Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "Faithful Unto Death: Appreciate the Benefit of Hindsight" by Roger Johnson

Transcript

"Faithful Unto Death: Appreciate the Benefit of Hindsight" by Roger Johnson · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Can you hear me, Charlie? Okay. Alright.
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I'll join that somewhat
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large group of folks that will say I joined
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with Neil back, I don't know, 6, 8 weeks ago, whenever it was,
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down front. And he said, will you teach a class on being faithful
0:23
unto death? It's the only time I thought
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Neil had lost his mind because he's
0:31
picking on me. And I don't know why he picked me, but I
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prepared a lesson that maybe is a little odd,
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but I thought about it a lot and I kept coming back to this.
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I want to start by saying that
0:50
the U.S. Constitution treaties,
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legislation, and most organizations' articles
0:57
of incorporation have preambles. That's an
1:01
introduction or a guiding principle that establishes what's going to come. Preambles are
1:05
usually written. Here's a preamble that I've written of another
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purpose that not only is written but must be
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read at this occasion.
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It's a humbling compliment to be asked to teach a class, the title of which
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suggests that I can be viewed as having been faithful throughout
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life, which I will define as the last 60 or 61
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of my 78-plus years. The other
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speakers in this series of lessons surely would agree with
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that. All these men are godly men that I've known for
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some time, and I admire them greatly. And actually, 2 of them I I've known
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for over 55 years. I am
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a beneficiary of standing periodically in the shadow of
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these and other godly men and godly
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women, many now resting on the other side
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of the Jordan. Please don't view me in the same
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way I view these several Christians to whom I refer.
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Instead, let me offer some thoughts
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on how I might at times have done reasonably well in walking by faith,
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and at other times know I could have done better.
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But thanks be to God for his grace and his mercy and his long-suffering nature.
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And whatever meager measure
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of faith I might be viewed as having today, let it be ascribed significantly
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to positive role models, marrying well.
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Faithfulness and righteousness are interrelated.
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I have no measure of righteousness except for that which God
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ascribes to my account or assigns to my account,
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as well as to any believer's account, from the perfect
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and infinite righteousness of Jesus Christ. It's a terrifying
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thought that that I, or I believe other
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speakers in this series would agree, would someday be judged
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on my or our own
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inherent goodness or faithfulness. Friends, let's all
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cherish the confidence we have in a righteousness that our personal and
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spiritual shortcomings and days of yesteryear
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cannot tarnish. For he,
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God, made him, Jesus,
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who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we
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might become the righteousness of God in him.
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2 Corinthians 5:21. In this
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room are people of various ages and various spiritual
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backgrounds. Some have been members of the church for 55,
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75 years maybe.
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Some considerably less than that. But it
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doesn't matter in— for purposes of me presenting
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this lesson, it doesn't matter whether we became a Christian at age 14
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or we became a Christian at age 34 or 64.
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Throughout life, faithfulness throughout life means staying
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the course or continuing in a
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walk of faith, remaining faithful until our life is
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finished, even in times of discouragement
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or when spiritual stamina just seems completely out
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of reach. So I asked myself when I started preparing
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this lesson that, well, if some folks have done a better job
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walking in that path of faith than others,
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what really causes folks in
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the short term, just for a short while or even for a long while,
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to get off of that path of faithfulness? Weak faith.
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And what are some indicators of that? If I'm looking at myself, I'm looking at
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myself in the mirror, what might I see
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that tells me that my faithfulness is not what it should be?
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Well, I came up— when I first
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started preparing this lesson, I came up with several things, but they all seemed to
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fit in only 3 buckets for each of those questions.
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Each of the 2 questions. What are the things that get
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us off course, and what are the indicators of those
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things that would tell us that we're off course?
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First, I came up with discouragement. There are life's— life
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has ups and downs for all of us of different kinds. Some of us are
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plagued for long periods of time because of the death of a loved one.
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That's understandable. Some of us lose jobs. That's understandable.
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That can take a— we can take a spiritual hit on that.
