Stand Firm | A Study Through 1 Thessalonians

See, the worst thing we can do is is is is treat people as commodities. As if what we're trying to do is is get them to accept us. Paul said, no my motive is that you accept Christ. Love people. Love them enough to tell them the truth. Love them enough to point them to Jesus. The last thing that Paul tells us to do in this passage of scripture that you know, if we're gonna stand firm in our culture to see God use us to bring people to Christ, he tells us clearly that we must declare the gospel with integrity. We must declare the gospel with integrity. [00:31:27] (53 seconds)  #GospelIntegrity

Friends, when you are confident in the truth that you hold, it doesn't matter what people do to you. You're gonna be bold in that proclamation. You are going I mean, we see this played out in the lives of the apostles. Do you realize that every one of the disciples of Jesus who became apostles, they all were martyred for their faith in Jesus. For holding on to that central tenet of the Christian faith that Jesus was raised from the dead. Instead of saying, well you know, hold up, maybe he didn't, and knuckling into the pressure to recant, they everyone went to martyr's death. [00:14:06] (40 seconds)  #BoldForChrist

You could go to church and never once hear the word repent. And that's scary, isn't it church? Because those are two pretty important words. What do you think? You know, because if we we fail to tell people the bad news, then the good news doesn't hit very hard, does it? And I'm afraid in our zeal to draw crowds and and to to have some sort of significance amongst ourselves, we have compromised the main and plain of the gospel, and in doing so what we're really saying to the world out there, you know unbelievers are looking. Y'all get that. Right? [00:17:11] (45 seconds)  #RepentAndBelieve

We live in a in a culture that is becoming increasingly hostile to the things of Christ. Secular humanism, expressive individualism, all of these things are warring against this idea that there is a creator God who intelligently designed all that we see, all of the creation, and has revealed himself through the pages of the Bible, ultimately expressing himself through his son Jesus. The idea that we would proclaim that it is only through this Jesus whereby people could be saved, which is exactly the claim made in scripture by Jesus. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. [00:02:09] (46 seconds)  #JesusOnlyWay

We need people that their yes is yes and their no is no. We need people of integrity in all phases of our world, in politics, and in business, and in education, and whatever field you might find. We need believers that will stand with integrity on the power of the gospel to change lives. We need people to put more trust in the power of God to save people than we do in in in politicians passing laws that might favor us. We need to believe in the power of the gospel to change lives alone. It doesn't need any help. Church, let's stand on the gospel. [00:46:34] (50 seconds)  #StandOnTheGospel

They're they're watching the church. They're watching those who say they're Christians to see if we really believe what we say we believe. So when we compromise the message and dumb it down and dilute it, so that in our thinking it makes people more apt to want to hear it. What we're really saying to unbelievers is number one, we don't believe what we say we believe. And number two, we are not convinced in the power of the gospel to actually save people. See, we need to be confident in the message of the gospel because it's the power. You know, Paul wrote to the Roman church that the gospel is the power of God. [00:17:56] (43 seconds)  #GospelIsPower

I want you to leave here today talking about Jesus. I don't want you to go out into the you know, go sit down in the restaurant and start talking about what pastor Steve said. Pastor pastor Steve's an idiot. Idi Lisa. Really? I don't want you talking about me. I want you to see Jesus. Because you see, as much as I love you, I didn't die for you. Christ did. I see too many pastors worried about their brand today. They care more about how many followers they have on their podcast, or on their social media accounts, than they do how many people are coming to know Christ. [00:25:18] (46 seconds)  #TalkAboutJesus

Friends, don't try to be perfect. The worst thing you could do in relationship to unbelievers is try to act like you've got it all figured out. Everybody repeat after me. I don't know. Here we go, here we go. Repeat after me. One, two, three. I don't know. Sometimes that's the very best way to respond to a question an unbeliever gives you. I don't know. You know another great thing that unbelievers need to see you do? Say I'm sorry. I was wrong. You know, that's hard sometimes because, you know, people get on our nerves. Amen? Amen. But you see, people need to know that we're sinful too. [00:38:14] (57 seconds)  #AuthenticHumility