Principles for Powerful Living (Father’s Day)

Pastor Mike will be speaking on Principles for Powerful Living (Father’s Day). He will be reading out of 1st Corinthians 16:13-14.

Some of you are wondering why hasn’t the Lord already come? Let me tell you this that God wants to see people saved and that’s why he is holding back and I’m telling you in the moment that that last person is saved then bam the eastern sky is gonna split and God is going to return.

Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders. We welcome you to Hope Worth Having. Today we’re going to be in 1 Corinthians chapter 16. We’re taking a break from Acts because today we are celebrating Father’s Day and so I want to talk to you today about principles for powerful living.

The Bible says that we are to act like men but it just means that we’re to mature, we’re to grow, we’re to be founded in our faith and the principles that the Apostle gives us helps us to be those strong men for Christ.

So let’s get into the Word of God together. Well today I want to talk about principles for powerful living and it certainly is applicable to all dads but I want you to know it applies to all of us as Christians.

If you’re familiar with the book of 1 Corinthians you know that this was a troubled church in the city of Corinth but the Apostle not only begins with encouragement to this church but he concludes with strong encouraging admonitions to the body of believers and particularly relates to the men in the church and I’m going to be reading from the New King James.

If you’re reading in the King James it’s going to be confusing to you. 1 Corinthians 16 verse 13 through 14 says watch stand fast in the faith be brave be strong let all that you do be done with love.

The Apostle gives some final imperatives to the church. These imperatives are certainly important for us as believers and I want every dad and every father, every mentor to acknowledge some of these imperatives in their own lives and to make sure that we are following these imperatives and that we are moving in that direction in our faith.

I hope that each of us will be encouraged and challenged, especially in light of some of the uncertainty that we live in and that we can be more firm in our faith and fortified in our calling of what God has put upon each of us.

We start out learning the first imperative, which is simply to be alert. Some translations put it like this, pay close attention to. The term is used 22 times in the New Testament and often in reference to being spiritually awake or spiritually alert.

And this is what the apostle was saying to each of us this morning, that there is a great need for us to be awake and to be. Alert now the King James says quiet. It is the same idea. It’s the same understanding It’s just a different language that you’re learning old English But it simply means to be alert to be awake to not be sleeping But to be a tentative to what is going on around you.

You might say why should I be alert? Well friends, let’s first say for our own spiritual formation and health. It’s important for us to be spiritually alert But second of all for your children your grandchildren for those that you are investing in your life that you want to stay spiritually alert so that as you are being that example and as you are making that influence upon that child or that younger person that you are Recognizing the different things that are all around you because of your alertness in Christ Let me give you some areas that you and I need to be alert I want you to write these down this morning But the first area that we should be alert in is in our priorities in our priorities We need to be alert to our priorities.

We need to maintain our priorities people forget. What is Important people forget what matters most in their life I will simply put it out there to you like this that what is most important in your life And what is the priorities of your life is your faith in Jesus Christ and your family?

That’s what I would put out there for you. It’s easy to get involved in our career It’s easy to get involved in other things that are going on that we enjoy doing that we forget To nurture our faith to build upon our faith and to invest in our children I often think about this that if Christians would just reach their own children if they would just invest in their own family What an impact it would make upon the world We have to maintain a priority relationship with Jesus Christ when that begins to crumble all of your other Relationships will crumble because life Life is about relationships,

hear me. I do not say that flippantly. I am telling you that if you get nothing, get this, that life is about relationships. And if you can’t get your relationships right, you can’t get anything right in your life.

Think about it, Jesus taught us to love God. That’s our number one relationship. Jesus taught us to love others, love people. Life is about relationships. Loving God, my relationship with God and my relationship with others.

So make sure that you’re alert to your priorities. The second alertness I want you to have is against Satan. I want you to be on the alert against Satan. The Apostle Peter said this, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Do you get that? He is seeking whom he may devour. You say, well, I’ve been a Christian for a long time, pastor, or I’ve been really digging deep lately. It doesn’t matter, my friends. I mean, that’s all good.

