospel. He would be rebellious to the gospel. His mother prayed night and day for him. She would not give up on Franklin Graham.
Franklin Graham would finally come to Christ, surrender his life to God. He would surrender to serve God in whatever capacity that he could. And he started a group called the Samaritan Purse. And you and I know today that the Samaritan Purse puts out millions of Christmas shoeboxes around the world.
It was a historic moment of circumstances that would lead a little boy named D .L. Moody into a shoe store that would lead to his conversion, that would lead to Mordecai’s conversion, that would lead to Billy Graham’s conversion, that would lead to Franklin Graham’s conversion, that would lead to millions of people around the world being saved.
God is working through your circumstances. Don’t you ever think that any moment or any person is in sin? significant in your life. Finally, we seek His guidance through the Council of Godly Friends. We come back to verse 18 of chapter 11.
When they heard these things, they became silent. They glorified God. Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life. This is how the people responded to Peter when they heard this story.
We back up to verse one of chapter 11. Remember that He went, the Judea heard that the Gentiles had received the Word. Peter came to Jerusalem, and those of the circumcision contented with Him. They argued with Him.
Who were these people of the circumcision? They’re holding on to Judaism. They’re loyal to the old covenant. They wanna make sure that everything is just as it ought to be. And here is their response to Peter in verse three.
You went into uncircumcised men and you ate with them. What are you doing, my friend? It would be those same people who by the time we get to verse 18 that they would glorify God and they would counsel Peter that God is granted to the Gentiles repentance.
We back up to verse 12, Peter recounting the story of this amazing circumstance of how the Spirit told him to go and not to doubt that there were six brethren who accompanied him. There were six friends who were of the faith and they entered into the man’s house.
He goes on to explain how these men would help him and that they would give him counsel. I want you to understand the advice of our close friends and family members, those in the church family, those who love Christ, God is using them to help guide you in his will.
The book of Proverbs says without counsel plans go awry but in the multitude of counselors they are established. When you and I are trying to seek the will of God, the people that God puts around us that love God, the people that are committed to the cause of Christ, we should seek the counsel of wise people.
Proverbs 1 .5 says, a wise man will hear and will increase in learning and a man of understanding will attain unto wise counsel how sad it is that sometimes God’s people are the most unteachable people.
How sad it is that sometimes we think we figured it all out and we know it all and we won’t listen to the people that God puts in our path. God is putting godly people in your life. Sometimes they’re a warning sign.
Don’t go down that way. The bridge is out. Sometimes they are good people who are here to encourage you. There are three types of people you need in your life. Write this down and I’ll be done real quickly.
I promise you but you need three types of people and if you haven’t found them… Start looking, number one, you need an Apostle Paul, you need a mentor, you need a mentor in your life. You need someone that you can counsel.
I recommend that you have at least five of them. When I was a young pastor in Indiana, I had a pastor friend tell me, Mike, find five pastors to mentor you. You need at least one, don’t be afraid to have two.
You need mentors in your life. You need to pursue them, you need to ask them if they would be a mentor in your life. You need to ask them, could you bring anything to them and they would counsel you to make good decisions.
Number two, you need a Barnabas in your life. You need an encourager in your life. You need people in your life who are positive, they’re refreshing, they’re renewing. You know, there are some people in our lives, they drain us, don’t they?
Every time we’re around them, they find fault, there’s a speck on the wall, they’re constantly critiquing us, they’re always doubting everything about us and they don’t believe in us. But you need a Barnabas in your life.
Paul was a man who was new to the faith and he had Barnabas who encouraged him and he had Barnabas who stood up for him to the church that his conversion was legitimate. And there’s much to be said about Barnabas but you need encouragers in your life.
People who will renew and refresh you. But thirdly, you need a Timothy in your life. You need a mentee. Who are you pouring your life into? Who are you encouraging? Perhaps one of the greatest things I enjoy is helping younger pastors, helping young men who want to serve Christ.
I love pouring my life into young people who want to serve God in any capacity. When I see a young person that wants to serve the Lord, I don’t care who they are, where they are, what their situation is, I wanna do everything I can to help them to be faithful to the call that God has upon their life.
And are you like that? Are you willing to be a blessing to someone? Are you willing to find ways to help this person? You see, there was a time, there was somebody who took a risk on Pastor Mike. There was somebody, there was a pastor who said, you know, I don’t know about this guy, but hey, I’ll let him come on staff, we’ll get it a try.
There was somebody who said, you know what? I’m gonna drive Pastor Mike all the way from Oklahoma all the way to North Carolina, 17 years old. My mother was freaking out, but here I am to Bible college, but it was my pastor who did that.
Somebody took a risk on me and somebody took a risk on you. Somebody took you under your wing and said, let me show you the way. What I’m trying to say is that we all need these relationships in our life as we’re seeking God’s will.
And God has put special people in my life and he’s putting special people in your life. The key is, are we responsive? Are we gonna be like Peter and be responsive? Or are we gonna be like that crowd at the beginning of the church?
In verse 1, all they could do was see fault and criticize. Or we will just step back and say, Lord, what are you up to? And what are you doing where I can serve you? The Christian should never wonder or worry if God will guide them.
We know that he’s promised to lead us day by day and give us our daily bread. And so we don’t have to be filled with anxiety and questions. We can just come in confidence, believing, and trusting that God has a purpose.
And he’s guiding us each day. And so we encourage you to keep that in mind as we have shared with you today. We want to encourage you to grow in your faith. And one of the tools we have is our YouTube channel.
If you go to YouTube, type in Hope Worth Having. You’ll see that there are many interviews. There are many Bible lessons. There’s devotions. and a lot of resources that I think will be a blessing to you.
So check us out on Hope Worth Having in the YouTube channel. And I know you’ll be encouraged by that. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post How to Seek God’s Guidance Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Seek God’s Guidance Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 11:1-7.
Many of us are trying to figure out what are the next steps of my life? What is this new chapter in my life? How do I know what God’s will is? How do I know what direction to go? Friends, I want to encourage you to turn to the unchanging, unwavering, and true Word of God.
Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders and we welcome you to the Hopeworth Having radio program. Thank you for being with us and thank you for tuning in today and we’re excited to share God’s Word with you.
We’re gonna be in Acts chapter 11 today and we’re starting a new series on how to seek God’s guidance. So we’re looking forward to what the Bible has to teach us. So let’s get right into Acts chapter 11.
If you have your Bible, I want you to join me in the book of Acts chapter 11. Now I heard about a sign that was posted at a workplace and the sign read this, due to the heavy workload around here, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off until further notice.
I’m sure that you have felt like someone turned out the lights at the end of your tunnel. Our lives are seldom from point to point a nice straight lie. We find ourselves in many detours and we find ourselves in difficult situations and we wonder what really just happened.
Well, I have good news for you today and that is according to Romans chapter 8 that every one of us that love Jesus Christ, we are guided and we are led by our Lord and Savior Jesus. The Bible says in Romans 8 14 all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons or the children of God.
The Christian should never worry or even wonder if God is leading them. The key is for us to be surrendered to his leadership, to be submissive to his leadership. When we come to Acts chapter 11 verses 1 through 18, our main text this morning, we find the church, we find the Apostle Peter in a predicament and they are seeking God’s guidance on how to deal with this circumstance that they are in.
And this morning I want to speak to you on how to seek. God’s guidance in your life. So let me just give you a little bit of a background. When we come to chapter 11, Peter is giving a testimony to the church.
He is, if you will, giving an update to the church of what just took place in chapter 10. Those of you that have been with me, and we’ve been studying the book of Acts together, you remember in chapter 10 that Peter ended up on top of a house, and he had a vision, and God told him, do not call unclean what I have designated as clean.
This was profound to the Apostle Peter, because remember that he grew up as a young Jewish boy. He was taught in the very details of the law, not only in school, but in the synagogue, every aspect of his life.
He was told that we’re certain foods that are unclean, that he was not to eat those foods as a Jewish young boy. As he grew up in that, he was committed to that. It was a reflection of his devotion to God.
It was a commitment to his faith. You remember that Daniel was plucked out of his home. He was thrust into a secular environment, and as they were trying to change Daniel and his friends to embrace this new culture, this new philosophy, that they wanted Daniel to change his diet, and how he ate, and Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not eat the king’s meat, that he would not eat food that was unclean.
It was not that Daniel was some kind of a legalistic fanaticate who was out of step with reality, but rather, he was a young man like Peter who was devoted in his faith and did not want to disobey God in any aspect of the law.
When Peter received this vision in chapter 10, that he was not to designate anything unclaimed that was clain, anything that God had called clain, that he was also to stretch beyond his Jewish culture.
And he was to take the gospel to the Gentile world, that he was to associate with Gentiles, that he was to share Christ with the Gentiles, that he was to tell them about the good news that the gospel is not just for the Jewish nation and the Jewish culture, but it is for all who would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
This created a great dilemma for Peter, but out of obedience and submission to God, he did that very thing. He went to the home of a Gentile named Cornelius. This is a chapter 10 of Acts. And he shared Christ and Cornelius the Bible says was saved and his family was saved.
and they were all baptized. My friends, when Peter had engaged in leading this Gentile to Christ and baptizing this Gentile and his whole family, the word began to spread because you know how church gossip can go, amen?
I mean they probably broke out their cell phones texting each other. Did you hear what the Apostle Peter did? Did you hear that he associated with the Gentiles? Did you hear what was going on? And friends, things were really happening.
The early church had been a little bit resistant to the gospel going out to the ends of the earth. They were okay with Jesus saying that we were to be witnesses for him in Jerusalem. But Samaria and to the uttermost of the earth, well that was a little bit difficult when you study the book of acts.
As you start watching, you see that there’s still this strong connection of these believers, these Jewish believers, still connected to the old covenant, still connected to the Jewish traditions, still involved into the Jewish mindset.
We see this in chapter 8, we see it in chapter 9, we see it in chapter 10. I want you to go back to chapter 10 for a second just so you can capture what I’m trying to say in verse 14 of chapter 10. The Bible says, but Peter said, not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean.
And a voice spoke to him again the second time what God has cleansed. You must not call common. This was the dilemma that was upon Peter. The early church was loyal to Judaism. Peter was loyal to Judaism.
because it was an expression of his devotion to God. But God was leading the church to leave behind Judaism, to understand that all that the law required was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And he was step by step leading the people of God away from Judaism and into Christianity, the new covenant, he was leading them to reach out beyond the regions of Judaism and Israel.
And instead of them abstaining from foods, God was communicating to Peter and the church that the Gentiles could be welcomed into the community of faith, and that all foods and all people would be welcomed if God had blessed and called.
This was a new mindset for you and I today. We wonder what’s the problem, but I want you to see the context so you can get what’s happening in chapter 11. I want you to pick up with me in verse 1. Now the apostles and brethrens who were in Judea, this is the church, heard that the Gentiles had also received the Word of God.
