Sermon - Staying in the faith
Staying in the faith� Reading Psalm 1
The Psalms were, and still are, the Jewish people�s hymn and prayer book. The poems of different people like King David, collected by the Israelites and used in worship. Christian communities still use these psalms in worship today. I remember as a teenager in
There are two reoccurring themes in the book of psalms and here at the very beginning we see the first theme laid out clearly for us; it is the theme of the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, the believer and the unbeliever. As far as the psalmist is concerned, and indeed the whole bible, there is no third category; you are either one or the other, fully in the kingdom or out of it! There is no middle road! My first and most serious question this morning is this. Do you know whether you are in Jesus, or out of him? Are you in God�s plan for your life, or are you out of it. This was the clear cut teaching of Jesus as he taught the truth of God which the psalmist expressed in his writing. Jesus said in Matthew 7:13
�Enter through the narrow gate. For the wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.�
Time and again I have to explain to believers that Jesus never offered us an easy ride! It�s a blessed journey in many ways, there are joys to experience, the presence of God to know, the peace of Jesus to experience, the company of fellow travellers, but it�s a road that is narrow and there are many battles along the way! There are resting places throughout the journey, but it�s not for the fainthearted! Non Christian often say that Christianity if for the soft who need something to lean on in life. This could not be further from the truth! Christianity is not for the fainthearted! You need to be tough, yet at the same time Jesus welcomes all! �Whosoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.�
The second reoccurring theme in the book of Psalms again is shown us here in Psalm 1; it is the future destiny of all human kind, either �blessed� or �cursed�. Psalm one begins with a blessing and ends with a curse summed up in the word �perish�. Again we see the clear teaching of Jesus when he speaks of following the broad or wide road or following the narrow road, the one leading to blessing and life, the other to destruction. The word �life� used by Jesus refers to the fullness of life as God himself has it; it is a fullness of life only experienced by being connected up to God, alive spiritually as well as physically, life that all mankind were created with, lost, and which God wants us to have back through faith in Jesus Christ his Son!
The psalmist, or should I really say the Holy Spirit who is the inspiration behind the words of the psalmists, tells us life is to be found by not walking, standing or sitting in the way of sinners. We should notice here the triple set of negatives; does not walk, stand and sit; in the council, way or seat, of the wicked, sinners and mockers. In other words the believer does not live a life, model a life, on the conduct of unbelievers.
A downward progression into failure and the loss of our faith is indicated by this triple set of negatives, walk, stand and sit. Too easily we relax our attentiveness to our faith and spiritual journey into Christlikeness. Sin is pleasurable, we would not consider it if it was not so. We begin to hanker after the old life again, the pleasures of the world which as Christians we have died to so that we can enjoy the pleasures of God for all eternity; they are set before us again by our enemy. The Devil whispers in our ear, in a weak moment when we have drifted from closeness to Jesus, when we have missed our scripture feeding, prayer and worship with our Christian family, �This path you follow is hard going� he says,�, the battle never seem to ease up, your not really free, stay away, relax, enjoy yourself, do what you want.� In that moment we forget all the benefits we have enjoyed following Jesus, the joy and peace in the depth of our being we never had in our old life; the sense of God�s presence which thrilled us when we worshipped and served him, the great times sharing with our brothers and sisters in Christ at bible studies and prayer meetings and socials. Before we realise it we have begun to walk in the way of the unbelievers again, even making excuses that the pressures of work or family have caused us to slip away. Other things, or people, have become our God. The downward spiral has begun and if unchecked, which takes determined effort, we fall away into what we term backsliding.
Walking in the ways of the world again soon leads to �standing in the in the way of sinners�, we linger now in the pleasures of the world and before long we sit down comfortably in the world of the non Christians, preferring their company and the downward progression into the world again has found its completion. A lingering sort of faith, belief in Jesus, in God, possibly still remains, but we are inactive in that faith now, living for ourselves where we once lived for Jesus. We now have no time for Christian things. Our soul begins to shrink as less and less we feed it on the things of God. Meeting and worshipping with our brothers and sisters in Christ becomes a thing of the past, but we have been created for the family of God and there is no such thing as Christianity in isolation! We are told in the New Testament �never to give up meeting together�. Why are we told this? We are told this because we are designed for community living. We have been created to live in the community of God, because God is community, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In community we find the real blessings of God!
How difficult, but not impossible, it is to return from this backslidden way! Our days are soon filled by with lots of things to do when normally we would have been serving God and meeting with the family of God! Our priorities have changed! The focus of our life is elsewhere now. We may recognise that a light has gone out in our lives, but there is there no time in our busy schedule to come back, and pride, having to admit we have made a mistake, is not easy to conquer.
God has laid this message on my heart because someone here knows that they have begun this downward decent into the world again; you need to quickly see the temptation for what it really is, see the danger and reject the lies of the Devil before you make it that much harder to get back into the fold of God again! You cannot survive without you church family.
