How to Stay the Course

Pastor Corey delivers his weekly message titled "How to Stay the Course"

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How to stay the course. Stand with me as we read. 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 1 and 2. This is a foundational verse for me, and I apply it to my life on a regular basis. That's why I use it a lot. So 1 Corinthians 4 says, This then is how you ought to regard us. So Paul's speaking to the Corinthians, he's saying, This is how you got to look at us. This is how we want you to think about us. As servants of Christ. Now, in some passages, or I mean in some versions, it says, as stewards of Christ. A steward is a servant. A steward is a keeper of the house. In other words, a steward is someone who doesn't own the house. He's just keeping it for the master. He's preparing it for when the master needs use of it. And so Paul says, as a steward, as a servant of Christ, and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. You're a Christian. I'm a Christian. We who are teachers, we who are who are Christian influencers, we have been entrusted with the mystery of the gospel to help people know how they can become a friend of God and how they can come to know Christ and have peace. So he says here, regard us as the servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust, those who are stewards, those who have been given a trust, must prove faithful, must prove trustworthy, must stay the course. Prove faithful and stay the course. So let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Help us to bring it down to what's simple, but yet profoundly important, so that we can stay the course in this complex world. And I prayed in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. There are people who say, Pastor, there are a lot of things in the Bible that are complicated and hard to understand. And you know what my answer is? That's right. Because the mind of God, you know, is not the mind of a man. And it even says in Deuteronomy that the secret things of God belong to God. There are some things that I've been asked that I'll never have the answer to on this side. For instance, I have this question asked to me all the time. Well, my loved one, you know, my my dad was married to my mom and they got a divorce, and then dad remarried, and he had a family there, and mom had a family there, and who's who are they gonna be married to in heaven? And I say, Well, the Bible says there'll be no marriage, no marriage or given in marriage. And then I have this question. Well, well, if heaven's gonna be heaven, how am I not gonna, you know, be married to my spouse? And I'm like, I don't know, I ask God. I don't have a clue. But the little bit that I do know, maybe it's because love in heaven is so perfect that there will never be any need for that. That you won't be lacking. You won't be like, well, I wish I could be with my spouse. You're gonna be with your spouse 100% of the time. And what love, I don't know. It's just again, I go back to the scripture that says the mind can't conceive what God has prepared for those who love him. We we just can't. So there are a lot of things in the Bible that belong to God, we'll never know. But there are some things that are pretty straightforward and clear. So I want to give you three quick things in how to stay of the course. You have got to care for, nurture, and develop your personal faith, your personal walk with Christ. You and I, you have to own it. I have to own it. You have to develop your personal faith. Paul is talking about in this chapter about being a servant of Christ. Paul knew exactly what it meant to be a servant of Christ. And when he was confronted by Jesus Christ on the Damascus road, and for three years, you know, he was discipled and developed. And, you know, Paul walked, he didn't just jump right into the ministry. As a matter of fact, it says in 1 Timothy that God found him and deemed him to be faithful, thereby putting him into the ministry. It wasn't until he could be trusted by God as faithful. And so Paul had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Look at John 3.16. I know we quote it all the time. Let's look at it. Let's look at it and read it. Look at what the Bible says. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life or eternal life. Whoever believes in him, it's a personal thing. And then John 1.12, one of my favorite verses, I quote it all the time. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Now, my father, my dad, my earthly father, is my dad, right? And uh the shrimp season opened, and while dad doesn't do it full-time for a living anymore, when he got off of work, he worked seven and seven, when he got off, and he uh he went fishing and he took my sister and his granddaughter, her daughter, uh, to go shrimping. And they went shrimping for a while uh the last couple of days, and they did pretty good. They did all right, had some mechanical trouble and came in and all of that. Now, I'm his child. And it's personal. I called dad, I said, Dad, text me, keep me updated on what you're catching. I'm on a novel. Dad, how you feeling? How's mom doing? Mom had surgery last week. How's she feeling? And he goes, Don't pray for your mom, pray for me because I need her to cook. I don't know how I'm gonna survive without it. And dad can cook pretty good. But what I'm getting at is that I'm his, I'm there, I'm his child, and I have a personal relationship with my father. And even more so with my heavenly father. Your faith will never be strengthened beyond what you are willing to do for it. It's got to matter to you. So, Mr. Jim Pritchett's devotional book. I mean, look, he read and studied the absolute cover off this book.

