Staying In The Fight

We're going to be preaching a message tonight staying in the fight.

You know how important it is for us to stay in.

You know there's so many distractions, there's so many things the devil brings up in your life.

He wants you to quit, you know.

It says the enemy comes to steal, to kill and to destroy.

But Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly Superior and quality.

And anyways how I always I knew that I'd yeah superior and quality is the quantity.

There you go.

Yeah, there we go.

We'll get it right by the end.

The Holy Spirit will remind me how that goes, but somebody's going to type it out right now.

Anyways, praise the Lord, but just if you'll open up your Bible, actually, let's just go ahead and grab your Bible.

As tradition is around here, we'll make a confession together.

Feel free to add on to it.

Let's say Heavenly Father.

Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening, willing to receive your word, wanting it to germinate in our hearts.

We live for you, we live to please you, we are all about your kingdom business and we refuse to quit, we refuse to back down and we're thankful for the blood of Jesus and that you always cause us to triumph in Christ Jesus' name, amen, hallelujah.

So if you'll turn with me real quick, we'll start in 1st Timothy 612, and we could all quote this together.

But it says to fight the good fight of faith, to lay hold on eternal life, to which you are also called, and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

This is Paul encouraging Timothy to lay hold on eternal life.

That also goes with Mark 11, 22,.

To have the God kind of faith, to lay hold on the God kind of faith.

You gotta grab a hold of it with both hands and to fight the good fight of faith.

How many of you realize that number one it's a fight, but number two that it's a good fight, in other words, it's an honorable fight, and that God has already won that battle?

But we get in and we identify with his victory and as we're fighting the good fight of faith, we have victory on every side, amen.

And so we need to seize the prize.

Earlier I believe it was last week I was studying in the book of Revelation the seven churches, and there was a warning to one of the churches about don't allow anyone or anything to steal your crown, or to steal, in other words, to take the prize from you.

So we must contend for our faith, we must fight the good fight of faith.

And so, if we'll just turn over a couple of pages to second Timothy, one is where we wanted to get to tonight, and I'm just gonna start reading in verse two, and this is Paul again encouraging Timothy, and just and sometimes I wanna set up what we're reading I know we've all read it and just allow.

Maybe you've heard this a hundred times, maybe even four or five times recently.

But allow the word of God, the watering process, to grow and to get down into your heart and we hide his word in our heart that we might not sin against him.

But also just when, when adversely, when hard times come, what comes out, the word better come out, amen.

And so this is Paul encouraging his son in the faith, timothy.

And here Paul is imprisoned.

All of the book of Acts has already happened and he finds himself in prison again, and this time he's in chains.

He's in more of a dungeon type of a prison and it's very difficult.

And so he's pulling on his relationship with Timothy because he needs him to travel a long distance to come see him, and he knows it's gonna be hard, but he really desires to see him.

And it says in verse two Grace to Timothy, my beloved son.

Grace, mercy and peace from God, the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience.

That means an undefiled.

Pure, just means undefiled conscience.

How many of you are serving God out of us, that same pure conscience?

Amen, we're both.

We're serving him together, arm in arm, locked arm in arm, working for him out of a pure conscience.

That means there's no bickering, there's no fighting, there's no me trying to get ahead over you and for me to get the glory, and there's no backbiting and there's unity, right.

And so that's undefiled.

Our motives are pure, as my forefathers did, we have forefathers that live this life Paul for sure did without ceasing.

I remember you in my prayers both day and night, greatly desiring to see you being mindful of your tears.

In other words, timothy has been actually crying over Paul and over his being in prison, and it says that I may be filled with joy, so he really greatly desires to see Timothy.

And then, in verse five, when I call to remembrance, when I call to remembrance, the genuine, sincere faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded, fully persuaded, is in you also.

And I just kind of wanted to stop there for a second and talk about Timothy's genuine, sincere faith and how important it is, when times of pressure come, for you to be able to lean on your genuine faith.

You know, maybe in the natural, you know Timothy in the natural.

He had a grandmother that was full of faith, and it mentions her by name, louis, and then his mother, also mentioned by name, eunice.

And how would you like your name to be forever in the Bible as listed as a great person of faith, a man or woman of faith?

These are obviously women that mentioned by name.

But maybe you come from a different family and you don't have that to lean on.

I'm telling you, you have the Holy Spirit and you have your Abba, father, god himself, and you also have a pastor.