And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contented with him, they argued with him, saying, you went into the uncircumcised men and you ate with them. But Peter explained it to them in order from the beginning, saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying and in a trance I saw a vision and object descending like a great sheet let down from heaven by four corners and it came to me when I observed it intently and considered I saw four -footed animals of the earth,
wild beasts creeping things and birds of the air and I heard a voice saying to me rise Peter kill and eat but I said not so Lord for nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth but the voice answered me again from heaven what God has cleansed you must not call common.
Now this was done three times and all were drawn up again into heaven at that very moment three men stood before the house where I was having been sent to me from Caesarea then the spirit told me to go with them doubting nothing moreover these six brethren accompanied me and we entered the man’s house and he told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house who said to him send men to Joppa and call for Simon whose surname is Peter who will tell you word by which you and all your household will be saved and as I began to speak the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us at the beginning that I remembered the word of the Lord how he said John indeed baptized with water but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit if therefore God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ who was I that I should I could withstand God when they heard these things they became silent they glorified God saying then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life this story that unfolds for us in Acts chapter 11 gives us four principles that helps us on how to seek God for guidance in our life and I want you to see that the first principle is that we see his guidance through the confirmation of God’s word.
Let’s go back to verse one, and again you see that in verse one, that the people heard that the Gentiles had received the word of God. Jump down to verse nine, the Bible says, but the voice answered me again from heaven, what God has cleansed, this is God’s word, from you, what God has cleansed, you must not call common.
Then jump down to verse 16, then I remembered the word of the Lord. How he said, John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. God was calling on Peter and the church to move beyond Judaism and to move into the new covenant to believe in the fulfillment of Jesus Christ.
It was a perplexing decision that was before Peter. It was a humongous shift in the life of the church in the early days in Jerusalem. And as they’re trying to figure out, is this the right thing to do?
Do we go this direction? We see that in the life of Peter and in the life of the church, that their understanding of what was God’s will for my life, what is God’s will for our congregation, what is God’s will for us as a people who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, they found confirmation.
Through God’s word, God’s word was the message that the apostles taught. It was the word that the Samaritans received. It was the message that the Gentiles received as Peter proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But friends, as you and I are trying to seek what is God’s will for my life, we must seek it through the confirmation of his word. We must open this Bible that we have been blessed with, a letter from God Almighty, and we must remember the words that he has spoken to us.
we must align our obedience to God and following his plan for our life in relation to his word. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 2 and verse 13, for this reason we also thank God without ceasing because when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.
Now many of us face decisions every day. Many of us deal with complexing situations and circumstances. Many of us are trying to understand how to deal with difficult people in our families or in our workspaces or perhaps even in our community.
Many of us are trying to figure out what are the next steps of my life? What is this new chapter in my life? How do I know what? God’s will is, how do I know what direction to go? Friends, I wanna encourage you to turn to the unchanging, unwavering and true word of God, to find confirmation from God in his word, because wisdom comes from the Lord.
The Bible teaches us in Proverbs two and verse six that the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. God speaks to his children through his word. Some of you may be wanting God to just rend the heavens and you want him to directly tell you, but God has given us his word.
And you can look to the Bible to understand what is God’s will for my life. How do I know what I should do? Come to the word of God and let him show you the path. The scripture says in Psalm 119, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Think about it, God’s word is a lamp to my feet. You know what that tells me? That God’s word helps me to know where I’m at, where I stand with him. Sometimes I don’t know where to go because I don’t know where I’m at, because I don’t know where I’m at spiritually with God.
I don’t know where I’m at in my obedience to God and what I need to do. And so we need to get into the word. The word is about revealing to us what we need to change, what we need to correct, what we need to commit to him, what we need to call upon him about.
And so God’s word is a lamp unto my feet, but it is a light unto my path. It not only reveals where I’m at with God, but it shows me my next steps. It is a light to my path. It shows me where I need to go.
Now hear this, God will never call you to do anything that contradicts his word. Do you understand that? Many many years ago when I pastored in Indiana, I know this is hard to believe, but it’s the honest God truth, God is my witness, that there was a man and woman who came into my office and they said, pastor, God has told us that we should leave our spouses and marry each other.
And I said, no he hasn’t, because it’s not in the Bible. There’s nothing in the Bible that teaches in principle or in detail that teaches us that. What the Bible teaches us is totally different. So sometimes you may be led astray by the world, the flesh, or maybe even the devil.
But I want you to be assured that how do I know God’s will? It aligns with the Word of God. That’s how I know. So, when you are seeking God’s guidance, seek it through the confirmation of His Word. Second of all.
You are to seek God’s confirmation, or God’s guidance through the conviction of your spirit. Now go back to verse 11. Here Peter, he is being called to make changes in his life that are deep rooted in his faith of Judaism.
Now the new covenant is upon him. It is the confirmation of God’s word that helps him to make this change. But in verse 11 and 12, we see the conviction of his own spirit. The Bible says at that very moment, three men stood before the house where I was, having been sent to me from Caesarea.
Then the spirit told me to go with them, doubting nothing, moreover, these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. The spirit of God had convicted the heart and the spirit of the apostle Peter that this is what he is supposed to do, that this is what God was calling him to do.
And friends, I want you to understand something that the spirit of God lives in all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the spirit of God, just like he pointed Peter into the direction that he wanted him to make, and the change in the person that he wanted him to go see, that God works in his spirit through you.
We are led by the spirit of God every day. We must get up every day and ask the Lord to lead us and to guide us through his spirit. We are not to be led of the flesh. We are not to be led by the world or the philosophy of the world.
But we are to be led of the spirit of God. You see, what Peter is pointing out is that the providence of God in this situation was being offered. unfolded before him, and the Spirit was leading him to go to this man’s house, share the gospel, and how wondrous was it that this man got saved, his whole family got saved, this man gets baptized, his whole family gets baptized, the Spirit of God had convicted him that this is what he needs to do,
and there are times that the Spirit leads you to talk to someone, the Spirit leads you to text someone, the Spirit leads you to call someone, the Spirit leads you to send a card to someone, to reach out to someone, to minister to someone, to just be a blessing to someone, and when the Spirit of God is leading you, you know that you are following the will of God in your life.
Now you might wonder, how do I know when the Spirit is leading me? How do I know? when the Spirit is leading me? Well, let me give you a few things that’ll help you understand the leadership of the Spirit.
First of all is prayer. Prayer will always help you to sync up with the Spirit. When I take time to just shoot arrows of prayer to God, Lord, are you leading me? Is your Spirit telling me to do this?
Are you telling me not to do this? Some of you have been prompted to get out of your bed in the middle of the night and to pray for your children and your grandchildren. It’s the Spirit of God that is moving you.
And you don’t know, and you may never know until you get to heaven all that the power of that prayer did for your children and your grandchildren and how it may have protected them from a very difficult situation from the attacks of the devil or the attacks of this world upon their lives.
But I assure you this, that as we are praying, we are gonna be more sensitive to the Spirit of God. The second key word to knowing the leadership of the Spirit is peace. You see, there is a peace that comes from God.
The Bible tells us that He gives us a peace that passes all understanding, may not make sense to the world, may not even make sense to our own understanding. Remember in our scripture reading that we learned in Proverbs 3 that we’re not to lean on our own understanding, but we’re to acknowledge Him in all of our ways.
One of the ways that I acknowledge Him is I seek Him in prayer, and He gives me His peace in my heart to know, listen to what the prophet Isaiah said. He said, you will keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed or focused on you because He trusts in you.
You see, I want you to know that I can know the leadership of the Spirit in my life through the peace that God gives me. That as I am praying, I am seeing God at work and I recognize that He fills my heart with His peace and so I reach out, I minister, I walk up to that stranger and I share the gospel of Christ or I.
and minister to whatever their particular need is. This is the work of God in your life. Church, we have to be more sensitive. We have to recognize that God is always at work. He is not only at work in me and through me, but he is at work around me.
And he wants to use you like he used Peter to help others to know Christ. Have you ever thought about that? What if Peter would have said, you know what, God, I’m not doing that. I don’t know Cornelius.
I’m not going there. I’m going to just stay at home where it’s more comfortable. I’m just going to do my own thing. And I’m going to let Cornelius do his thing. But no, he was led of the spirit. The spirit told him to go.
And he went, he went. Friends, I want you to know that you can be sensitive to the spirit and you can be led of the spirit by prayer, by peace. And let me give you the third one, by God’s principles, or God’s word.
Now again, the Spirit will never lead you in contradiction to the word of God. The Spirit will lead you through the word of God. The word of God and the Spirit work simultaneously together in your life.
That as you’re reading the word of God, He is prompting you, He is convicting you, He is challenging you to get out of your comfort zone. He is calling you to a particular task. He is calling you to a particular cause.
He is calling you to a particular mission. And so we must be sensitive to these principles in God’s word that are instructing us and leading us and even convicting our own spirit that we should do this.
I promise you that every day of your life, God wants you to make an impact upon someone. He wants you to make an impact upon someone. Some of you would like to make impact upon people that you don’t even know, but I would recommend you start with the people you do know.
God wants you to influence the people that you know, and then He’ll use you in a greater way as you are faithful and saying, Lord, how could I be a blessing to my children? How can I be a blessing to my grandchildren?
How could I be a blessing to my spouse? How could I be a blessing to my church family? How could I be a blessing to the people that are already all around me every day? Help me, Lord, to respond in grace and to be led of the Spirit of God in ministering to people.
As I’m seeking God’s guidance, I not only want Him to guide me and confirm to me His will through His word, but I want Him to convict me in my spirit. Now, the leadership of the Spirit is a unique thing that we must understand, sometimes as believers.
we don’t know is this the flesh, is it the devil, is it the world, is it the spirit. Keep in mind this as you are trying to discern the leadership of the spirit, that the devil and the world and the flesh are always condemning you, but the spirit of God is always encouraging and building you and calling you to a greater work.
Many times I meet with believers who feel very convicted in their life, perhaps maybe about unresolved sin in their hearts, maybe unresolved anger and there is some bitterness in their life and there are struggles in their hearts about these things.
And they say to me, pastor, is this God speaking to me or is this the world? Listen, the devil condemns you. The devil says you’re a loser. The devil says you don’t have a relationship with God. The devil tries to tell you that you’re never gonna amount to anything.
But let me tell you what the Spirit says. The Spirit says you’re more than a conqueror. The Spirit says that you are led in triumph with God Almighty. The Spirit says that Jesus Christ went to the cross and if you confess your sins and you bring it to God and if you’re honest with him and humble before him, he’ll take that sin and he’ll cast it as far as the east is from the west to be remembered no more.
The Spirit tells you that you have a new creation, a brand new start in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the work of the Spirit. It is not the work of the devil. And so I want you to listen what you’re hearing.