I’m not against it. But I’m just wanting you to know that the devil is always looking for a way to destroy your life, to destroy your family, to destroy the church. And certainly we see the devil already destroying our country, don’t we?

Friends, we’ve got to be alert because the devil wants to destroy the home. He wants to destroy the father. He wants to destroy the leadership within the home. He wants the home to crumble. Because when the home crumbles, the church will crumble.

And when the church crumbles, the community will crumble. And when the communities start crumbling, the nation starts crumbling. That’s why it’s important for every dad to not only have this strong relationship with Christ, but to be alert that Satan is always trying to trap him and to get him going in the wrong direction.

Three ways that the devil likes to mess with us. First is by distracting us. We already talked about priorities, but it’s easy that the devil likes to get shiny things out here. And you’re totally losing focus.

You’re forgetting what’s most important and you get distracted and you get to focusing on the minor things in life. The things that are not really gonna matter 10 years from now or 20 years from now.

And so the devil likes to distract. It’s appealing to the flesh. It’s appealing to your preferences or all these things are fine, but make sure that the devil is not distracting you. His second tactic is to discourage you.

He wants you to be defeated. He wants you to be discouraged. He wants you to quit. He wants you to walk around. with your head down. He wants you to be the kind of person in your home where there’s no joy and there’s no courage and there’s no faith that we’re all just discouraged and we’re ready to throw in the towel.

Listen, dads, you have a big role in that in your home. You need to be that strong leader in your home that is always holding out the hope that is found in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And the only way that you can always be encouraged is to do like David did.

The Bible says he encouraged himself in the Lord, meaning his relationship with God. He was feeding his faith consistently and he was constantly growing in his faith so that he could be that positive light within the home and not be discouraged, not be defeated.

You can’t walk in the door of your home and talk about how bad everything is. because you will raise children that will be negative, critical, and hateful, and discouraged, and defeated, and say, why would we follow God?

Because there’s no hope in Him. The hope of the world is a dying hope, but the hope of those who love Jesus Christ is a living hope that’s rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen?

Listen, the devil will use distraction, discouragement, but He’ll also use division. He’ll use division. He’ll try to divide your home. He’ll turn moms and dads against each other. He’ll turn children against parents and parents against children.

He’ll do everything that He can to cause division in the church. And of course, we see it already in our country. Everybody is divided and against, and we’re all put into these categories, and we’re all told that this is the dividing line, and you’re either over here or you’re over there.

Listen to me, my friends. We fly under the banner of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We’re not gonna divide over sports, preferences, politics, or opinions, or personalities. We’re gonna be united under our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Dads, be careful that you don’t let little things cause division in your home. Differences of opinion. But let me tell you something. We’re all different, but we don’t divide over that. We appreciate and we encourage.

That’s what the Bible means when it says train up a child in the way that he should go, in the way that he’s bent or designed by God. And it’s not just talking about spiritual things. It’s talking about their personality.

It’s talking about their abilities, their giftedness. And some of you are trying to take a square child and you’re trying to put it into a circle. And you’re wondering why there’s so much friction, pushback, and fighting.

Why don’t you let the child be who they are? You say, well, I don’t like the way they are. Well, listen, we have our values, we have our principles, we have our priorities, but we’ve got to give freedom to let our children be unique.

But I don’t want you to allow division in the home because Satan will use it to divide. Now, we need to be on the alert for temptation. Listen to the words of our Savior Jesus. He said, watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.

The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Underscore that in your Bible. The flesh is weak. You want to obey God. You want to do the right thing. You want to live for God and you want to overcome.

But let me tell you something. The flesh is weak. It does not predetermine that we will fail and not be able to resist the devil or resist temptation. But we need to be alert to our weaknesses and we need to understand that the devil knows where we’re weak at.

And the flesh is weak, and therefore we have this responsibility within us to be alert to temptation. We got to be alert, and what helps me to be alert to temptation is to understand that just as we stated, the devil is always looking for a way to trap us.

He’s always looking for a way. So as I learn more about God, I’m trying to learn also more about Mike and what are the areas that he needs to work on. What are the areas that he’s weakened? And so I can again build barriers and boundaries in my life that will help me to stay away from those potential traps and those temptations in my life.