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The cover. It's a Billy Graham hope for each day devotion twice a day. He had a personal relationship. You can see in what he wrote and how he was grateful for what God has done for him, and how God has forgiven him, and on and on and on, and about his family, and it was personal to him. And he wore this thing out and studied, and I think he read it so many times that he just got tired of the words that were already there, and he started writing his own words across it. He wasn't a perfect man, he was a forgiven man and a saved man. And and Jim Pritchett cared about his personal walk with the Lord. And he didn't wait for some pastor or some preacher to preach on Sunday so he could grow. He woke up every morning and said, I need to grow. I need to feed myself. As many of you know, I started a project eight years ago, nine years ago, a tiny house, finally completed it this weekend. Thank God, thank you, Lord. It's off my plate. And we moved it and we slept in it the last two nights. People said, How is it? It's tiny. Penny's, so I'll I took the first shower in it. She was up in the queen size loft above it. She said, It sounded like you were fighting with somebody in there. I said, I was. I was fighting with the walls. I was turning in a tiny. And so, in doing so, I had to make a commitment to it to finish it. And this morning I woke up and I went to fix me a cup of coffee in that little tank. And it's a carry that does one cup at a time. It's not like it's got a bunch of water and it's just and it's confusing me. I'm just I don't know, do I have enough water in it? Do I not have enough water in it? And and listen, it kind of watered down my coffee a little bit. Now, those of you know me, I I water it down on my own by putting sweet milk in it of some kind. Creamer. Right? I like coffee with my creamer. But as I was drinking the coffee and I was driving this way this morning, I thought to myself, I got, this coffee's not right. It's just not right. I got to do something about it. I need to take personal responsibility. I just won't put as much water next time, and so maybe it'll be a little stronger. I didn't call Penny and say, you gotta make sure you fix my coffee better. I want better coffee, I gotta do something about it. You want a stronger personal walk with the Lord, it's gotta matter to you. It's gotta matter. One of the things we talked to our men about on Wednesday night, and we're we're studying, you know, we're on our second book by Johnny Hunt, and the first one was about tearing down strongholds, and the second one is talking about what men don't want to talk about, and unspoken, it's titled, and we had a very difficult subject this past Wednesday night, which I'm not gonna tell you what the subject was, but but we talked about that. And one of the things I keep telling them, and one of the things we keep talking to each other about is this is that guys, ultimately, no one's gonna care for your personal walk with Christ like you will. You want a clean heart? You've got to do something about it. The Bible says that that mighty in God are his principles for tearing down, or his the weapons of his warfare are mighty in God for tearing down strongholds and everything that exalts itself before God. And so I've got a mighty weapon here, and and and I've got to employ it into my life, and I've got to open the word of God on a regular basis, and I've got to have a personal walk with Christ. So your personal faith has to be something that's super important to you every day, right? I mean, it goes without saying. But you'll be amazed, you'll be amazed at how many people, Christians, who are letting the rat race of this life run them ragged, who are neglecting this. So much so that so much emphasis is placed on the pastor's soul for a pastor. We have pastors out there. Brian Croft is a was a small church pastor and and and and created a niche to minister to small church pastors, and so he resigned this church, and that's what he does all the time. And one of the things that he reminds us of on a regular basis is do something for your soul. And on Monday mornings, he's reminding, now listen, he's reminding pastors this. He's saying, listen, don't resign today. Don't make any big decisions today on Monday. What happened yesterday happened, good, bad, or indifferent, it happened. What you need to do today, Pastor, above all else, is you need to feed your soul and rely on Jesus and let him encourage you. And my gosh, if pastors have to be reminded of that, how much more should we all be reminded, right? All of us. Your personal faith, you and I have to care. All right? Number two, in staying the course. Listen, so faith, I'm telling you, these are not complicated in your family. Your family. The Bible speaks highly of families. Now, in talking about a pastor's family, I'm just showing you what the Bible says about families. 