I want you to discern what you’re hearing and that’s how you’ll know whether you are being led of the Spirit or you’re being led of the devil or the world. Now the third way that we seek God’s guidance is not only through his word and through the Spirit, but I want you to see through the circumstances of your own decision.
In verses 13 through 17, here what we see is an amazing unfolding that these circumstances seem to take place in the life of Peter that he cannot fully explain. But he says in verse 13, he told us how he had seen an angel standing in the house who had said to him, send men to Joppa and call for Simon whose surname is Peter.
Now while Peter is receiving a vision, you remember in chapter 10 that Cornelius was receiving a vision. And God was bringing the saint and the sinner together that the sinner might find Christ. God was working providentially in the life of Cornelius and he was working providentially in the life of Peter.
It’s no accident that your path is crossing people who are hurting. It’s no accident that God is putting people into your life that are struggling. You might feel like, hey man, this is too much drama.
I can’t handle all this mess that people are in, but I’m here to tell you that God is bringing about people in your path so that you can minister to them and make a difference in their life. Well, the good news is that God does guide his people.
Sometimes we may feel like we’re not sure what to do, which direction to go, what decision to make, but I want you to know that God is leading his people and he shares through the life of Peter in Acts chapter 11 some of the ways that he does that.
And I want to encourage you to follow these principles on how to seek God’s will. And I think one of those ways is through the word of God. And so as you are under the word, in the word, saturated by the word, you’re going to have more wisdom.
You’re going to have the mind of Christ and you’re going to have the understanding of God’s will. So make that effort to be empowered in the word of God. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
The post How to Seek God’s Guidance Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to be Free From Prejudice Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 10:1-48.
The gospel is not just for Americans. The gospel is not just for your family. The gospel is to go to whoever and he will save whoever believes in him and calls upon his name. The forgiveness of sins will be upon their life.
This is Hope Worth Having and I am your host Pastor Mike Sanders and we are looking forward to sharing the hope that is only found in Jesus Christ with you through our radio program and today we’re going to be right back in Acts chapter 10 and we’re continuing that study on how to be free from prejudice.
Just a reminder that the Bible teaches us that the ground is level at the foot of the cross and the Bible invites all to come, repent and believe in Christ. So let’s learn more about that as we study together.
There is a God who is watching and he hears your prayers. He is near and dear to the broken heart of the scripture says we see that Peter was a man of prayer. We see that he was seeking divine guidance.
We see that God was using prayer to change Peter. Let me tell you something about prayer is that so many of us we look at prayer and we’re like hey God we want to tell you what’s going on as if God didn’t know.
We want to say hey God we just want to make sure that you know what is happening but I assure you that we have a God who knows all things but prayer is not so much for you to inform God as much as it is for God to inform you because prayer is that moment when our hearts are humbled and surrendered before an almighty God and where God is aligning our hearts with his heart where God is changing us to be more compassionate and he is changing us to be more committed and devoted.
it to his cause and his purpose in the world. What was God doing in the moment of prayer and the life of Peter? He was changing Peter because Peter was committed to the old covenant. Remember we study the book of Acts and the Bible says at the early beginning of the book of Acts that they were daily going to the temple.
What’s that tell me? That tells me that the early church, that many of those Jewish believers were still, they were still stuck in that regiment of the Old Testament of going to the temple daily. They were still stuck in some of those traditions of the old covenant.
It’s not till we get to Acts 15 that the church begins to break away from some of these traditions that were being forced upon them through the Jewish faith. And so Peter is on the housetop. He is praying and God is trying to help him to see that God is going to…
make a change. And God is going to change Peter to accomplish that. How does God prepare us through circumstances? He prepares us through circumstances. We see that Cornelius as well as Peter were going through some unique circumstances.
Peter was very particular. He was just hungry. He was just hungry. And what does God do? He uses that hunger and to cast a vision upon Peter so that he would see that all that God has created is claimed.
The Jewish people under the old covenant, they could only eat certain foods and they could only partake of certain animals. And so Peter being that good young Jewish man, he was not about to violate the old testament or the old covenant.
But the Bible tells us in verse 15 that God said to Peter, what God has planned, you must not call common. The centurion Cornelius, he was a man who was seeking God and God was using even his affluence and his prestige and his accomplishments.
He was showing him that none of these things never satisfy. These things don’t fulfill the heart. These are the things that may be popular in the world, but they do not change the heart. They do not fulfill you.
There’s always that vacuum in the heart of someone who is looking and searching and they try everything that the world has to offer that they might be fulfilled only to find. They’re at a dead end road.
Cornelius was seeking God, looking for answers. God uses circumstances in all of our life. That’s why I’m telling you, you say, why is God doing this? Why is God doing that? It may be that God is preparing your heart that you might share with someone who doesn’t know Christ and he is preparing their heart so that they’ll look to him.
So many people look to their wealth. They look to the military might of a nation or they look to the political favoritism of a government. And what they find is that none of those things will answer what the great need in their heart is.
The only answer to the heart of sin is Jesus Christ, who saves us from our sins. Yeah, church. Now you need to wake up, church. I know you’re struggling. It’s Sunday morning, but God is working. God often allows circumstances into our life, hear me, to address our weaknesses.
God allowed something in Peter’s life to help him see his bias, to change his prejudice that he had to those who were beyond Judaism and of the ethnicity of the Jews. I also wanna tell you that God changes us and prepares us through his word.
We said through prayer, through circumstances, through his word, it took Peter three visions from God and a word. from the Spirit of God, before he finally got the message. But he finally got it. God speaks to us, God sent a messenger, an angel to Cornelius.
He sent the angel with his word to Cornelius on what to do and how to meet with Peter and to find this true salvation. God used his word. He usually has a messenger who brings his word into your life.
Peter brought the message of the gospel to Cornelius who was in need of salvation and God will speak into our lives through his word and God will open his truth to us and God will use his messengers to help share his wonderful message with us so that God can prepare us to do what he has called us to do.
But the question is, how many times does God have to speak to you before you will respond to him? How many times does God have to bring a tragedy in your life before you will finally surrender your heart to God and do what he has called you to do?
Does God have to knock you flat on your back, put you in the hospital where you can only look up before you will finally say, Lord, I am surrendered to you? Or are you walking with the Lord and you hear his sweet gentle voice and you know when he’s speaking into your heart?
Does God have to break you down before you’ll finally obey and you’ll finally follow what his good work of preparation is in your heart? We said to you at the outset that if we’re gonna be free from prejudice, we must believe God’s sovereign preparation in our own hearts and in the hearts of others.
But number two, we must demonstrate a submissive will. I want you to come to verse 21. The Bible says Peter went down to the men who had been sent to him from Cornelius and said, yes, I am he whom you seek.
For what reason have you come? And they said, Cornelius, Centurion, a just man, one who fears God, and has a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews, was divinely instructed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and to hear words from you.
Then he invited them in. This is Peter. He lodged with them. On the next day, Peter went away with them, and some brethren from Joppa accompanied him. And the following day, they entered Caesarea. Now Cornelius was waiting for them and called together his relatives and close friends.
As Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him. He fell down at his feet, and he worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up and saying, stand up, I myself also am a man. And as he talked with him, he went in and found many who had come together.
Then he said to them, and I want you to see this, you know how unlawful. It is for a Jewish man to keep company with or to go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.
You see, when Peter finally heard the vision and he finally responded, he was submissive to God’s will for his life. The Lord is looking for surrendered hearts. He’s not looking for better methods and stronger people.
He’s looking for hearts that are fully surrendered. God works through people and God will work through your life when you are surrendered to the will of God. When you say, Lord, okay, I don’t understand it, but this is what you’ve called me to do.
Okay, God, you want me to step out and do this. Now, there’s two key things for me to have a consistent, surrendered heart to God. I want you to write these two words down. Number one is obedience. You must be willing to obey God.
You must be willing to obey God even when it doesn’t make sense. You know, sometimes the commands of God, why they seem odd or maybe they seem different. But let me tell you how the economy of God works.
The economy of God is not like the world and the world says, I believe it when I see it. But God says, believe it and you will see it. Do you understand that? And sometimes what God says, like this Molly getting baptized, people say, well, I don’t understand why we got to do that, pastor.
Let me tell you why, because if you say you’re a believer and you’re not willing to obey Jesus when he tells us to get baptized, what makes you think he can trust you to obey him down the road when he needs you to do A, B, or C for him.
Obedience is your first step. Obedience and baptism is your first step. of spiritual maturity and a surrendered heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s why all through our journey, we are called to obey God.
Remember Abraham? Remember that God said Abraham, pack up everything and take your family and get out. And I’ll tell you where to go later. Now again, most of us, we would want to budget. We wouldn’t want to know our destination.
We would want to know details and we’d be texting God and we’d be saying, now God, I need to know this and I’d need to know that. But you know what God wants is obedience. He wants obedience. The second thing to help me have a surrendered, sustained, surrendered heart is faith.
It is faith, I want you to understand something. The scriptures teach us in Hebrews 11 six, without faith it’s impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
It is by faith that you please God. You say, my heart is submissive and surrendered, Pastor Mike. Well, then I say to you, walk by faith. The Bible does not say the just shall live by explanation. The just shall live by faith.
Do you trust God? The Bible teaches us in Proverbs three, verse five and six that we’re to trust the Lord with all of our heart. Not half your heart, not a quarter of your heart, not three quarters of your heart, not even 99%, but trust the Lord with all your heart.
The Bible says, and acknowledge him in all your ways. And the Bible teaches us that he will direct our past. We are called to trust the Lord. We are called to follow him by faith. Now there are three ways in this generation that you and I can display obedience and faith as we’re reaching out to people.
Now listen, hang on to this. First of all, make sure that you show no hesitation of befriending people who are unlike you. You remember what Peter did? He opened the door, come on in. And he developed a friendship with these people.
And he told them up front, you know the Old Testament tells me that I’m not supposed to be with you. I’m not to hang out with you because you people are unclean. But I wanna tell you that God in the new covenant through the power of the cross and the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that he has now launched a new covenant, that Christ has fulfilled all that was required and necessary in the old covenant.
And we live in a new covenant. And in that new covenant, we are called to love God and we are called to love people. And even people, are you with me? That are unlike us. I know you have your people that you hang with.
But have you ever tried to love people that are unlike you? Did you know that there are people out there? They’re not like me, and they’re not like you, but they need Jesus Christ. And unless you build a friendship with them, I’m telling you, they may never hear the gospel.
You say, Pastor, this is Franklin County. People will always even indirectly hear the gospel. How about that testimony we heard from a young lady who lived down in Green Castle before COVID? She testified to our church that she grew up in Green Castle, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and no one ever told her the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So she went to Penn State University, and there were Bible studies on that campus, and somebody invited her to the Bible study, and she heard the gospel for the first time. She was so overwhelmed, she broke down in tears and gave her life to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Don’t assume, don’t assume, that people have heard. But we’re doing every available means to reach every available person, but I rest assure to you that you still have a responsibility to make sure that every person that you come in contact has heard the gospel, and even if they’re not like you.