So when our spiritual eyes are shut and they’re sleepy and they’re apathetic, we can fall into sin easily. So every day I’ve got to stay alert for temptation. But another area we need to be alert in is apathy and indifference.

Apathy and indifference. You know, Revelation 3, 1, Jesus said, And to the angel of the church at Sardis write these things, says he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead.

Activity does not equate to spirituality. You can be active in the church, but inactive in the gospel. You can be active, but you have become apathetic. You’re just going through the motions. You’re just doing whatever is required of you.

There’s no true passion in your heart, in your life for the Lord Jesus Christ. These are areas that we need to keep before the Lord in our personal time. And we need to ask the Lord to forgive us for being indifferent towards him and the gospel and his truth and our calling upon our life.

God wants you to be a Christian that is passionate and zealous for him. That doesn’t mean that we’re always happy clapping. And it certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t have times that we’re dealing with different things and emotions in our life, but we’re still alert and we’re still wanting to make a difference for Christ.

And yes, we go through different seasons of our life. And some of you at the time of your life that maybe you couldn’t do as much as you used to do, but you’re still passionate for the gospel and you’re still passionate for the cause of Christ and you still want to stay on mission for God.

Be alert that the devil doesn’t make you apathetic towards the things of God and the people of God and the principles of God and you become indifferent. We want to be passionate for God. Now another area to be alert, be alert for false teachers.

Be alert for false teachers. The Bible says there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies and denying the Lord who brought them and bring on themselves swift destruction.

Remember this. Everything that glistens and glows is not gold, and everything that has the name of Jesus didn’t come from heaven. Dads, you gotta have some discernment. You gotta protect your family, and whether it’s music, or teaching, or books, whatever you’re letting your family be exposed to, make sure that you are filtering and screening out the false teachers.

There are false teachers. I know it’s the 21st century, and can’t we just all get along, and can’t we just love each other? Yes, we can, but we cannot let false teaching destroy our families and destroy our churches.

We cannot get off track with what the Lord and the apostles have taught us, and we cannot go down the path of false teaching. We need to be alert to them. Jesus teaches much about that in Matthew chapter seven.

Take time to read it on your own, to help you to identify false teachers, and to be able to understand how to protect your family from that. Let me tell you another area to be alert, and that is to pray.

Be on the alert to pray. Ephesians 6, 18, having taught the church at Ephesus about the armor of God, Paul concludes and said, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.

When we pray, we’ll be alert. When we’re alert, we will pray. We need to remember that God wants us to be a praying people. You never rise above your prayer life. Every one of us needs to commit in our hearts that we are going to be a people of prayer.

Some of you are frustrated, and you have a lot built up in your heart about whatever problems may be going on in the world. And I wanna tell you that rather than dimming the light, why don’t you reach out to others and be a light, and encourage them, but how do I deal with these frustrations, Pastor?

I get on my knees and I pray to you. to God and I share these things with the Lord and I let him work them out. I give them all to him and prayer is a powerful way. Now what happens in our prayer life sometimes is that we can become again apathetic in our prayers or we can become ritualistic in our prayers and all of a sudden we’re ineffective in our prayers.

Well I want you to note in this verse in Ephesians 6 18 he teaches us a key principle about prayer and he says that we’re to pray at all times in the Spirit. When you pray in the flesh you’ll be weak.

When prayer begins in the flesh it’ll be anemic but when prayer is filled by the Spirit, when prayer is led by the Spirit, when prayer is is anointed by the Spirit, that’s when God will use your prayers to make a difference in the lives of other people.

That’s when God is doing a powerful thing in your life. He says with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit. When I pray, I like to come to God and just totally surrender to the Spirit and ask the Spirit to guide my thoughts and my prayers and the things that I would like to petition God about.

And I know many of you are very organized in your prayer and I’m glad and I’m excited for that. You’ve got books upon books and journals upon journals and you’ve got everything figured out and you’ve got every missionary prayed for and you’ve got every person prayed for and you’ve got every situation prayed for.