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That's one cause, discouragement. Secondly, I said, well,
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there's sometimes just outside influences that we just simply
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let have priority. Now, not all outside influences are
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bad. Don't let me suggest that.
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But even when those outside influences are good, they sometimes get
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too much priority, and that means our path of faithfulness takes
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a little hit. Then the third reason is
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just frankly just too little effort. We just don't put enough into it,
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and that causes us to have periods, sometimes short, sometimes long,
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of faith not being what it should be. What are the demonstrations?
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What am I going to see when I look in the mirror that's going to
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tell me that I might be where I don't need to be? The first one
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I came up with in I came up with 3, the first one
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being poor attendance at worship services.
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I would say that if you're here tonight, you don't get
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indicted by that. Too little study
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of the Bible, or too infrequent perhaps, or in some cases
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not any Bible study at all after we
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initially come into the church. And then passive service.
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Anything like this, either Too little effort, poor attendance,
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no Bible study, passive service, all these things
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amount to poor choices that can derail us. And if we get derailed,
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sometimes it's hard to get back on track.
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I want to— I know some of you don't have a mathematical mind,
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and some of you do, but I kept coming back
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to this, and I'm a math guy, some of you know.
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Everybody's familiar, at least familiar with the
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old XY axis. So I'm going to draw an XY axis.
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Here's the horizontal axis, that's the X-axis.
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Here's the Y-axis. They intersect, of course.
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XY axis. So if you're looking at it right here, X-axis, Y-axis,
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you're looking at grid 1 for you math people. And as you go up,
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that's positive, and as you go out, that's positive. So that's grid 1.
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And this one is going to measure time. This one's going to measure
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faithfulness. Now, that's a subjective decision for sure,
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and not a decision that I can make about you or you can make about
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me. And sometimes it might even be hard for us to make about ourselves.
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But be with— stay with me for just a minute, and I'm going
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to say that at the point when we come into the church, we're kind
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of at that zero where those axes intersect.
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And a person who comes into church at age 14,
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probably hasn't had enough maturity to study
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the Bible to a great extent as, say, someone who comes in
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at age 34 or so. So maybe their level of faithfulness initially,
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after they've heard and believed and taken the other actions, maybe their
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level of faithfulness would be higher than that person that comes in at 14.
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But still, they have a level of
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faithfulness because they're in the church. Now, as time goes
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on, Remember that x-axis is measuring time.
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As time goes on, look at that graph.
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Is it accelerating? Is it flatlining?
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Is it bouncing? Or is it declining?
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Perhaps a little bit of all 3. And so I'm
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going to say that we have to make that own self-assessment
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ourselves on that graph. Where do we stand on that graph?
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And the only constant improvement measure on that graph is
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that line that goes straight up. It's a 45-degree angle. As you
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go through life's ups and downs, even you're age
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20 when you come into the church, when you're age 40, let's hope that that
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graph is at a higher place because your level of faithfulness has
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increased. Unfortunately, too few of us perhaps
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can't use consistent improvement to describe our progress
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of faith through the years. It's just— We
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sometimes flatline. We sometimes dip for a number of reasons:
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fleeting impulses, bad life circumstances,
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poor decisions. We stall our own
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progress. Now, stalling our progress doesn't mean that we terminate our progress,
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but sometimes it gets— that flatline situation occurs and
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it takes a while to get out of that. Well, let's help
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us decide Let's decide for ourselves if
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our graph is advancing or is it not advancing. And I want to do that
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by taking somewhat of a self-examination.