Let me give you a second way to live out this submissive will through faith and obedience, that is to always show hospitality towards everyone, and opening your home to people and your lives to people.
Hospitality, people say, Mike, why are you so friendly? It’s not that I always want to be friendly, but every time I see someone I don’t know, I think about, are they saved? They need Jesus. Maybe they are saved and they just need encouragement.
I was yesterday at a place and this guy, he said, Pastor Mike, I said, hey, I said, do I know you? He said, no, but I know you. I listen to you on the radio. And I got to talk to him and be an encouragement to him.
He was already saved, trusted Christ. But listen, I could be isolated and I could push people out of my life and I could just be like, I’m not gonna talk to anybody. And I could be that person that says, hey, I don’t need to talk to anybody, but you know what, friends?
God wants you to be hospitable to the young church. He wants you to be a hospital to the sinner. He wants you to be hospitable to people in your lives that he puts in your past because God has called you to be a blessing.
You say, why does God so good to me? Why has God blessed me with so much? Why has he taken care of me? I’ll tell you, because you are blessed to be a blessing. If you’re unwilling to be the conduit of his blessing, he’ll take the blessings away and give it to somebody else, Jerry, who wants to be a blessing, amen.
Brother, I tell you the third thing is show humility before all people. Show humility before all people regardless of their skin color, their income, their education, whatever walk of life, what they’ve done or haven’t done, show humility.
You know how you treat others says a lot about you. Do you agree with that? Do you remember that we read in the text here? Do you remember that when Cornelius finally came into the presence of Peter that he bowed down and he began to worship him?
Verse 26, Peter lifted him up. He said, get up, man. Stand up. I myself also am a man. Now Peter is an apostle. Peter is a Jew. His culture would look down upon Gentiles and he could have just bought in and ate up the human worship.
But you know what? Peter showed humility and said, buddy, I’m just like you. ground is level at the foot of the cross. Listen to me, there are people who are hurting, who are hopeless, who are struggling.
You wanna know how to connect with them? Be humble, be humble. Don’t look down on people. Don’t judge people. Don’t say, listen, I’m the guy that is gonna tell you what you did wrong. But I want you to be humble and accept people where they’re at.
Jesus, listen, he hung out with sinners. Jesus found himself in places and with people that he was accused of being a wine bibber, which means simply he was a drunkard. He was always partying. He was put down because he was around prostitutes.
And I’m just trying to say to you is this, that whoever God puts in your path, don’t look down upon him. Jesus was always reaching out. Jesus was always connecting with people. Why? Because every person, I don’t care what their lifestyle is.
I don’t care what their confusion about their gender is. I don’t care what they have done or have not done that every person is created in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore they are worthy of kindness, care and love.
You say, well, they’re not out of my political stripe, it doesn’t matter. Jesus loves them, amen. You mean Jesus would go to the cross and die for somebody who’s not the same political party as me? Do you understand how we have biases, church?
Do you understand how we can not just be prejudice and maybe somebody’s skin color, but somebody’s political background or somebody’s ethnicity? We have to watch out for that. And so I’m challenging you to be a humble person before God almighty.
Look, I want us to demonstrate. to submissive will to God. The third step in being free from prejudice is accepting God’s spiritual plan. In verse 34, I want you to jump down. The Bible says that Peter opened his mouth and he said, in truth I perceive that God shows no partiality.
But in every nation who ever fears him and works righteousness is accepted by him, the word which God sent to the children of Israel preaching peace throughout Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all that word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth of the Holy Spirit and with power who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him.
And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. whom they killed by hanging on a tree. Him God has raised up on the third day and showed him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before God, even to us who ate and drank with him after he arose from the dead.
He commanded us to preach to the people, to testify that it is he who has ordained by God to be judged and of the living and the dead. To him, all the prophets witness that through his name, whoever, underscore that in your Bible, whoever believes in him will receive remission or forgiveness of sin.
While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. I remind you of the context that Peter was in the home of Cornelius, and Cornelius had invited all his family and his friends to come.
Who knows how many were there? He probably lived in a nice house and he had it filled with people, and Peter went in there and he preached Jesus unto them. God has a spiritual plan, church. Peter accepted that spiritual plan.
Every one of us must accept this spiritual plan, and that spiritual plan involves that everyone should hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. You say, Pastor, why do you give to missions, and why do you get behind missionaries, and why do you try to encourage these young people to go where they’re called into other nations and to other ethnicities and people groups?
I’ll tell you why. Because God wants the nations to hear the gospel. The gospel is not just for Americans. The gospel is not just for your family. The gospel is not just for those who cut their teeth on the pew and grew up in the church.
The gospel is to go to whoever, and he will save whoever believes in him and calls upon his name the forgiveness of sin. will be upon their life.” The Bible says that the Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness but as long suffering to us were not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repent.
Did you know the proclamation of the gospel has a eschatological impact upon the world? What do you mean it has an impact upon the end times because Jesus said in Matthew 24 verse 14 when he was given the signs of the times and they said Jesus tell us what will be the signs of your coming.
He said to his disciples that this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a end is not coming until every person has heard. about Jesus. The end, the second coming of Christ. I’m not talking about the rapture.
The rapture is another event, but I’m telling you the coming of Christ, Jesus said that it would not happen until the entire world. Why do we give? It is not only that we give to missionaries because we have a burden and we love the lost people of the world.
We want to see them come to Christ no matter what their ethnicity is, no matter what their background is, their education might be, what their hurts and their hangups may be in this world. We want them to hear the gospel, but we want them to hear also because it brings faster the coming of Jesus Christ.
How many of you are ready for Jesus Christ to come? I hope that you are ready. My final point to you, and I know you’re super happy, and that is that if we are going to live prejudice -free, we have to pursue sweet fellowship with people outside of our comfort zone.
Jump down to verse 48 of chapter 10. The Bible says he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord, and then they asked him, referring to, they asked Peter to stay a few days. Now Peter could have rejected this request.
He didn’t. He stayed with them. The proof of your conversion is your desire to fellowship with God’s people no matter where you go. I remember when I went to France, Bayou, France, and I couldn’t speak the language, and I was kind of caught off guard because, you know, Pete tried to prepare me and he said they’re gonna want to give you a kiss on the cheek there, Pastor Mike.
And you know I’m not a hugger. I don’t want you hugging me. I want you to stay out of my bubble, okay? If some of you are in conversation with me and you see me backing up, it’s because I think you’re too close to my bubble.
I’m just giving you a little inside of Mike. But man, not only did they they kiss you on your cheek but they kiss you on the other cheek and then they do it twice. And so I was a mess. But I tell you it was such sweet fellowship to be with God’s people in another land, in another country and another language that I could not even understand.
But the one thing that we had in common was the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God verified to us that we were brothers and sisters in Christ and it was just wonderful to be with the people and even though I could not understand that 90% of what they were saying, I was enjoying all the food that they were given.
And they love for you to eat and those people, they start eating dinner at eight o ‘clock at night and they just eat, it’s wonderful. You say how do the French people stay so skinny? They walk everywhere and perhaps we should pick up this new practice because gas prices are so high, we should walk more, amen?
But what I want to simply say to you is this. Ephesians 2, 19 and 20 reminds us, now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostle and prophets, Jesus Christ himself, being the chief cornerstone.
Church, we are not strangers among each other, whether it’s in this local fellowship, in the community, or it is in other lands. We are not strangers because of Jesus Christ. We are brothers and sisters in the family of God, and we must make every effort to have sweet fellowship, even if it’s outside of our comfort zone.
I know you got your people, and I know you’ve got your walls, and I know you got your fences, and you only wanna be with those people, but let me tell you something. God’s calling you to step out of your comfort zone.
Fellowship with people that you may not even know, who culturally may be different than you, who educationally may be different, or maybe they just have different quirks about them, but it’s okay because there’s not one person on this planet that God does not love.
God loves, cares for every person. He went to that cross, so all who would believe in him should have eternal life. Peter is coming to terms with his own prejudices in his heart, and God is tearing down those barriers and working effectively in Peter’s life, and it’s such a blessing to watch this because it’s a reminder to all of us that God wants to use us, like Peter, to reach people from all walks of life and nationalities,
and that our goal is to spread the gospel unto the ends of the earth, and that’s not just physically relating to location, but that’s also reaching out. to people who are from different nations or ethnic groups, whatever and however you want to describe it.
We are called to reach them all because that’s what Jesus has asked us to do. So I really am appreciative of this message and what it teaches us in Acts chapter 10. Now we are encouraging you to check out our podcasts.
If you’d like to learn more about some of these things that we’re teaching, you can certainly go to our website and you can check us out there. You can also pick up some of our podcasts on our app, The Open Door Church PA and just at the bottom hit the ministry button and there you can pick up some of the podcasts that are going on that we’re putting out there for you and all designed to enrich you,
strengthen you in the faith. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope, worth having.
The post How to be Free From Prejudice Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Principles for Powerful Living (Father’s Day). He will be reading out of 1st Corinthians 16:13-14.
Some of you are wondering why hasn’t the Lord already come? Let me tell you this that God wants to see people saved and that’s why he is holding back and I’m telling you in the moment that that last person is saved then bam the eastern sky is gonna split and God is going to return.
Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders. We welcome you to Hope Worth Having. Today we’re going to be in 1 Corinthians chapter 16. We’re taking a break from Acts because today we are celebrating Father’s Day and so I want to talk to you today about principles for powerful living.
The Bible says that we are to act like men but it just means that we’re to mature, we’re to grow, we’re to be founded in our faith and the principles that the Apostle gives us helps us to be those strong men for Christ.
So let’s get into the Word of God together. Well today I want to talk about principles for powerful living and it certainly is applicable to all dads but I want you to know it applies to all of us as Christians.
If you’re familiar with the book of 1 Corinthians you know that this was a troubled church in the city of Corinth but the Apostle not only begins with encouragement to this church but he concludes with strong encouraging admonitions to the body of believers and particularly relates to the men in the church and I’m going to be reading from the New King James.
If you’re reading in the King James it’s going to be confusing to you. 1 Corinthians 16 verse 13 through 14 says watch stand fast in the faith be brave be strong let all that you do be done with love.
The Apostle gives some final imperatives to the church. These imperatives are certainly important for us as believers and I want every dad and every father, every mentor to acknowledge some of these imperatives in their own lives and to make sure that we are following these imperatives and that we are moving in that direction in our faith.
I hope that each of us will be encouraged and challenged, especially in light of some of the uncertainty that we live in and that we can be more firm in our faith and fortified in our calling of what God has put upon each of us.