1 Timothy 3, 4, and 5 talks about a pastor's family. Look at what it says here. It says, and he's talking about children who live in his home. He says he must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him. And he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. Notice a family. He says, if anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church? So for pastors, you know, we have to put an emphasis there. And then look at what 1 Timothy 5.4 says. Again, the Bible talking about the family and how important the family is. But if a widow has children or her grandchildren or has grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice, put your faith into practice by caring for, taking care of your own family. And so repaying their parents and grandparents for this is pleasing to God. And so, in some cases in the Bible, uh back then people were wanting the church to take care of these elderly people, and Paul rebuked them, and Paul told Timothy, listen, uh-uh. No, it's the responsibility of their families first and foremost to take care of family. It's important. That's what the Bible says. And then look at what Ephesians 5, verses 21 through 28 says about the marriage in family. It says, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourself to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. But look at this: husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word. And to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Now, the reason I gave you that entire passage of scripture right there is again, the focus, family, husband and wife, it's important to God, and it should be important to us. Our relationship with our family is important. And how we relate to one another, in submitting to one another, and in following biblical authority, and in being a loving servant leader as a husband, you know, and on and on. That's a whole different sermon. And then look at Ephesians 6, 1 through 4. Again, family. Parents, when you've told your children to do something, and and what's one of their retorts, the response to you when they say, when you say to do something, what do they say? Why? That's good too, but that's not wrong, that's correct. But but what I was getting at is, why? And what do we, what have we all said sometimes, even when we were kids, maybe we said, why? And I remember my mom said, because I told you so. And then I remember mom saying, I brought you into this world, and son, I can snuff you out. And I'm like, she's a killer. But the reason I bring that up is look, God gives us the why. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Now, this is not gonna be, this is not gonna be satisfactory to children. Why? For this is right. That's why. It's the right thing to do. Well, it doesn't feel right. It don't matter how you feel, it's the right thing to do. That's what the Bible says. Children obey your parents. And then it says here, honor your father and mother. This is real simple. Very simple. You can obey your parents. This is this you can obey them, but not honor them. Obedience is this. Little Johnny, I want you to take out the trash. This is obedience, okay? Little Johnny. Takes out the trash. All right. This is dishonoring your parents. Little Johnny wants you to take out the trash. I can't believe I don't know why my sister didn't take out the trash. And I can't understand why. You know, they ought to take out the trash. I didn't put all this trash in. They throw it. You're technically obeying them, you threw the trash, you did whatever you're supposed to do, but you dishonored them the entire time in your spirit. This is how you honor them. Little Johnny, take out the trash. Yes, mama. Yes, I love you. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, a team over there saying, stay in the frame. Hey, y'all, I'm still here. All right. This is honoring them. Yes, mother, I would be more than happy to honor you by taking the trash out. And you take the trash out. I love my mama and daddy. I'm so grateful I get to take the trash out. So honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment, with promise. And then it goes on and says this. So that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. Fathers, do not frustrate your children or exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. I've always thought about this. What does that mean? To frustrate your children, exasperate your children. I think it's simple. I think it's this. We as fathers frustrate our children when we do not live what we preach. I think it's simple. When we tell them how to live, but we don't show them. When we send them to church, but we don't bring them. When we tell them they need to be nice to their mama, but we're not nice to their mama. Basically, when we tell them do as I say, not as I do. So stay the course. How do you stay the course in this crazy culture? Personal faith. You and I have responsibility to our family. We didn't choose them. We're to love them. We're to care for them. We're to spend time with them. Those of you who are fathers and moms, that's your greatest mission field right there. Somebody in my family that I love very much, I'm not gonna mention any names. His wife gave him a Bible. He's starting to be real interested in spiritual things for his own personal life now. And she called me and she says, What do you think about the Bible