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At any age or any point in our spiritual walk, whether we've been in church
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for 20 years or 40 years, there needs to be a periodic
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self-examination. Where do I stand? If I'm— if I've got to make
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those subjective decisions as life goes on on that x-axis,
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Where is my level of progress? Am I going up or am I doing this
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or am I taking dips? I have to do that. I have to ask myself,
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what are my core values and
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are my actions, my habits, my choices consistent
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with or do they align with spiritual characteristics
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that God's Word tells us that we must have? We have to do this
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as objectively as possible. And one way I thought I could look at
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this is one of the verses or passages in
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the Bible that, wow,
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I seem to— every time I prepare a lesson, I wind up there at least
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for a while. Galatians 5, the fruits of the Spirit. Now,
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there are, I think, 9 fruits of the Spirit, and I'm going to slice faithfulness
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out of the equation for just a minute because that's what we're talking about in
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general. So I've got to ask myself, do my
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actions, do my patterns of behavior, my patterns of thought,
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my patterns of emotions, Do they please or
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displease God based upon those fruits of the Spirit?
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Love versus hate or abhorrence.
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Joy versus grief or despair. Peace versus
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hostility. Patience versus being annoyed all the
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time by somebody. Kindness versus animosity. Goodness versus
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immorality at the other end of the extreme. Gentleness versus
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harshness, self-control versus self-indulgence. Those would be
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the extremes of those fruits of the Spirit.
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And so I ask myself, where do I stand in those? And it helps me
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make that self-evaluation. Now I'm going
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to get off the subject a little bit. I've got to digress
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a little bit, wandering off a little bit, but bear with me. I'm going to
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get us back on this. I was asked to teach this lesson Being
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faithful throughout life. And I, after I studied for a while, I told
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Neil I wanted to title my lesson be The Benefit of Hindsight. Things that I've
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overlooked along the way, things that I have seen but I didn't see at
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that point in time, I see because I'm looking back now. Most of
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you know that I had a short stint as a US Marine for 4
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years active duty, 17 and 2/3 years of age to 21
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and 2/3. Years of age.
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Like many veterans, military service had a profound effect on my life,
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mostly a positive effect. And now, with the benefit of hindsight,
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I see that God's providence was in play in those 4 years
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and really in the years after that.
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Despite a few unwise decisions
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I made and a too-long-at-times period of no noticeable
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increase in spiritual maturity, I flatlined or I dipped on that
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XY graph. Now, I don't want
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you to be confused. My military service was
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not more difficult than others, and it was much
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easier than other veterans that I know. And I'm not going to use as
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an excuse the fact that I had periods of time when duty
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obligations made it impossible
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to know what day of the week it was. I didn't know when the Lord's
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Day came. And in some cases, I didn't know, we didn't know,
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the folks I served with didn't even know what month it was. I remember one
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occasion when somebody said, this was in 1967,
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I believe, hey, the Cardinals won the World Series.
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The next person says, is it October? We just,
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you lose track of things like that. But I'm not using that as an excuse.
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I know now that the only reason your
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faith doesn't increase is because we're putting too
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little polish on the process. We don't progress
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because we just don't have the effort to do it. I didn't
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take full advantage of the breaks I had in that grueling schedule in that
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period of time. And I've asked myself,
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if that was a grueling schedule for me, if it was demanding,
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There's people in this room, and me at times perhaps, have grueling schedules
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too. And I've got brothers in Christ in this
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room that I'm absolutely sure commendably served in the armed forces, and I
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know one or two of them were highly decorated, which I was
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not. I didn't learn anything of value in
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those 4 years beyond what they learned, I'm sure, and I'm pretty confident
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that my personal faithfulness took a bigger bigger hit than
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some of theirs did. Now,
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I ventured off on that tangent intentionally to lead us to this.
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Those 4 years were a big part of my life,
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even though they were just formative years of
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what came after that. But I am proud
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to serve— I say I served as a Marine, and I
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served well as a Marine. I wasn't a recruiting poster Marine,
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which was clearly somebody's oversight,
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but there was a reason I had good
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relationships, rapport if you will, with junior officers
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and senior noncommissioned officers. Now those of you who are military veterans,
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you know that corporals and sergeants answer
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first to those junior officers and those noncommissioned
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officers. I had good rapport with them, and it wasn't because
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I was trying to be teacher's pet. That would not have played well in the
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barracks at all. But the reason I had
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good rapport with them was I was absolutely committed
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to the task at hand. Whatever was expected of me, I tried
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to do it. I tried to do it well. And I want you to think
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about that a minute. I was committed to to the cause at hand,
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the cause that people expected of me. I was
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committed to those under whom I
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served. I was committed to those
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under whom I served.