We start out learning the first imperative, which is simply to be alert. Some translations put it like this, pay close attention to. The term is used 22 times in the New Testament and often in reference to being spiritually awake or spiritually alert.
And this is what the apostle was saying to each of us this morning, that there is a great need for us to be awake and to be. Alert now the King James says quiet. It is the same idea. It’s the same understanding It’s just a different language that you’re learning old English But it simply means to be alert to be awake to not be sleeping But to be a tentative to what is going on around you.
You might say why should I be alert? Well friends, let’s first say for our own spiritual formation and health. It’s important for us to be spiritually alert But second of all for your children your grandchildren for those that you are investing in your life that you want to stay spiritually alert so that as you are being that example and as you are making that influence upon that child or that younger person that you are Recognizing the different things that are all around you because of your alertness in Christ Let me give you some areas that you and I need to be alert I want you to write these down this morning But the first area that we should be alert in is in our priorities in our priorities We need to be alert to our priorities.
We need to maintain our priorities people forget. What is Important people forget what matters most in their life I will simply put it out there to you like this that what is most important in your life And what is the priorities of your life is your faith in Jesus Christ and your family?
That’s what I would put out there for you. It’s easy to get involved in our career It’s easy to get involved in other things that are going on that we enjoy doing that we forget To nurture our faith to build upon our faith and to invest in our children I often think about this that if Christians would just reach their own children if they would just invest in their own family What an impact it would make upon the world We have to maintain a priority relationship with Jesus Christ when that begins to crumble all of your other Relationships will crumble because life Life is about relationships,
hear me. I do not say that flippantly. I am telling you that if you get nothing, get this, that life is about relationships. And if you can’t get your relationships right, you can’t get anything right in your life.
Think about it, Jesus taught us to love God. That’s our number one relationship. Jesus taught us to love others, love people. Life is about relationships. Loving God, my relationship with God and my relationship with others.
So make sure that you’re alert to your priorities. The second alertness I want you to have is against Satan. I want you to be on the alert against Satan. The Apostle Peter said this, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
Do you get that? He is seeking whom he may devour. You say, well, I’ve been a Christian for a long time, pastor, or I’ve been really digging deep lately. It doesn’t matter, my friends. I mean, that’s all good.
I’m not against it. But I’m just wanting you to know that the devil is always looking for a way to destroy your life, to destroy your family, to destroy the church. And certainly we see the devil already destroying our country, don’t we?
Friends, we’ve got to be alert because the devil wants to destroy the home. He wants to destroy the father. He wants to destroy the leadership within the home. He wants the home to crumble. Because when the home crumbles, the church will crumble.
And when the church crumbles, the community will crumble. And when the communities start crumbling, the nation starts crumbling. That’s why it’s important for every dad to not only have this strong relationship with Christ, but to be alert that Satan is always trying to trap him and to get him going in the wrong direction.
Three ways that the devil likes to mess with us. First is by distracting us. We already talked about priorities, but it’s easy that the devil likes to get shiny things out here. And you’re totally losing focus.
You’re forgetting what’s most important and you get distracted and you get to focusing on the minor things in life. The things that are not really gonna matter 10 years from now or 20 years from now.
And so the devil likes to distract. It’s appealing to the flesh. It’s appealing to your preferences or all these things are fine, but make sure that the devil is not distracting you. His second tactic is to discourage you.
He wants you to be defeated. He wants you to be discouraged. He wants you to quit. He wants you to walk around. with your head down. He wants you to be the kind of person in your home where there’s no joy and there’s no courage and there’s no faith that we’re all just discouraged and we’re ready to throw in the towel.
Listen, dads, you have a big role in that in your home. You need to be that strong leader in your home that is always holding out the hope that is found in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And the only way that you can always be encouraged is to do like David did.
The Bible says he encouraged himself in the Lord, meaning his relationship with God. He was feeding his faith consistently and he was constantly growing in his faith so that he could be that positive light within the home and not be discouraged, not be defeated.
You can’t walk in the door of your home and talk about how bad everything is. because you will raise children that will be negative, critical, and hateful, and discouraged, and defeated, and say, why would we follow God?
Because there’s no hope in Him. The hope of the world is a dying hope, but the hope of those who love Jesus Christ is a living hope that’s rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen?
Listen, the devil will use distraction, discouragement, but He’ll also use division. He’ll use division. He’ll try to divide your home. He’ll turn moms and dads against each other. He’ll turn children against parents and parents against children.
He’ll do everything that He can to cause division in the church. And of course, we see it already in our country. Everybody is divided and against, and we’re all put into these categories, and we’re all told that this is the dividing line, and you’re either over here or you’re over there.
Listen to me, my friends. We fly under the banner of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We’re not gonna divide over sports, preferences, politics, or opinions, or personalities. We’re gonna be united under our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Dads, be careful that you don’t let little things cause division in your home. Differences of opinion. But let me tell you something. We’re all different, but we don’t divide over that. We appreciate and we encourage.
That’s what the Bible means when it says train up a child in the way that he should go, in the way that he’s bent or designed by God. And it’s not just talking about spiritual things. It’s talking about their personality.
It’s talking about their abilities, their giftedness. And some of you are trying to take a square child and you’re trying to put it into a circle. And you’re wondering why there’s so much friction, pushback, and fighting.
Why don’t you let the child be who they are? You say, well, I don’t like the way they are. Well, listen, we have our values, we have our principles, we have our priorities, but we’ve got to give freedom to let our children be unique.
But I don’t want you to allow division in the home because Satan will use it to divide. Now, we need to be on the alert for temptation. Listen to the words of our Savior Jesus. He said, watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.
The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Underscore that in your Bible. The flesh is weak. You want to obey God. You want to do the right thing. You want to live for God and you want to overcome.
But let me tell you something. The flesh is weak. It does not predetermine that we will fail and not be able to resist the devil or resist temptation. But we need to be alert to our weaknesses and we need to understand that the devil knows where we’re weak at.
And the flesh is weak, and therefore we have this responsibility within us to be alert to temptation. We got to be alert, and what helps me to be alert to temptation is to understand that just as we stated, the devil is always looking for a way to trap us.
He’s always looking for a way. So as I learn more about God, I’m trying to learn also more about Mike and what are the areas that he needs to work on. What are the areas that he’s weakened? And so I can again build barriers and boundaries in my life that will help me to stay away from those potential traps and those temptations in my life.
So when our spiritual eyes are shut and they’re sleepy and they’re apathetic, we can fall into sin easily. So every day I’ve got to stay alert for temptation. But another area we need to be alert in is apathy and indifference.
Apathy and indifference. You know, Revelation 3, 1, Jesus said, And to the angel of the church at Sardis write these things, says he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead.
Activity does not equate to spirituality. You can be active in the church, but inactive in the gospel. You can be active, but you have become apathetic. You’re just going through the motions. You’re just doing whatever is required of you.
There’s no true passion in your heart, in your life for the Lord Jesus Christ. These are areas that we need to keep before the Lord in our personal time. And we need to ask the Lord to forgive us for being indifferent towards him and the gospel and his truth and our calling upon our life.
God wants you to be a Christian that is passionate and zealous for him. That doesn’t mean that we’re always happy clapping. And it certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t have times that we’re dealing with different things and emotions in our life, but we’re still alert and we’re still wanting to make a difference for Christ.
And yes, we go through different seasons of our life. And some of you at the time of your life that maybe you couldn’t do as much as you used to do, but you’re still passionate for the gospel and you’re still passionate for the cause of Christ and you still want to stay on mission for God.
Be alert that the devil doesn’t make you apathetic towards the things of God and the people of God and the principles of God and you become indifferent. We want to be passionate for God. Now another area to be alert, be alert for false teachers.
Be alert for false teachers. The Bible says there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies and denying the Lord who brought them and bring on themselves swift destruction.
Remember this. Everything that glistens and glows is not gold, and everything that has the name of Jesus didn’t come from heaven. Dads, you gotta have some discernment. You gotta protect your family, and whether it’s music, or teaching, or books, whatever you’re letting your family be exposed to, make sure that you are filtering and screening out the false teachers.
There are false teachers. I know it’s the 21st century, and can’t we just all get along, and can’t we just love each other? Yes, we can, but we cannot let false teaching destroy our families and destroy our churches.
We cannot get off track with what the Lord and the apostles have taught us, and we cannot go down the path of false teaching. We need to be alert to them. Jesus teaches much about that in Matthew chapter seven.
Take time to read it on your own, to help you to identify false teachers, and to be able to understand how to protect your family from that. Let me tell you another area to be alert, and that is to pray.
Be on the alert to pray. Ephesians 6, 18, having taught the church at Ephesus about the armor of God, Paul concludes and said, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.
When we pray, we’ll be alert. When we’re alert, we will pray. We need to remember that God wants us to be a praying people. You never rise above your prayer life. Every one of us needs to commit in our hearts that we are going to be a people of prayer.
Some of you are frustrated, and you have a lot built up in your heart about whatever problems may be going on in the world. And I wanna tell you that rather than dimming the light, why don’t you reach out to others and be a light, and encourage them, but how do I deal with these frustrations, Pastor?
I get on my knees and I pray to you. to God and I share these things with the Lord and I let him work them out. I give them all to him and prayer is a powerful way. Now what happens in our prayer life sometimes is that we can become again apathetic in our prayers or we can become ritualistic in our prayers and all of a sudden we’re ineffective in our prayers.
Well I want you to note in this verse in Ephesians 6 18 he teaches us a key principle about prayer and he says that we’re to pray at all times in the Spirit. When you pray in the flesh you’ll be weak.
When prayer begins in the flesh it’ll be anemic but when prayer is filled by the Spirit, when prayer is led by the Spirit, when prayer is is anointed by the Spirit, that’s when God will use your prayers to make a difference in the lives of other people.
That’s when God is doing a powerful thing in your life. He says with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit. When I pray, I like to come to God and just totally surrender to the Spirit and ask the Spirit to guide my thoughts and my prayers and the things that I would like to petition God about.
And I know many of you are very organized in your prayer and I’m glad and I’m excited for that. You’ve got books upon books and journals upon journals and you’ve got everything figured out and you’ve got every missionary prayed for and you’ve got every person prayed for and you’ve got every situation prayed for.
But sometimes God wants you to pray in the Spirit as you are seeking God. Be alert to prayer. The final thing I want you to be alert to is to be on the alert for the Lord’s return. Be on the alert for the Lord’s return.
Someone said, I’m not looking for the signs of His coming, I’m listening for the sound of His coming. Hey friends, I want to tell you that the signs are there and we should be listening and that we have to understand that it isn’t going to be long before the Lord returns.
He can come in any moment and that He could come and call us all home. We need to be alert. Some of you are troubled. I just wish that you would study the Bible. The Bible tells us that before the Lord’s return, it’s not going to get better.