called the Jesus Bible? I said any Bible that's got Jesus in it is pretty good. Just make sure it's not the uh the Watchtower Society or something like that. But it's called the Jesus Bible. And so when she gave it to him, he goes, Well, I don't get why it's called Jesus Bible. Ain't that what the whole Bible's about? Smart young man, yeah, that's right. That's right. You see, for the entirety of my life, whether my loved one my loved ones obey the Lord, follow the faith of their father or not, I have a responsibility to love them and love them in such a way that I live the truth in front of them and at the right times and the right seasons in the right situations now that they're no longer under my roof, I speak the truth. But living it too matters. And that's how you love your family. You stay the course. You love them. Let me give you one last thing. So if I'd have just given you one word. The first one would have been faith. The second one would have been family. Here's the third one. Faith family. This is the third one. Faith family. Your first one is faith. Your second one is family. Your third one is faith family. That's your church. That's your church. You see, I think the way we have it today, and a lot of Christians have bought into this, is that they're out of balance. They haven't stayed the course. And either they're humbling on the church and they're neglecting their spiritual walk and they're neglecting the family, or maybe they're they're hulling on their family, or they're hulling on just their spirit. I mean, I know a guy that thinks he's second to God and he doesn't need the church. But it's not biblical. You need your faith family. And in order to navigate this crazy world, there's got to be some semblance of balance in your life as a Christian. It can't be all one thing and not the others. You gotta have all three. It's just like the three biblical words for love in the New Testament. One is phileo, which is friendship. You gotta have that. Right? Let me, young people, if you marry somebody that you're not friends with, that's a problem. I've had people say, well, I can't, I can't date him or marry him. He's too good of a friend. Well, what, you want to marry your enemy? You out of your mind? Gotta be you gotta be friends. If you're not friends, oh my God, anyway, don't even get me started there. But three three words. So Phileo, which is friendship type love, agape love, which is the sacrifice, it's the glue that holds the marriage together. It's what Jesus did on the cross for us, agape love. And the third is the is the word eros, which the world has perverted, but it's it's the the uh intimate, spiritual, god-blessed gift that God's given a marriage. And you gotta have all three for it to work. You gotta have all three. And in the same way, in order for your life to have the proper balance, you've got to have it this way. You gotta have uh your personal walk with the Lord has got to be super important to you. And then your family has got to be super important, and then your faith family has got to be important because God has ordained those two institutions and obviously your faith. And it's important. Look at what 1 Peter 2.17 says. It says, show proper respect to everyone. Love the family of believers. Some versions say the family of God. So show proper respect to everyone. Love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor. You know how you love the family of believers is you participate with them in life, in doing ministry, in serving, and going and participating. Galatians 6, 9 and 10. Look at what the Bible says here. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. But then look at what it says here. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers, a family. And then Hebrews 10, 24 and 25. Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward loving good deeds. You know what's one of the things that keeps me in check personally as a Christian is I know I got to come face you twice a week, if not more. I know I'm accountable to you, and it spurs me on to good works. When left on my own without accountability, I'm probably gonna fizzle out. But because I have accountability, because I have a church family, it helps me to be everything that I can be in Christ. Not giving up meeting together, we're not to give it up. As some are in the habit of doing, notice, it is habitual when you quit. But encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching, as you see the day approach. As this world gets nuts, I need my church family more than ever. And I'm talking to everybody in here who believes that. So stay balanced and stay the course. The church isn't perfect, and we'll have our moments, and we'll go through some valleys, and we'll have some high mountain experiences, and we'll have dry times, and we'll have, you know, prosperous times, and we'll have times of harvest and plenty, we'll have times of drought and planting and on and on and on. All kinds of times. And and in the church, sometimes as a whole, could can be very disappointing, but it can also be such a great blessing. But just like the family, the family will hurt you. People in