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With the benefit of hindsight, I find that
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what I practiced pretty diligently as
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core values, C-O-R-P-S,
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values in that 4-year period aligned reasonably
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well with core— C-O-R-E—
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spiritual values that I've learned more about in the years
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since. And I want to focus from
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this point forward on what I see looking
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back as the qualities that this old Marine
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I can see through hindsight that I think contributed to me
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going no worse perhaps than flatlining,
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and that they perhaps even contributed more to my faithfulness. But as I first
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saw this, I saw it maybe with a military reference
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primarily. But as I studied it more, it became
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more focused spiritually. Spiritually.
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The first of those qualities is moral courage and
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uncompromised integrity. Moral courage,
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uncompromised integrity. Marines and all service members
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fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice that
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measures how well we adhere to the standards that are expected
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of us. We're expected to practice ethical standards to the highest degree.
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That includes, of course, moral courage and uncompromised
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integrity. That UCMJ provides the legal
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framework to require service members obedience,
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accountability, and mission readiness.
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Obedience, accountability, mission readiness— aren't
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those ideas with spiritual applications? Does not the
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Bible provide guidance or requirements that have
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to do with spiritual obedience,
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accountability, and mission readiness?
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Let's explore a few verses that address that.
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On your outline, I think I didn't— I think I got a J 14:15.
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That's John 14:15. Most of you know
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that verse by heart. 7 words in my translation.
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Jesus himself says to those assembled, if you love me,
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keep my commandments. I don't believe there's a
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clearer verse in the New Testament than that. Jesus said it to his disciples
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shortly before his resurrection— I'm sorry,
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shortly before his crucifixion. Love for
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Jesus is shown through obedience. In the immediate context of that, John 14, really John
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13 through 17, Jesus makes a number of specific
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obedience-related commands. And I'm not going
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to drop in on all of those, but I'll tell
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you where they are, and you can jot them down on your sheet of paper
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if you want to, because I don't think we have time to read all of
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those. John 14:10-11,
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John 13:34, John 15:4-7,
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John 14:13-14.
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And John later expressed in 1 John
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this, if you love me, keep my commandments.
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He later expressed it, I believe, as a core commandment
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just as well, and he even extended that.
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That verse says, believe on the name of his Son
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Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us commandment.
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So John— 1 John 3:23,
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John takes that where Jesus said, if you
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love me, keep my commandments. John later says that that type
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of love needs to extend to our neighbors as well.
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There are a number of verses that
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deal with that quite well, and that's
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only a few that I've mentioned. I want to go— We
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heard a few minutes ago from Bill one of his favorite
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verses. One of mine, really 2 of mine, the next 2 I'm going to talk
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about are 2 of my favorites. Romans 14:12,
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where Paul says, so then each of us shall give account of
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himself to God. That's another verse that my Bible does not have a footnote for,
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and I think because there's no ambiguity there. It's quite clear.
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What he said. There are other verses that talk also
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about accountability: Galatians 6:5, James 4:17,
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Luke 12:48 would be 3 more. Now, I don't want
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to take that, that verse in Romans out of context.
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The context of Romans 14 really is talking about
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unity and tolerance, Christian unity and tolerance on things that would be
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nonessential and somewhat disputable or subject
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to disagreement in the early church. But he does say,
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each one of us shall give account of himself to God.
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I like Ephesians 6:14-17.
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We know Paul was inspired, but he was also gifted in his
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writing. Now, we're talking
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spiritual terms, but especially those of you who have any
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kind of a mental— I'm sorry, a military frame
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of reference. As I read this, think about not just the spiritual
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aspect of it, but the military aspect of it as well. Stand therefore,
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having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of
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righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
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Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which
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you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
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And take the helmet of salvation and the sword
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of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Friends,
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when the Marines and the other members of the service, when they go
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into battle, they wear duty belts. They have
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all the things they need, and they might have on a hard hat as well,
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a helmet. And Paul knew that.