It’s going to get worse. It’s going to get worse. You say, thanks for the encouragement, pastor. I hear you. But I want you to know that the Lord is going to return His promises. Somebody said, why doesn’t the Lord return now?
Well, listen, I love 2 Peter 3 9. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. You see, some of you are wondering why hasn’t the Lord already come? Can He see the mess that we’re in?
And why doesn’t He see the mess that we’re in? and he come, let me tell you this, that God wants to see people saved. He wants to see your loved ones come to Christ. He wants to see more individuals come to the Lord.
And that’s why he is holding back and he is holding those angels back. And I’m telling you in the moment that that last person is saved, that is supposed to be saved when they receive Christ, then bam, the eastern sky is gonna split and God is going to return and he’s gonna set up his kingdom on this earth, amen?
So here’s the question, are you living in light of Christ’s second coming? Or are you living in light of all the problems of this world? Are you living in light of all the politics of this world? Are you living in light of all the circumstances of this world?
Or are you waking up every day and saying, this could be the day, this could be the day that the Lord returns, let’s maximize it for God, let’s do our most for him and let’s reach another person for the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are taught in this passage to be alert, I want you to go back and see again. He says, stand fast in the faith. The second imperative he gives us is to be firm. And what he tells us to stand fast in the faith, he’s not talking about the faith of trusting God.
He’s not talking about the faith to believe in God, but he’s talking about the faith of truth, the faith of what we believe. He’s saying, stand fast in that faith, what you have learned, the faith of the truth of God.
Stand fast, be firm in that faith. God is telling us to stand fast, to persevere, to not deviate in our faith, to not compromise. We live in a time, unfortunately, of compromise, a time where even churches are backing down from the truth and they are more interested in making sure that they please people rather than pleasing our heavenly Father.
We need to stand for what’s right. You say, pastor, how can I be firm? Well, first of all, I would start out by knowing the truth. Know the truth, study your Bible, know what the Bible teaches, and stand firm in that truth.
Know the truth, because see, some of you cannot respond, nor can you defend the faith in these unique cultural challenges that are before us, and you don’t know what to address, and you don’t know how to answer, and it is simply this, you don’t know the truth.
You’re like a Christian who gets up every morning and eats crispy cream for breakfast. But friends, you can’t have sugar all your life and think you’re gonna be strong in the Lord. You need the meat of the Word, so know the truth and share the truth.
We live in a pluralistic society. When you start saying that Jesus is the only way to heaven, I mean, you’re sending shock waves to people. You are causing people to melt down. But friends, share the truth, share the truth.
The answer is not for us to soften the truth or to change the truth. If we’re gonna change the truth, if we’re gonna change this culture, we gotta share the truth, because the truth will cut through all the foolishness and get right to the heart.
The word of God is powerful and sharper than any two -edged sword. Some of you are trying to say, well, how can I be more palatable to this person so that I can share the truth with them? Friends, don’t be afraid, just share it.
Just tell them. Tell the truth. Live the truth. That’s how you can stand firm. We can’t change people. Only God can change people, and God is working in people’s lives. They have to respond to Him, but we must live in the truth.
Live as truthful people, people who love the Lord, love the truth, and we love what God has taught us in His word without firmness in our spiritual lives. We’re gonna be like ships without anchors. We’re gonna be a people who are living in the midst of a storm of confusion and we’re gonna be tossed like tumbleweed just to and fro everywhere and therefore we must live the word.
We must know it and the Holy Spirit can strengthen us and develop us. Now the third imperative I want you to see but I want you to know he says be brave. I say be mature, be mature. The King James says act like men and the reason that it translates this word by act like men is because it’s the idea of being brave and it’s the idea of showing oneself as a man, a brave man.
The idea is mature courage, mature courage. So be mature. The concept carries the idea of being a man, not a child. He’s saying to us in a real direct way, grow up and be a man of God. Be strong in Christ, quit living like a child.
The apostle said when I was a child, I spoke as a child but now that I’ve become a man, I put away childish things. There comes a time in our spiritual life when we have to put away childish things and we move forward in our faith and we grow and we mature in our faith.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 3, verse one and two, and I brethren could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food for until now you were not able to receive it and even now you are still not able.
You know what? God wants us to mature so we can receive the meat of the word. He wants us to grow so we can receive the truth. He doesn’t want us to get choked on the solid meat of God’s truth. He wants us to mature.
So true maturity is only found in Jesus Christ, and we must nurture that in our life, and you say, well, how can I mature, Pastor? Well, I just wrote down a few things that’ll help you. First of all, you need to have a devotion time with Christ every day.
Now, let me say something about your devotions, okay? Two things I wanna say on one end. First of all, remember that variety is the key. I’m just telling you, if you sit down at the table to eat breakfast or lunch or dinner, and you have the same thing every day after a while, you’re gonna be like, man, I’m tired of this.
So I wanna encourage you to have some variety. Maybe you do a topical study in the Bible. Maybe you do a character study in the Bible. Maybe you study a certain book in the Bible, a certain passage of scripture in the Bible, a certain theme in the Bible, whatever it is, and however it is, it doesn’t really matter.
Just keep doing variety in your time with the Lord. Have some variety. I wanna encourage you to do that. Second of all, in relating to your devotion time to help you mature is that you gotta move beyond the milk.
You gotta move beyond the sappy story. You gotta move beyond the emotional move of these devotions. Some of you use devotion books, it’s all good. I’m not against it, but man, you gotta move beyond. You gotta mature in your faith.
But anyways, that’s the way most people approach their devotion life. A little cup of latte, a lot of sugar, nothing that really challenges me. Just give me a little bit of inspiration so I can feel good, check that off my list, and I can move on in my day of things I need to get done.
When’s the last time you really dug? When’s the last time that God convicted you in your devotion? When’s the last time in your devotion, you said, Lord, I need to confess this sin. I need to bring this to you and make it right with you.
Friends, that’s when you’re having devotion time. That’s when God is working effectively in your life. So how do we mature our devotion time every day? Number two, avail ourselves to the teaching of God’s word.
You know we have so much technology today, you’ve got a lot of opportunity to hear a lot of wonderful teachers. But avail yourself to Bible studies, to Sunday school class, to the preaching and teaching of God’s word.
But let me tell you something, you may not remember everything that Pastor Mike taught, and that’s okay. But it’s like that dinner you had the other night. You don’t remember exactly everything. But when you had it, it was good, it nourished you, it encouraged you, and you enjoyed every bite of it.
And so it is with God’s word. It is a means of grace to your heart that as you are under the teaching of God’s word, whether that’s in a small group, a large group, whatever the capacity, one -on -one, it doesn’t matter as you are receiving the teaching of God’s word.
He is effectively shaping your heart and maturing you for him. The third way to be mature is be accountable. We don’t like to be accountable, but be accountable because accountability helps me to identify areas I need to grow, areas I need to get better at.
Accountability helps me to continue to push myself to press on in my faith and to make sure that I am always growing. The final thing is get plugged in. You see, if you just sit and soak, what good is that?
You’re going to become a sour Christian. But when you sit and you soak up God’s word and you go out and use it, you’re not just a hearer, but you’re a doer. Maturity, reach is its pinnacle as you are out there using the truth that God has spoken into your life.
There are always things that we need to pay attention to. And that’s exactly what the Apostle is trying to do when he tells us to be alert. And that’s what we are challenging you in this passage today.
We hope as men, as fathers, that we are stepping up in a big way and we’re not ashamed of Christ. And I want to also remind you about our website. If you need more resources to train you in the Word, to disciple you in the Word, check out HopeWorthHaving .com.
This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having. Amen. Amen.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to be Free From Prejudice Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 10:1-48.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Live a Transformed Life Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 9:32-43.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Live a Transformed Life Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 9:1-31.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Live a Transformed Life Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 9:1-31.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Power of Example (Mother’s Day). He will be reading out of Ruth 1:16, 19-22.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Christian Parenting Part 2.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Road to Salvation. He will be reading out of Acts 8:26-40.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Gender Identity and Parenting.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Qualities of Genuine Faith Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 8:9-24.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Christian Parenting Part 1.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Qualities of Genuine Faith Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 8:9-24.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Advancing the Purposes of God Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 8:1-8.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Advancing the Purposes of God Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 8:1-8.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Living Beyond Fear on Easter Sunday. He will be reading out of Matthew 28:1-15.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Contrast Between Faith and Religion. He will be reading out of Acts 7:54 to 8:1.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Defend the Faith Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 7:1-13.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Defend the Faith Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 7:1-13.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Three Lessons From the Life of Stephen 2. He will be reading out of Acts 6:8-15.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Three Lessons From the Life of Stephen 1. He will be reading out of Acts 6:8-15.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Ministry of Servant Leaders. He will be reading out of Acts 6:1-7.
What we should desire as we seek to serve others, as we seek to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, is that God would bless us with a pure heart, not a tainted heart, not a heart that is filled with sin, not a heart that is distracted by the world, but a heart that is purely devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Welcome to Hope Worth Having. My name is Mike Sanders and I am the senior pastor of the Open Door Church we are delighted to broadcast God’s Word to you and we are so thankful that you tuned in. Today we’re going to Acts chapter 6 and we’re learning about the ministry of servant leaders.
Join me now as we study Acts chapter 6 verses 1 through 7. This morning I want to talk to you about the ministry of servant leaders. Our church family has been tracking through the book of Acts. We’ve come to Acts chapter 6 this morning and in this chapter, we are reminded that every believer is called to ministry.
I want to say that again because I think it needs to sink into our hearts that every believer is called to ministry. The Bible says, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
What matters in life is not how long you live, but how you live. And we understand that God is calling us not to live a life of selfishness, all about me, all about us, but he is calling us to live a life of servanthood.
Jesus said, if anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. The most significant thing that you’ll do in life, the most meaningful thing that you will do in life is to serve the Lord and to serve others.
There’s nothing that brings a greater blessing in your heart, and there’s nothing that brings more significance to your life than to be actively engaged in serving. The Bible teaches us that we are created to serve.
The Bible teaches us that we are saved to serve, that we are gifted to serve, and that we are shaped by God to serve, and so when we come to our text this morning in Acts chapter six, we see the ministry of serving.
leaders. I want you to begin with me in verse 1 the Bible says now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.
Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said it is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit, and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business, but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
And the saying please the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith, and the Holy Spirit, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, and Proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles, and when they had prayed they laid hands on them.
Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. I want you to see in this text first of all the problem that called for servants.
The problem that existed created the need for servants. What we had was a logistical problem that had emerged because the church was growing so rapidly. There were many in the early days of the church that were coming to Christ.
They were abandoning the world, and they were turning away from their sin, and they were receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. And because of this great growth, the church recognized that there were many needs, and one of those needs was caring for the widows.