If you're a member of this church, you can lean on your pastor.

I think that's in Hebrews 13.

We can look at that here in a little bit.

But you know, thank God we have men of faith that have gone before us.

I think of all of the wonderful blends of oil.

My dad has that dream where he's going down the ship channel.

I won't tell the whole thing, but just you know he has this blend of oils in this cargo ship vessel.

He's going down the ship channel on the he's standing on the very back and a long story short.

When he woke up from that dream, he was thinking of all the different anointings that he sat under and all the different, you know, generals of the faith of his generation, and I think about that for our generation.

We have a lot of the same ones that we've sat under.

You know the TL Osbruns and the Kenneth Hagans and the John Osteens, and I'm leaving so many out, it's hard to list everybody, but then you know.

You get to Ed DeFrain.

You know who's now in heaven, that we spend a lot of time sitting under him, and obviously Mark and Trina Hankins we sit under them a lot.

And so it says remember those verse seven, hebrews 13, seven.

Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow.

In other words, imitate and pattern your.

I believe it's the.

It might be the Amplified Bible.

One version talks about patterning your faith after those considering the outcome of their conduct.

And so I'm just grateful.

I know that.

Hey, you know is Jay, it's really easy for you to brag on your dad because he's your dad, but he's also my pastor.

In fact, you know he wears different hats in my life, he's also my boss, but just looking at him as my pastor, I can imitate his faith.

You know, when we've we have many examples of falling on hard times as the church, whether it be people leaving people being offended, stabbing us in the back, or financial hard times, or maybe even going growing up, going through all those stories that he tells about facing lack.

You know, I can pattern my life and pattern my faith after his, because I know that he's a man of great faith and I look at what God, the outcome of his conduct and the outcome of his faith filled words, and it's something that we can pattern ourselves after.

And so you know, flipping back to 2 Timothy now, maybe you don't have a grandmother, lois, or a mother, eunice, that you can talk about.

Did you want to?

You want to talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, sure, let's.

Let me go back and read it again.

In verse five, I remember your.

I'm going to read it in the new living translation.

I wrote it down.

I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother, lois, and your mother, eunice, and I know that same faith continues strong in you.

This is why I remind you to fan into flames as spiritual gift God gave you.

And I laid my hands on you, for God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but power, love and a sound mind.

New living says self discipline.

But yeah, here you know, Paul is reminding Timothy of hey, look you're.

I remember your genuine faith.

Hey, first, that was not only in you, but in your grandmother, Lois, and in your mom, Eunice.

And so, you know, when I read the scripture, I think of all the moms and the grandmas, not only the parents that bring the kids here to church, but also the grandparents that bring their grandbabies here to church, and how, how.

That's part of raising up this next generation, that's part of remembering, that's part of not forgetting, not neglecting the gift that God has placed on you mothers and you grandmothers, to.

You know, to stir it up.

We have to stir it up, we have to speak up.

We have to, you know, bring our kids, bring our grandkids to church and to for them to sit under the word, and not only here but also at home.

Also, I just want to encourage you to take time with your kids, to nurture them with your grandkids, to pour into them.

You know, don't just put them not that you do put them in front of the TV and let them, you know, let the.

TV yeah watch whatever, but no to.

Don't let the TV babies sit Right don't let the TV babies sit, but but to stir it up, to stir the gift you know in you, that God placed in you, but not to keep it just for you, but to pour it into this next generation.

I just want to encourage you, keep at it, keep doing that, keep pressing towards the mark.

That's, that's what we're called to do, and so I like that.

You know, paul, you know, was just reminding hey, remember Timothy, you're genuine faith, you're real faith, you're sincere faith and not a phony faith, not a fake.

You know, not a put on, but real, just being real.

And so kids know when you're real, they can spot real and fake, and so.

So that's just so encouraging that scripture.

You know that God, and then and then just God, has given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and a sound mind.

Amen, amen.

So just, I'm glad that Kim Kim Cook's watching Welcome and just going back to Paul, was fully persuaded that that same spirit of faith also dwells in Timothy.

You know who was he persuaded by?

He was persuaded by yes, there's evidence, yes, there was a past, yes, there were things that Paul witnessed, but he was persuaded by the Holy spirit.

You know, lots of people talk smack about each other, they put each other down, they point out each other's faults to the nth degree.

But here Paul is using words, via the Holy spirit, to be an encourager, and he was persuaded.

