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.

The post Accepting Gods Providence first appeared on Hope Worth Having.

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.

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