your own family will hurt you. Your best friend will hurt you. My best friend is my wife. She is hurting me. I've hurt her more times than she's ever thought about hurting me, and she stayed with me. And so the family is important. You're gonna, but we don't want to abandon our family. We stay the course. We stay faithful. Going back to our original passage of scripture. One who's been given a trust, a responsibility, he, she must be found faithful. He who puts his hand to the plow, the Bible says, and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God. For Jesus. I know to you this may not be some new revelation, these three points, but to me, it's how I stay grounded. I have it written down in a lot of places. Faith, family, faith, family. My walk with Jesus, my relationship to those in my biological family, and it's important. And my spiritual family, the family of believers, my brothers and sisters in Christ. And just like I love to see my brothers and sisters, I don't live with them, but I see them, and I enjoy being with them. That's the same way I enjoy being with my church family. I don't want to live with all of you all the time. You don't want to live with me. But we do life together, and it's important. I make this statement, you've heard me say it in the midst of this pandemic, you've heard me say it coming out of this pandemic, and I'm gonna say it again. I believe the best days of the church are ahead. No matter what our society says, no matter what the statistics are saying or showing, there will always be a remnant for Jesus. There will always be those who love him. There will always be a church serving God. You and I just have to decide do we want to be a part of that and do we want this church to be thriving and strong and powerful for him. Now that doesn't always look the same. It doesn't mean that we're gonna have 5,000 people here, but it could. A smaller church can be very strong. So let's keep these three things and let's stay the course, right, coach? Let's stay with it. Let's get up every day with a purpose for why we're alive, for what we're here for, what we need to accomplish, as the bigger picture. Yes, along the way, we'll get we'll get monkey wrenches thrown into it. And that's why the Bible says, for God works all things together for good to those who love him and to those who will call according to his purpose. Because the next verse talks about we have been predestined to be conformed to his image. It is God's will that you and I become more and more like Jesus every day. So these irritants, these things that happen, are to grow us and to develop us. You keep these three things in order and keep them straight. Do your best to keep them balanced. Sometimes they'll get out of balance. But keep them, keep them there as those three legs you build your life on. You won't be disappointed, you won't be led astray by every wind of doctrine, you won't be led astray by all the craziness, you won't get so depressed and so discouraged that you give up and quit and check out. You'll find strength in a time of need, and you'll be able to stay the course. Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning. Would you stand with me as we pray? Father, I thank you for this congregation, for their sweet and faithful attention to the word of God, for their willingness to live the truth of God's word. We thank you. You don't leave us alone in this world. We thank you that we have your peace because we have a personal relationship with you. Thank you for our family that you've given us. It hurts when we lose them from this life. But we're grateful for those within our family who know you and we know that we will not just see them again, but we will spend eternity with them, praising our King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Thank you for our church family. Where would we be without them who carry our burdens and help us through difficult times? I'm grateful, Father, for the movement of your spirit within my heart this weekend and this week. It's scary, but I love it when you refresh me and do something new inside of my spirit. And I pray for our people that they too would experience the newness of faith, the newness of life each and every day. One statement I want to make: if you don't know Christ as your Savior, you can have a personal relationship with him, calling out to him. He will in no in no way turn you away to as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. You receive him by putting your trust in him, by putting your faith in him. Right where you are, just call out to him. He hears you in your silent voice, he hears the voice of your heart and of your spirit. And in doing so, I want you in just a moment, if you prayed that, if you reached out to God, if you called upon his name, come tell me about it here in this invitation. And if God's spoken to you and you're a Christian and you want to spend a little bit of time at this altar, maybe you want to straighten these three things out, or maybe ask him to help you get them back in balance, this altar will be open to you also. And we pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.