See, when God looks at you, he doesn't see your mistakes, he doesn't see you falling down, he doesn't see all the scars of your life.

He's there to heal all those scars, yes, but he sees you through the blood, the blood of Jesus.

When you get a revelation of what that can do to you, once you've received that gift, you've already been made perfect.

So it's not about perfection.

You've already been made perfect, you've already been made righteous.

But once you receive that righteousness, the revelation of what that means in your life, it changes everything.

It changes.

There's not one part of your life that the blood does not touch.

There's not one part of your heart that the blood does not change.

You are changed from the inside out, and it's all by the blood.

And so Paul is fully persuaded by the Holy Spirit of that.

Timothy is walking with that same spirit of faith Amen.

And you are too.

You have that same spirit of faith that Paul had.

You have the same spirit of faith that Peter had Amen.

And you have the same power that raised Jesus from the dead as an operation in our lives.

So let's talk about that a little bit tonight, about, for God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and a sound mind, and so yes, Brenda put so thankful to have a great church that our Ellie loves and cries to come to church.

Oh, when we have her she always wants to come.

Oh, we love little Ellie, she's so sweet, come sit.

So there again, dawn and Brenda are patterning, or living their lives as a pattern for their granddaughter Ellie to follow, after Amen.

And so they're examples, and so we all need to be examples, full of faith, right?

And so you know, my dad just said this last Sunday when he was preaching that God never pedals fear or panic.

You know, there's lots of hearts, men's hearts, are failing them over.

Fear right now, fear of the government taking over, fear of the economy crashing, fear of inflation rising to unheard of levels.

And I'm telling you we have not been given the spirit of fear.

And so this points us back to 1st John 418, where it says I'm gonna flip there if we have, since we have some time.

1st John 418, it says for there is no fear in love, but perfect love cast out fear, because fear involves torment.

So fear involves torment, but he who fears has not been made perfect in love.

And so we've been given power, love and a sound mind.

We can skip to love if we wanted to.

But let's just talk more about fear, because fear is torment and the definition of fear right here in the Greek is talking about.

It denotes a flight.

So all fear involves flight and all phobias are really based in a fear of dying, a fear of death, but it's also a fear of flight.

You wanna get out of that situation.

You wanna get away from that challenge.

You wanna deny that it's even happening.

Fear will stop you in your tracks, it will cause you to freeze, but it takes you.

Flight takes you away from the will of God, it takes you out of the fight.

Flight takes you away from the battle that you need to fight.

That's right in front of us, and so we need to stay faithful and we need to stay in the fight.

And so it.

Maybe fear is.

It comes natural to your natural temperament, but we say no amen.

We've been made new creatures, a new kind of being that's never before existed.

The old has passed away and behold, all things have become new.

That's right, go ahead.

I quickly looked up all the phobias a while back.

I don't remember what, which theme we were preaching I was preaching in the youth, but I looked up.

Well, let me you know all the you know arachnophobia, fear of spiders.

Acrophobia, fear of heights.

Algophobia, fear of pain.

Androphobia, fear of men.

Angrophobia, fear of anger.

Anthrophobia, fear of flowers.

So it goes in order.

She's just in the eights.

I'm in the eights.

I haven't even gotten to phobias.

Bibliophobia, fear of books.

No, that's not me.

That's not me.

Botanophobia, fear of plants, that's not me either.

We have the word of God.

We have the chromophobia fear of colors, that's not us, nope.

Dendrophobia, fear of trees, dentophobia, fear of dentists that's not charay.

Charay is watching tonight.

That's right.

Hydrophobia, fear of water.

So you can go on and on and on.

And all of that just comes from the enemy.

Trying to immobilize you, trying to stop you in your tracks and hold you in bondage.

It can also cause great human suffering and can separate you from good relationships that God wants you to have in your life.

But it also begins.

Fear can step in and begin to affect your ability to make a decision, either through indecision or leading to wrong decisions.

And so that's not the way God created you.

We need to step over in the supernatural, and he hadn't given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind.

And so, number one, what has God given us?

Power.

That power enables us to no longer be a victim.

That's right, amen.

So the end goal is to live out of your spirit, right, yeah.

And so, number two, god has given us the spirit of love.

That's a God they love, and it's poured into us through his abiding presence.

Let's turn real quick to Romans 5.5.

And we could all quote this too, but this is just the watering of the word tonight.