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He's telling us that we have a duty belt spiritually just
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like the military folks have a duty belt that has all the tools
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on it that they need to go into battle. I want to share with you
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something I read from one of my commentaries, a gentleman named
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Wayne Jackson. I believe he's been here at Equipped. A New Testament
23:43
Commentary is the name of his book. And he talks about— he says this in
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reference to Ephesians 6:14-17. He says, our battle
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spiritual against the sinister forces of
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Satan in whatever form or whenever they arise.
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Our armor consists of truth, righteousness, the good news of peace,
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faith, confidence in salvation, the Word of God,
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prayer, and perseverance. Paul said it
24:10
very well, and Wayne Jackson said it well also.
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We are in a battle spiritually, and ourselves,
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and we have a duty belt. We don't
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need to go to the armory to get stuff. We've already
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got it. It's right here in the Word. We just simply need to get familiar
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with it. Moral courage and integrity are interconnected.
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They are rooted in trusting God.
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Think about all those folks in the Bible who did
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something bold with clear moral
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courage and deep,
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deep integrity.
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Daniel in Daniel chapter 1, Daniel's 3 friends 3
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or 4 chapters later, and one that
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just knocks me out of the park in,
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I believe it's Ephesians,
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Galatians, Galatians chapter 2, You know the story,
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Paul calls out Peter, Peter the
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Apostle, an early leader in the church. Paul calls
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him out for being a hypocrite. Tell me that
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that didn't take some moral courage. We have to have
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moral courage and integrity that will never be
25:31
compromised in order to allow our faith to grow.
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We can't rely on willpower at the moment.
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We have to have that deep-seated trust in God which
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allows us to have an unending supply of
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moral courage and integrity.
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Trusting in God, of course, is present. God has promised
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never to forsake us. Some of you scholars of
26:00
the Bible know what the last part Matthew 28:20
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is. I'll call it 28:20b, and lo, I am with
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you always. Yeah, that's the last of the 4 alls
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in Matthew 28, I like to refer to them. Jesus said, I have all
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authority. He said, go to all nations. He said, teach all things
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commanded. And I am with you
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always. We've got all the
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tools we need. So forget not the importance
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of moral courage and uncompromised integrity.
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The second quality I want to share with you is preparation.
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For service members, the Marines I served with, and you other folks here,
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I know that you know that we were taught,
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and perhaps we experienced ourselves, that sometimes we have to make critical decisions
26:57
that affect our combat mission, we gotta make that right on the
27:01
spot at any moment, at any time. Duty says we've
27:04
got to make a decision, we got to make it quick, or else something
27:09
not good is going to happen. The goals must be well understood
27:15
and proper training must have occurred to
27:19
be thoroughly prepared for whatever unfolds each day.
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That's true in a military setting. It's true, I believe, in a spiritual setting.
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I didn't have combat experience, and some folks in this room did have combat
27:34
experience. And so I, I didn't experience any
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of those urgent situations
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where a critical decision had to be made or somebody's life
27:46
was going to be in immediate jeopardy. But I know
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we were all taught that hesitation or an incorrect
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decision, if you don't know your mission, if you haven't prepared yourself for it,
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can result in loss of life. And I'm going to suggest
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to you that hesitation or an
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incorrect decision based on too little preparation
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can jeopardize one's spiritual life, one's own self-spiritual
28:14
life, and perhaps the spiritual life of somebody else.
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We're not in a physical fight. But as we saw earlier,
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we do have a combat mission. We are at war,
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according to Paul, with unseen spiritual
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forces against principalities, powers, and rulers of the world's darkness,
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against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.
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Friends, temptations rear their ugly
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head around every corner, and sometimes we don't quickly recognize
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them. False teaching is not a first-century
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phenomenon that does not exist anymore. And if
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you don't believe anti-God worldviews exist, turn on
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the TV any time of the day and you will find anti-God
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worldviews vividly displayed. We have to know
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how to oppose those things in order to fight back and maintain
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faithfulness or our spiritual
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safety may be in jeopardy and perhaps the spiritual safety of others.