And that in the days of Jerusalem, as I’ve shared with you before, to leave Judaism, what you had always believed and now to follow Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior meant that you were abandoned by your family.
You were abandoned by any opportunity to create resources and to make money for your family to provide the basic needs of life. You were ostracized. You were, if you will, cast out and they didn’t want anything to be done.
And so the church had logistically set up a system to help care for people who were struggling. And one of those groups was the widows. And we see here that the Hellenistic believers felt that the widows were being neglected in the early church.
And so apparently the early church had set up some kind of a system where they were providing food and they were providing necessary things for survival to the widows that were unable to provide for themselves.
And all of a sudden we recognize that because of the growth of the church, the demand became so great that it was more than the apostles could handle. It was more than one man could handle, one person could handle, and so this growth problem led to a grumbling problem and the people began to complain.
They began to bring it to the attention of the apostles that there was negligence going on in the church, that people were being overlooked, and that there were details that were not being taken care of.
I want you to note something. I think it’s an important note about the early church, and I think it’s important because, in the times that we live in, it’s so important for you to have discernment. It’s so important for you to have the wisdom of God in your heart.
Did you note that? From the earliest times, the church always had a large number of widows. So many times I hear people say, well, we just need to reach the young people. I’m for reaching the young people, but I’m for reaching all people, amen?
I mean, the church, a healthy church, is not just a church of young people, but it’s a church of all age groups. Even in the inception of the church in the early days of the Book of Acts, we see that God was so powerfully working in the hearts of people that he was not only attracting and adding to the church young families and young people, but even the older people were coming to the Lord Jesus Christ.
A healthy church is not just a young church and a healthy church is not just an old church, but a healthy church is a church of all ages spread out throughout the church family. To think any differently, to have some kind of a strategy that says we don’t want to reach the old people, we only want to reach the young people is a flawed strategy that is not rooted in the Bible.
This problem was a logistical problem. And so I want you to see in verse 2, the purpose of the servant leaders, you’ll see in verse 2, the Bible says that the 12, that is the apostles, summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, it’s not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.
In essence, what they were trying to say is that our priority is to be able to preach and teach the Bible. Our priority is to be able to prepare the people with the word of God and to be able to spend time in prayer for the people because the early church leaders believed in the power of prayer.
They believed in the significance of ministering with the spiritual weapons that God had given the church. You see today, so often we try man’s methods to make headway into the world that we live in, but what we need to remember is that the weapons that we have are not of this world.
They are the weapons of God, and that is that we pray, that we have the word of God, that we have the people of God, that we have the promises of God, we have the principles of God, and that these truths and these weapons that we have are far superior to anything that the world can offer to each of us.
In the midst of this problem, the church did not turn to the world for the answers. In the midst of this problem, the church did not look for some special program or some kind of worldly approach to solve the problem.
But the purpose, they looked within the church at the people of God, and they were desiring that servants would rise up and take care of the problem. The purpose was to alleviate the burden of the pastors and the leaders so that they could stay focused on what they were called to do.
So they appointed qualified servants to supervise the special needs within the congregation. What you are seeing here is the tea leaves and the beginning of the roles and responsibilities in the church beginning to emerge within the church family.
Throughout the church, and the scriptures, we see that God raises up many who will serve in a very special way to help alleviate the burden of the leaders of the church. We see that in Philippians 2:25, a man named Epaphroditus.
The apostle said, I thought it necessary to send you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also a messenger and a minister to my needs. We think of the leaders in the church as people who are not human and we elevate them and we should show respect and honor, but remember that the leaders in the church are human and they have emotions and they have good days and they have bad days and they just like everyone else need to be minister to.
Epaphroditus was that kind of a person. He wanted to be a blessing to the Apostle Paul. He wanted to be a blessing to the pastor. He wanted to be a blessing to anybody and everybody that he could. That’s what servanthood is.
That is the purpose of servanthood. If you come and you say, look, I wanna be a burden and I just wanna put more problems on the church leadership. No, that’s not what God wants. He wants us to not drain people, but to refresh people.
God wants us to be the kind of people that are lifting others up. What I call balcony people. Have you ever met balcony people? You know there are only two types of people in this world. There are those who are balcony people and basement people.
Basement people are always pulling you down. Every time you’re around them, they’re pulling you down. They’re full of negativity. They’re full of complaints. They’re full of problems. Nothing’s going right in the world.
You heard about the guy that was always complaining. His grandkids decided they would play a trick on him and they put some Limburger cheese underneath his nose he woke up and smelled that cheese and he said, Man, it stinks in this room.
And then he went into the kitchen, he said, it stinks in the kitchen too. And he went outside and he said, the whole world stinks. And you know, I think that’s the way some people are, that they look at life and they just are always seeing life through the glass half empty and they’re full of negativity rather than being a balcony person who is pulling people up, who is encouraging, who is refreshing people, who are building, who is edifying others, they’re basement people pulling down.
If you wanna be a true servant of God, if you wanna be a person that makes a difference in the cause of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, I wanna challenge you to make a commitment in your heart today to be a balcony person, to be like Epaphroditus who ministered to the needs of the apostle Paul.
It was not only the purpose of the servants to alleviate the pastor’s burden but also to alleviate the people’s burden. Now you’ll note in verse two that at the end, there is this phrase, serve tables. It is the Greek word diakonos.
It means the idea of ministry. It is the idea of serving. It has its origin in being a waiter, or a waitress. So a diakonos, a minister, a servant is one who serves tables. It evolved in the church later on.
By the time we get to 1 Timothy in the Bible, it has become a designation of a role within the church. An office in the church. And here we see that what God is helping us to understand is as we serve God, we are called to be servants.
We are called to be ministers. I’m reminded in 1 Corinthians chapter 16 when the apostle again highlighted a family that was very much committed to serving others. He said, now I urge you, brothers, you know that the household or the family of Stephanus, were the first comforts in Achaia and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints.
That’s what God wants you to be, is dedicated to the service of the saints. The word devoted has the idea of being addicted. It’s an addiction to serving others. You don’t see that often, but yet even in these unique times and uncertain times that we live in, God is calling us to be servants.
He is calling us to be addicted to servanthood. Now, you know, I see many times there are problems within families, and these problems emerge. And I really believe that at the heart of these problems is because people struggle in their relationships with one another, whether it’s a husband and wife struggling, or parents and children struggling, or whatever it might be.
And I wanna tell you the antidote to dealing with the problems in your home is servanthood. That if you came home every day and said, how could I serve my wife? How could I be a blessing to her? If you came home every day and said, how could I be a blessing and serve my husband?
If you come home and you recognize that God has called you to be a servant, here’s the mistake people make in marriage. They’re interested in what they can get out of a marriage rather than what they can put into a marriage.
And marriage is not about what you get out of it, but it’s everything about what you put into it. And so many people are just interested in what they can get out of it. And that’s why there’s conflict.
And that’s why they struggle. And that’s why there’s hurt. And that’s why there’s separation. But I wanna challenge you to be that kind of person, whether it’s in the home, whether it’s in the church, whether it’s in the community, to be devoted to serving others.
The third thing that I want you to see in this text is the prerequisites of being a servant leader. Now as the church was dealing with this issue of negligence in the distribution of the saints of God who were widows, they realized that they had to appoint some people to do the job.
And so I want you to see three things that stand out that are essential to your ability to serve God. And whether it’s serving as an office in the church or whether it is serving in your home or whether it is serving in your community, listen, all these characteristics are essential into the success of our servanthood.
And you say, why is that? Because what a person is within cannot be divorced from what they say and do. We often think that, well, we can just say and do and be something else. But the truth is the Bible teaches us that it’s all interwoven and it’s interlinked.
The qualifications that the church was looking for in providing people who would serve were not financial. It was not even their commercial or business abilities, but it was their spiritual commitment to Christ.
I want you to see these three things. You might wanna write these down if you’re taking notes. Number one, I want you to see the purity of these people. Did you see that in verse three? It says, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation.
Reputation within the church family and reputation without the church family or within the community. Here’s the point, is that these were people that others watched their lives. And they noted that these people were distinct and different.
They were pure people. They were honest people. They were authentic in their faith. They were people devoted to doing the right thing, living for the Lord, and loving the Lord. That within their heart, there was not this desire to take advantage of others, but they were purely faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ in their heart.
What we should desire as we seek to serve others, as we seek to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, is that God would bless us with a pure heart. not a tainted heart, not a heart that is filled with sin, not a heart that is distracted by the world, but a heart that is purely devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ.
It’s incumbent upon every church to entrust its ministries to those who are committed to being godly people, moral people, and people who will live purely before the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, well, Pastor, what about this person, what about that person?
They’re not the standard, quit worrying about others. It’s like Jesus said to Peter when Peter said, well, what about John? And Jesus said, what’s it to you? You know, everybody’s always trying to compare and everybody’s trying to measure their life by someone else.
You gotta stop that mess because it will never lead to true fruit in your life. You measure your life by the truth of God and you measure your life by the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our standard. We strive to be like Him.
We uphold Him as our Lord and our Savior and the one that we seek to imitate and to walk after. The second prerequisite to serving the Lord is power. Did you see that in the text again? Look at verse three, that they were full of the Holy Spirit.
They were full of the Holy Spirit. I’m saying to you that all that God wants you to be in being a servant to your spouse, a servant to your church family, a servant in your community, hear me, is not possible in your own strength.
Did you hear me? Do you wanna know why marriages fail? Because people are operating in their own strength. Do you understand why families fall apart? It’s because people are operating in their own strength.
But when you surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ and you give your heart fully and freely to Him If you receive Him as your Lord and Savior, the Bible says that the Spirit of God will live within you.
And when the Spirit of God lives within you, He will empower you to be that person of serving others. It’s not natural in our flesh to serve others. Let’s just be honest. If we could just kinda open the closets of our hearts, we honestly believe we wanna do what’s best for us.
Because that’s human nature. You know, sometimes people will say to me, I don’t believe that people are born sinful and selfish. You know what I tell them? Have children. I mean, you know, I could give them a lot of theology and I could give them a lot of theological books, but I just say have kids and that’ll solve the problem.
That’ll straighten out your theology because you don’t train your children to have a meltdown at Walmart. You don’t train your children to fall on the floor, kick and scream, and yell at the heights of their voices during a trip to go see grandma.
I don’t know any moms and dads. They’re saying now, Johnny, when we get to grandma’s house, I want you to grab everything and throw it and kick it and destroy everything in the house. No, they don’t do that.
Do you know why? Because it’s innately within them. All people are born into this world as sinners. And because of that, we are selfish. What is the answer to the sinfulness and selfishness of mankind? It is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ comes in and He saves us from our sins. The Bible says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Can God’s people say amen? And so the Lord washes me and He cleanses me of my sin and He helps me to be that person that God wants me to be.