Jesus said �Don�t love the world, its dying and fading away� Don�t grasp the limited and discard the limitless, don�t hold on to the temporary and lose the eternal! Don�t prove your faith false, but prove it genuine by staying the cause to the end! As the hymn writer J.S. Monsell put it in the 19th Century: -
�Fight the good fight with all of your might,
Christ is your strength and Christ your right
Lay hold on life, and it shall be
Thy joy and crown eternally.
Run the straight race through God�s good grace,
Lift up thine eyes, and seek his face
Life with its path before us lies;
Christ is the way, and Christ the prize.
Cast care aside; lean on your guide,
His boundless mercy will provide
Trust, and thy trusting soul shall prove
Christ is its life, and Christ its love.
Faint not, nor fear� His arm is near;
He changes not, and you are dear;
Only believe and thou shalt see
That Christ is all in all to thee
Deal with the sin by confession, �If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.� (1 John 1:9) �Just say sorry Lord!� �Get yourself up, brush yourself down and start all over again� as a song writer once put it. Turn around and find the path you left to try and make your way a little easier.
I have often quoted John Bunyan�s little book �Pilgrims Progress� and I do so again now without apology, but before I share a particular scene from that book, let me first mention something else he wrote that I found particularly helpful this week; he said, �God has set a Saviour against sin, a heaven against a hell, light against darkness, good against evil, and the breadth and length and depth and height of grace that is in Himself for my good, against all the power and strength and subtlety of every enemy." We need to read this over and over again until it sinks in!
In �Pilgrims Progress� Christian and a friend finding their journey tough going, took what seemed to them an easier pathway rather than sticking to the one they should have stuck to. Soon Giant despair, the owner of the land they now walked on, found them; standing before Giant despair, and with no excuse for being on his land, he ordered Christian and his companion �Hopeful� to follow him. He took them to his castle which was called �Doubting castle� and there throw them in prison to await their fate. There they despaired of life itself and were constantly beaten by Giant Despair�, but suddenly one night Christian remembered a key he had been given that was in his pocket, it was the key of �promise�. Quickly he took it out and trying it in the cell door it opened the lock and opened every door to freedom again. That key is the key that opens all God�s promised for his people, especially that of forgiveness and a fresh start. It�s the key of faith! It�s our gift to use at any moment in our Christian journey. Jesus died for yesterday�s failures, today�s failures, and tomorrows!
John Bunyan�s story reminds us of the story of the Prodigal son; he wanted an easier way in life, but it did not lead to a greater freedom, but bondage and despair. In that despair he came to his senses, put aside his pride, and came home to a tremendous welcome. Jesus waits to welcome us back with the same open arms that were nailed to a cross. Love took him there for you and love waits to embrace you again!
True blessedness, which in scripture is more than simply happiness as some bible translators translate it, is something only God can give, something only God�s people can enjoy; its independent of circumstances, unlike happiness which relates to things going well. It�s continuous under all circumstances and is related to a person�s spiritual condition. It�s not a feeling, but expresses our spiritual position in Christ; happiness comes into it, but is only a tiny element in something far bigger and deeper, the eternal state of your soul!
The �blessed� man or women is the one who �delights in the law of the Lord�, writes the psalmist; he studies it day and night, literally and metaphorically in that he delights in it and studies it in season and out of season, when he feels like and when he doesn�t feel like it! He is like a tree planted by the water bearing fruit for God in godliness of living and whose leaves are ever green and whose life prospers.
The law is God�s word in which the believer delights and is feed by spiritually, but the Word of God, the Law of God, is Jesus. The blessed person is the one who delights in him, follows him, lives for him and longs to see him!
I am reminded of the post Easter story in Luke 24, the meeting with Jesus by some of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, a town only recently rediscovered; how when Jesus spoke to the disciples and taught from the scriptures their hearts burned within them. This sensation is not always with us, but it is one we must experience time and again in our lives when reading God�s Word, or we are not yet part of him!
Sadly, in the end the ungodly, the unbelievers perish. In the end �what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?� (Matt
The unbeliever is a soul that is restless as it searches for an answer to the emptiness of his life, an emptiness only Jesus can fill, �but the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,�� (v 6) Unseen and unfelt might God be to us at times, but his all seeing eye never has one moment when we are not in his sight!
The Bible says, �So do not throw away your confidence, because it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere, so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.� (Hebrews 10: 35-36 NIV)
�Blessed is man that who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked�but his delight is in the law of the Lord�
Watch out for the deception and lies of the enemy of your soul who wants to lead you away! Watch out for the downward spiral to leaving your faith. Stay the course! Your faith will bring great reward! Your God, Saviour, Lord and friend, Jesus Christ, watches over you!
3/4/05
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