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We must become and we must stay
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prepared to fight those spiritual battles.
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I want to add this. I initially left this out of my lesson, but I
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thought I can't. One invaluable key to faithfulness preparation has been given
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to us by James. James 1:5, Where the writer says, if any of you
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lacks what? If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God
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who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
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And I think after studying this lesson, I have a little bit different perspective on
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this verse. I don't think the wisdom of which James is talking is saying
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about when you hit a spiritual crossroads, that's when you ask God,
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give me the wisdom to know which path to take, what to
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do. I think what he's saying is, folks, Folks, look at this from a
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broader perspective. We should have
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a process of becoming wise through
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a lifetime of faithfulness so that when one of those crossroad
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moments occurs, we know that we
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already have the proper foundation in place to make those
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critical decisions. It's in our storehouse of faith.
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And when we see that crisis situation, that effective,
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fervent prayer of which James writes about a few verses
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later, uh, has us ready to voice our concerns
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to God. And with proper,
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uh, preparation, training, understanding,
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uh, we know in which way to go. I want to go back to something
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else Wayne Jackson said in response to this these verses in
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James. He says, the Lord does
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not directly provide a miraculous
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transfusion of wisdom,
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but it comes through the revelation
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of Scriptures and the heavenly orchestration
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of providence. The revelation of Scriptures. What does he mean
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by the revelation of Scriptures? What is a revelation?
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It's revealed. It's a making known process. It's a making known
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process. We can't know what God expects
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of us without studying the Bible. We've got to understand
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what God is trying to tell us. And I tried
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to narrow this down into— okay, I like to do things
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mathematically, I guess. Give me a 1-2-3 approach for maintaining
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Faithfulness, preparation for maintaining faithfulness.
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And here's what I came up with. This is just me, of course. You may
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have a different approach on that. Critical spiritual decisions are going to unfold
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in all phases of life, whether we're 20 or whether we're 60 or 78.
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We're occasionally, and maybe sometimes frequently, going to have a critical spiritual
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decision. Pray you will always be ready.
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Pray you will always be ready. Don't pray at the moment you Well, do that.
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Pray at the moment, I'll know how to navigate this. But pray
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now that you'll be ready then when that happens. Pray often.
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Pray for the church. Pray for this church. Pray for
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the church elders, please. Pray for others specifically
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as you know what their critical needs are. But most
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of all, pray for yourself and for your family.
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The Bible, especially the Old Testament books of poetry, are filled with various
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verses or passages— more than one verse— that
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help with decision-making. And so I want to
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say, search the Scriptures. Get familiar,
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especially with the Psalms and the Proverbs. I'll have a little bit more to say
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about that next week. And where possible,
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seek advice from church leaders, men or women depending on the circumstances.
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Spiritually sound advice is invaluable,
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but you have to be involved in the workings of the church.
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You have to be studying your Bible to know where
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to go if you need advice. Knowledge of the Bible helps choosing
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the right counselors. Don't go to somebody that throws curves.
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Go see somebody that speaks straight
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from the Word. 1, 2, 3: pray
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you'll be ready, search the Scriptures, spiritually sound advice
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is invaluable.
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The 3rd quality that I want to address is we should remain
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calm if faith-challenging difficulties arise. Well,
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that seems to be a little inconsistent with what you said earlier. You're ready to
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go into battle, you got all this armor on, remain calm? That doesn't seem to
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fit into that. Well, yes, sometimes critical
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decisions have to be made in a heartbeat, but nonetheless,
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panic has no place in the circumstances. That's why we prepare ourselves so
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that there won't be panic creeping into the equation. Calmness helps
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anyone focus on where
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they need to focus, and spiritual calmness with
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clear-headed thinking is a must.
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We learned in basic training, all military services branches
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teach this, I'm sure.
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What do you do in those critical situations? What are we taught?
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To rely on what? Training. Rely on your training.