But sometimes God wants you to pray in the Spirit as you are seeking God. Be alert to prayer. The final thing I want you to be alert to is to be on the alert for the Lord’s return. Be on the alert for the Lord’s return.

Someone said, I’m not looking for the signs of His coming, I’m listening for the sound of His coming. Hey friends, I want to tell you that the signs are there and we should be listening and that we have to understand that it isn’t going to be long before the Lord returns.

He can come in any moment and that He could come and call us all home. We need to be alert. Some of you are troubled. I just wish that you would study the Bible. The Bible tells us that before the Lord’s return, it’s not going to get better.

It’s going to get worse. It’s going to get worse. You say, thanks for the encouragement, pastor. I hear you. But I want you to know that the Lord is going to return His promises. Somebody said, why doesn’t the Lord return now?

Well, listen, I love 2 Peter 3 9. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. You see, some of you are wondering why hasn’t the Lord already come? Can He see the mess that we’re in?

And why doesn’t He see the mess that we’re in? and he come, let me tell you this, that God wants to see people saved. He wants to see your loved ones come to Christ. He wants to see more individuals come to the Lord.

And that’s why he is holding back and he is holding those angels back. And I’m telling you in the moment that that last person is saved, that is supposed to be saved when they receive Christ, then bam, the eastern sky is gonna split and God is going to return and he’s gonna set up his kingdom on this earth, amen?

So here’s the question, are you living in light of Christ’s second coming? Or are you living in light of all the problems of this world? Are you living in light of all the politics of this world? Are you living in light of all the circumstances of this world?

Or are you waking up every day and saying, this could be the day, this could be the day that the Lord returns, let’s maximize it for God, let’s do our most for him and let’s reach another person for the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are taught in this passage to be alert, I want you to go back and see again. He says, stand fast in the faith. The second imperative he gives us is to be firm. And what he tells us to stand fast in the faith, he’s not talking about the faith of trusting God.

He’s not talking about the faith to believe in God, but he’s talking about the faith of truth, the faith of what we believe. He’s saying, stand fast in that faith, what you have learned, the faith of the truth of God.

Stand fast, be firm in that faith. God is telling us to stand fast, to persevere, to not deviate in our faith, to not compromise. We live in a time, unfortunately, of compromise, a time where even churches are backing down from the truth and they are more interested in making sure that they please people rather than pleasing our heavenly Father.

We need to stand for what’s right. You say, pastor, how can I be firm? Well, first of all, I would start out by knowing the truth. Know the truth, study your Bible, know what the Bible teaches, and stand firm in that truth.

Know the truth, because see, some of you cannot respond, nor can you defend the faith in these unique cultural challenges that are before us, and you don’t know what to address, and you don’t know how to answer, and it is simply this, you don’t know the truth.

You’re like a Christian who gets up every morning and eats crispy cream for breakfast. But friends, you can’t have sugar all your life and think you’re gonna be strong in the Lord. You need the meat of the Word, so know the truth and share the truth.

We live in a pluralistic society. When you start saying that Jesus is the only way to heaven, I mean, you’re sending shock waves to people. You are causing people to melt down. But friends, share the truth, share the truth.

The answer is not for us to soften the truth or to change the truth. If we’re gonna change the truth, if we’re gonna change this culture, we gotta share the truth, because the truth will cut through all the foolishness and get right to the heart.

The word of God is powerful and sharper than any two -edged sword. Some of you are trying to say, well, how can I be more palatable to this person so that I can share the truth with them? Friends, don’t be afraid, just share it.

Just tell them. Tell the truth. Live the truth. That’s how you can stand firm. We can’t change people. Only God can change people, and God is working in people’s lives. They have to respond to Him, but we must live in the truth.

Live as truthful people, people who love the Lord, love the truth, and we love what God has taught us in His word without firmness in our spiritual lives. We’re gonna be like ships without anchors. We’re gonna be a people who are living in the midst of a storm of confusion and we’re gonna be tossed like tumbleweed just to and fro everywhere and therefore we must live the word.

We must know it and the Holy Spirit can strengthen us and develop us. Now the third imperative I want you to see but I want you to know he says be brave. I say be mature, be mature. The King James says act like men and the reason that it translates this word by act like men is because it’s the idea of being brave and it’s the idea of showing oneself as a man, a brave man.