You say, how could I be a servant to my spouse? How could I ever be a servant in the church? How could I ever be a servant in my community? Listen, through the power of the Spirit of God, living in all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The third qualification is prudence. It is prudence. Did you see that again in verse three? He says that they must have wisdom. They must have wisdom. Wisdom is essential. Now, wisdom is not that you have a lot of degrees after your name.
Wisdom is not that you are educated and somehow you’re smarter than the average person. No, my friends, I know many people who are educated beyond their obedience. I mean, they have a lot of letters after their name, but the truth is they don’t have common sense, amen?
I mean, if you wanna see recklessness and you wanna see people without wisdom, just look to Washington, D.C., amen? I mean, those people, they can’t find their way out of a paper bag. I’m just being honest with you and they might cancel me and they might shut me down, but I’m just telling you the truth.
I mean, common sense has left the building. But what God wants is that if we’re gonna serve Him, we’ve gotta be a people of wisdom. Not the wisdom of the world, and not the wisdom of some kind of intellectual education, but the wisdom of God that teaches us how to know people and understand people, the wisdom of God that leads us and guides us to make good choices and to make great decisions.
Your life is a consummation of your choices. You say, why am I where I am? Because of the choices you’ve made. And where will you be five years from now? The choices you make. The choices you’re making today.
When I go up and speak to our young people at Cumberland Valley Christian School in chapel, I tell them where you’re gonna be five years from now after you graduate is based upon the decisions you are making today.
You make a series of bad decisions. It’s gonna take you years to recover. Now, unfortunately, some people, they don’t. come to full wisdom until after they have flattened out and hit rock bottom. But I wanna tell you this, if you wanna be an effective servant of God, you must be filled with the wisdom of God.
You say, where do I get that wisdom? Hear me. You get God’s wisdom through His word, and you get God’s wisdom through prayer, and you get God’s wisdom by hanging around wise people. The Bible teaches us to be teachable.
Do you see, some people are just hard-headed. They know everything. They got it all figured out. And the truth is, we need to be a teachable generation. We need to be a generation that says I can learn from others.
A generation says I haven’t figured it out. I understand that you can ask Siri, and Siri will tell you the answer. You know, sometimes when my kids were growing up, I would just kind of like to get them all worked up and excited about something.
So I would make random statements just to get them all excited. In the old days, that always worked because they had no other resources to know if their dad was telling them the truth or not. But now they say to me, they say, Dad, we asked Google, and Google told us you don’t know what you’re talking about.
And all I want you to know is this, wisdom doesn’t come from technology, but it comes from learning from others, being teachable, staying on your knees and praying, and living in the word of God.
The Bible says the wise in heart shall be called prudent, and the sweetness of the lips increases learning. Now the final thing that I want you to see is the advantage of being a servant. What was this advantage?
Look at verse four. The Bible says that the apostles were gonna give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. They were giving themselves to prayer. They were giving themselves to preparing and proclamation all.
of the Word of God. And that created a great blessing in the church which led to great results, great results as a result of many people stepping up and being leaders. Would you jump down to verse seven?
Then the Word of God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. What you saw was the spreading of the Word of God. When more people get involved and more people are serving and more people are activated for the Lord Jesus Christ, you are gonna see God’s Word spread.
And when God’s Word spreads, more people come to Christ more people obey Christ and more people follow Him. Something that we must consider for us as believers is what is our responsibility to our community.
What is our responsibility towards those who are in need? What is our obligation? I want you to think about that this week, and I want you to consider that because the Bible teaches us that we are accountable and responsible to each other.
But I also want you to understand that God calls us to serve, to get involved. And whether he’s calling you to serve in your home, your church, or your community, he’s calling all of us to find our place and to serve him.
The early church members felt a sense of responsibility towards one another. They understood that everybody was not perfect and every circumstance wasn’t perfect, but whatever they could do to help one another.
What I want to challenge you this morning is this, is to be a servant leader, to walk out of this place today and say I’m more committed to serving. What I want to say to you, church, is the only way we can advance the kingdom of God is not that the pastor does everything, but the people pick up the mantle and say, here’s a need, let’s get involved.
Now some people say to me, they say, well, Mike, I’m not gifted to do that. Well, let me tell you something. There are some things that there is no gift for. There’s no special gift to move chairs and tables or anything like that.
So get that stuff out of your mind. And remember that just step up and serve God wherever the door opens. We challenge our members that every week you need to do one worship right here with God’s people, worshiping Him.
Every week you need to do one Bible study and commit a small group of believers where you can learn the word of God together, fellowship, encourage, and practice one another. But you also need to do one serve.
What are you doing for God? What are you doing for your family? What are you doing for your community? What are you involved in? Where you are sacrificing and- you are serving for the advancement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray again. There is no doubt that every believer is called to ministry. I mean, God didn’t just say, hey, I want you to get saved and inset and do nothing. He really wants us to be fully engaged in ministry.
And we’re learning what that means and how we do that. And so Acts chapter six, there were problems in the church and what does God do? He appointed the apostles to organize a group of men to help lead the church and to address some of these problems so that the gospel could continue to go out.
And that’s what we are to do in the local church to be true servants of God. And so I hope that these principles are affecting your life and making an impact upon you. I want to thank you for listening and being a part of today’s program.
This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on What a Difference a Day Makes Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 2:1-13.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Choosing Leadership Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 1:12-26.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Choosing Leadership Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 1:12-26.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Resources for the Great Commission Part 3. He will be reading out of Acts 1:1-11.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Resources for the Great Commission Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 1:1-11.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Resources for the Great Commission Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 1:1-11.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on In Anger Remember Mercy Part 2. He will be reading out of Amos 9:1-8.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on In Anger Remember Mercy Part 1. He will be reading out of Amos 9:1-8.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on A Famine of the Word of God Part 2. He will be reading out of Amos 8:1-14.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on A Famine of the Word of God Part 1. He will be reading out of Amos 8:1-14.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Soldier’s Psalm (Independence Day). He will be reading out of Psalm 144:1-15.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Seeing It As It Is. He will be reading out of Amos 7:1-17.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Pleasing Our Heavenly Father (Fathers Day). He will be reading out of John 8:28-30.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on What God Expects From Us Part 2. He will be reading out of Amos 6:1-14.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on What God Expects From Us Part 1. He will be reading out of Amos 6:1-14.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Are You Prepared for the Day of the Lord Part 2. He will be reading out of Amos 5:1-27.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Are You Prepared for the Day of the Lord Part 1. He will be reading out of Amos 5:1-27.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Woman of Great Faith (Mothers Day). He will be reading out of Matthew 15:21-28.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Prepare to Meet Your God Part 2. He will be reading out of Amos 4:1-13.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Prepare to Meet Your God Part 1 He will be reading out of Amos 4:1-13.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Justice of God’s Judgement Part 2. He will be reading out of Amos 3:1-15.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Justice of God’s Judgement Part 1. He will be reading out of Amos 3:1-15.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Holiness of God Part 2. He will be reading out of Amos 2:4-16.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Holiness of God Part 1. He will be reading out of Amos 2:4-16.
Pastor Mike will be speaking on Are You Afraid of God’s Judgement Part 2. He will be reading out of Amos 1:3-10.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Are You Afraid of God’s Judgement Part 1. He will be reading out of Amos 1:3-10.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The God of Creation Speaks Part 2. He will be reading out of Amos 1:1-2.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The God of Creation Speaks Part 1. He will be reading out of Amos 1:1-2.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on It’s Time for Spiritual Inventory Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 13:5-6.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on It’s Time for Spiritual Inventory Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 13:5-6.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on A Call to Repentance 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 12:20-21.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on A Call to Repentance 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 12:20-21.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Credentials of an Apostle 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 12:1-15.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Credentials of an Apostle 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 12:1-15.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Christ’s Sufficiency for our Insufficiency Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 12:1-10.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Christ’s Sufficiency for our Insufficiency Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 12:1-10.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on “Biblical Masculinity”.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Marks of a True Servant of Christ Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 11:7-15.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Prevent Disloyalty to Christ Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 11:1-6.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Thankful Living. He will be reading out of Colossians 3:15-17.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Measure a Ministry. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 10:7-17.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Winning the Spiritual War Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corintians 10:1-6.
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Pastor Mike and Eli discuss current issues in the local and global church when it comes to persecution within the faith.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Winning the Spiritual War Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corintians 10:1-6.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Restore Relationships Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 7:2-16.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Restore Relationships Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 7:2-16.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Live a Separated Life Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 6:11-18.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Live a Separated Life Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 6:11-18.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Pulling Yourself Together Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 6:1-10.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Pulling Yourself Together Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 6:1-10.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Heart of the Gospel Message Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 5:21.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Heart of the Gospel Message Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 5:21.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Commission of Christ Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 5:18-20.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Commission of Christ Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 5:18-20.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Building Integrity in Your Life Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 5:11-17.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Building Integrity in Your Life Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 5:11-17.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on What is Your Ambition in Life Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 5:9-10.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on What is Your Ambition in Life Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 5:9-10.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Face Death Confidently Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 5:1-8.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Face Death Confidently Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 5:1-8.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on I Pledge Allegiance to Jesus. He will be reading out of Matthew 10:32.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Spiritually Endur. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 4:16-18.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Three Important Words For Dads. He will be reading out of 1st John 4:13.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Courage for our Conflicts. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 4:1-7.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Qualities of the New Covenant Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 3:6-9.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Qualities of the New Covenant Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 3:6-9.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Competent Servant Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 3:1-7.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Competent Servant Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 3:1-7.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Comfort for a Tough Mothers Day. He will be reading out of Psalm 27:1-9.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Restoring Joy Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 2:12-17.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Restoring Joy Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 2:12-17.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Easter Angels. He will be reading out of Matthew 28:1-10.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Blessings of Forgiveness Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 2:4-11.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Blessings of Forgiveness Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 2:4-11.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Portrait of a Godly Pastor Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 1:15-24.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Portrait of a Godly Pastor Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 1:15-24.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Defending False Accusations Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 1:12-14.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Defending False Accusations Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 1:12-14.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Conquering Our Problems Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 1:1-11.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Conquering Our Problems Part 1. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 1:1-11.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to be a Committed Christian Part 2. He will be reading out of John 21:15-25.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to be a Committed Christian Part 1. He will be reading out of John 21:15-25.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Coming to Terms With Our Weaknesses Part 2. He will be in John 21:1-14
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Coming to Terms With Our Weaknesses Part 1. He will be in John 21:1-14
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Sustain Peace in Your Life Part 2. He will be in John 20:11-31.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Sustain Peace in Your Life Part 1. He will be in John 20:11-31.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Conquering Savior. He will be in John 20:1-10.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Crucifixion of Christ. He will be in John 19:17-30.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on Looking for Christmas. He will be in Matthew 2.
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Crowns of Christ. He will be in John 19:1-13
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Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Key Questions Part 2. He will be in John 18:28-38
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