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You rely on your training and you'll know how to act.
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Your training should be good. And those of us
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who have served know that we had some training to know how to deal with
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some of these circumstances. Training.
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Philippians 4:6-7, Paul says, be anxious for nothing.
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That is, don't— that is, be calm. But in everything by prayer and
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supplication, humble request, deeply respectful petition,
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with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God,
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which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and
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minds through Christ Jesus. Paul uses guard.
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He uses it as a verb. The noun form of guard is certainly
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a military term. I can remember having some of that training. I never
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had to do it, but I had fireteam training. Fireteam always has somebody on the
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point and somebody on the rear. What are they doing? They're guarding. They want to
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make sure that if danger arises, somebody's going to know about it pretty quickly.
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They warn them of imminent danger. Anxiety befalls
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us all. But if we're faithful as we need
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to, if we trust that God will provide that peace, then we will
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find deliverance. Prayer reinforces that. It builds on
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our trust just like it did for Elijah a long time ago.
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One of my favorite passages is Isaiah 41:10,
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where the great prophet says, fear not, for I am
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with you. Be not dismayed, For I am your God, I will strengthen
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you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with
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my righteous right hand. God's raised
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right hand is a sign of his sovereignty, a sign of his
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strength. He has no opposition. Get familiar with God and
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you will be able to push back against any opposition you might have.
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Another verse, John 14:27. I said
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earlier that these passages, John 13 through 17.
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I read them, and every time I read them, I almost tear up because
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I learn something every time. How did I miss that? John 14:27,
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our Savior says, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to
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you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart
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be troubled, neither let it be afraid. This was
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the second time that Jesus said, let not your heart be troubled.
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John 14, verse 1. Why would he say, let not your
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heart be troubled? Why would he say that at all?
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Because he knew their heart was troubled,
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and he said it twice. He knew that. He spoke those words of
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comfort, a promise of peace,
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and he spoke it at the time
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just before his arrest and crucifixion. As I read this
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most recently, I thought,
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if there ever was— and there was not—
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but if there was a heartbeat of a moment
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where Jesus's faithfulness was at the point
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of being challenged— and there was not—
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it had to be in these passages, John 14
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through 17, some of them especially, but really the whole text.
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Now, I will put that second to the time in the Garden of Gethsemane where
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he was as broken as he became.
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I want to conclude this lesson by
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offering this: How do we remain faithful through life? If we start
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life at 20, our Christian life at 20, or if we start it at
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55 or 75, how do we remain faithful? Faithful? If we've
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got 80 years and we've still got 60 of them, or we only got 15,
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or only got 5, uh, how do we know?
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Uh, well, as I was trying to answer this question in the early
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preparation for my lesson— for this lesson, I read something that
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I found to be quite profound.
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In the Preacher Pollard blog on September 4th,
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2026, Brother Brent Pollard wrote
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faithful Christian living begins with honest belief.
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So examine what you actually believe,
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not what you affirm on a Sunday morning, but what governs
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you when you're not assembled with the church. If Jesus
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remains a historical curiosity to you, you have
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received him as the world, as Acknowledged, cataloged, ignored.
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If he is the risen Son of God, then Paul's charge to Titus becomes
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your charge: teach sound doctrine, adorn it with sound
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living, and let no appetite call itself your master.
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He's making that charge to Titus. That's in Titus 2:7-8.
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And I will say to us, although he's talking to Titus— teach sound
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doctrine— some of us don't teach much, at least. But we all need
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to adorn our lives with sound living and let no appetite
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call itself our master. Paul told Titus, show yourself in all respects
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to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity,
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dignity, and sound speech that can't be condemned,
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so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about
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us. Friends, we can't do that without moral
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courage. We can't do that without uncompromised integrity.
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We can't do that without preparation as life goes along.
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And we can't do that absent the spiritual calmness
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that these things bring to our walk of faith because
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we've studied. And I'll
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leave with you with this thought. As Forrest Gump said so long ago,
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that's all I have to say about this matter. Thank you for your attention.