The idea is mature courage, mature courage. So be mature. The concept carries the idea of being a man, not a child. He’s saying to us in a real direct way, grow up and be a man of God. Be strong in Christ, quit living like a child.

The apostle said when I was a child, I spoke as a child but now that I’ve become a man, I put away childish things. There comes a time in our spiritual life when we have to put away childish things and we move forward in our faith and we grow and we mature in our faith.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 3, verse one and two, and I brethren could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food for until now you were not able to receive it and even now you are still not able.

You know what? God wants us to mature so we can receive the meat of the word. He wants us to grow so we can receive the truth. He doesn’t want us to get choked on the solid meat of God’s truth. He wants us to mature.

So true maturity is only found in Jesus Christ, and we must nurture that in our life, and you say, well, how can I mature, Pastor? Well, I just wrote down a few things that’ll help you. First of all, you need to have a devotion time with Christ every day.

Now, let me say something about your devotions, okay? Two things I wanna say on one end. First of all, remember that variety is the key. I’m just telling you, if you sit down at the table to eat breakfast or lunch or dinner, and you have the same thing every day after a while, you’re gonna be like, man, I’m tired of this.

So I wanna encourage you to have some variety. Maybe you do a topical study in the Bible. Maybe you do a character study in the Bible. Maybe you study a certain book in the Bible, a certain passage of scripture in the Bible, a certain theme in the Bible, whatever it is, and however it is, it doesn’t really matter.

Just keep doing variety in your time with the Lord. Have some variety. I wanna encourage you to do that. Second of all, in relating to your devotion time to help you mature is that you gotta move beyond the milk.

You gotta move beyond the sappy story. You gotta move beyond the emotional move of these devotions. Some of you use devotion books, it’s all good. I’m not against it, but man, you gotta move beyond. You gotta mature in your faith.

But anyways, that’s the way most people approach their devotion life. A little cup of latte, a lot of sugar, nothing that really challenges me. Just give me a little bit of inspiration so I can feel good, check that off my list, and I can move on in my day of things I need to get done.

When’s the last time you really dug? When’s the last time that God convicted you in your devotion? When’s the last time in your devotion, you said, Lord, I need to confess this sin. I need to bring this to you and make it right with you.

Friends, that’s when you’re having devotion time. That’s when God is working effectively in your life. So how do we mature our devotion time every day? Number two, avail ourselves to the teaching of God’s word.

You know we have so much technology today, you’ve got a lot of opportunity to hear a lot of wonderful teachers. But avail yourself to Bible studies, to Sunday school class, to the preaching and teaching of God’s word.

But let me tell you something, you may not remember everything that Pastor Mike taught, and that’s okay. But it’s like that dinner you had the other night. You don’t remember exactly everything. But when you had it, it was good, it nourished you, it encouraged you, and you enjoyed every bite of it.

And so it is with God’s word. It is a means of grace to your heart that as you are under the teaching of God’s word, whether that’s in a small group, a large group, whatever the capacity, one -on -one, it doesn’t matter as you are receiving the teaching of God’s word.

He is effectively shaping your heart and maturing you for him. The third way to be mature is be accountable. We don’t like to be accountable, but be accountable because accountability helps me to identify areas I need to grow, areas I need to get better at.

Accountability helps me to continue to push myself to press on in my faith and to make sure that I am always growing. The final thing is get plugged in. You see, if you just sit and soak, what good is that?

You’re going to become a sour Christian. But when you sit and you soak up God’s word and you go out and use it, you’re not just a hearer, but you’re a doer. Maturity, reach is its pinnacle as you are out there using the truth that God has spoken into your life.

There are always things that we need to pay attention to. And that’s exactly what the Apostle is trying to do when he tells us to be alert. And that’s what we are challenging you in this passage today.

We hope as men, as fathers, that we are stepping up in a big way and we’re not ashamed of Christ. And I want to also remind you about our website. If you need more resources to train you in the Word, to disciple you in the Word, check out HopeWorthHaving .com.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having. Amen. Amen.