Romans 5.5.

Now, hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

So the Holy Spirit has been given to us, he's a gift and he represents so many wonderful things in our lives.

But he's poured and poured and poured and poured into our hearts the agape love of God.

And so we've already received it and that agape it.

My Bible says that it denounced an undefeatable benevolence and unquenchable goodwill and always seeks the highest good of the other person, no matter what it, what the other person does.

Amen.

It is the self-giving love that gives freely without asking anything in return and does not consider the worth of the object.

Agape is more a love by choice than a phileos, which is love by chance, and it refers to the will rather than the emotion.

And so it's so important to realize that we're not loving with human love.

Human love, we wouldn't even get through the door with right.

But agape love, I'm telling you, breaks people's walls that they have up around them.

It penetrates the hardest of hearts and allows you to minister to them and allows them to.

It gives them something to receive right.

That's tangible.

The love of God is tangible, and so we don't have to be, you know, again, when we get away from the fear of what people think, fear of repetition, saying it over and over, something over and over to them, fear of what they might be thinking about us and their opinions of us.

When we step outside of all of those little fears that might just be barely hanging on to you but you've allowed them to just annoy you and to burrow in and you get rid of all those distractions and all those little fears and we allow the love of God to just wash us of all of that and telling you it's about his abiding presence.

His presence abides in us, his glory.

We carry God's glory, his manifested presence, everywhere we go.

Amen, amen, that's good.

And then we can talk a little bit about sound mind, the mind of Christ, which can be, which can apply the ways of God in making sound choices, like we were talking about a second ago, and Applying this truth.

Whether we is it determines whether we Overcome fear or overcome by that fear.

Right, amen, so it we must apply that.

Yeah, so God wants us to have a sound mind, and I put in my notes God's thoughts produces God's plans again.

So God's thoughts produces God's plans, and so man's thoughts does not produce God's plan.

And so we have to make sure we have, you know, certain thought patterns in our lives, and we have to make sure that those thought patterns are Biblical and they're godly patterns, you know.

And so God wants us to have a sound mind, and I want to read to you a scripture in James 4.

It's a couple verses down from draw near to God and he would draw near to you.

Verse 13 says come now, you who say today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, make a profit, whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow.

For what is your life?

It is but a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.

That's a good 15 right there, if the Lord wills.

But now you boast in your arrogance, and such a boasting is evil.

Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him, it is sin.

That's right.

And so, well, what does that have to do with the sound mind?

I think every time you override the Holy Spirit and override, well, I'm just gonna do it my way, I'm gonna hear it's talking about hey, you're not gonna boast about tomorrow, tomorrow's not even promised, right, and so verse.

But if you focus on verse 15, if the Lord wills, how many of the time we just kind of make art, do our own thing, you know?

And and if the Lord will, god, what do you want me to do?

Where do you want me to live, you know, do you want me just to move states just because I'm gonna make more money?

Well, is it your will, right?

And so we have to make sure that we ask the Lord hey, god, what do you want me to do in this?

Staying in the fight a lot of times.

So we get what people get worn out because they're not staying in God's the way God intended us to fight, right, they do it in the natural.

Oh well, that what my husband's not acting right and my wife's not acting right and the family's not doing what I'm just gonna do in my way.

Well, that's a certain pathway and you can't be on that pathway, but that pathway will end up in destruction, or you can do it God's way, where you're staying in the fight, where you're full of faith, where you're where you're full of hope.

Where you're doing full of God's word full of God's word, yeah, and so we have to make sure, with the a sound mind, that we don't override the Holy Spirit, the witness that is inside of us, and just do our own thing, because then you override them once and then, again and again, and then you've seared your conscience right and that's a whole, nother message.

But we have to make sure to be connected to the word of God, connected to the Holy Spirit.

We can't, we can't afford, you know, to worry and and to you know that'll send you in the wrong direction.

So we have to make sure to be connected to the word of God.

It's the word of God that's only gonna produce a sound mind.

Yeah right.

It's not like Correct actions or trying trying to you know how do I word that like I'm gonna try to do as many good works as I can and that'll maybe outweigh the bat.

No, that's not how it works.

That's a obedient God does want obedience right, but we have to make sure that our thought patterns are in line with the word of God, and that only comes when we stay connected To the word of God, and I wrote this down.

It's a really action items Of staying in the fight would be training the spirit and not in the flesh.

Yeah so many people train in the flesh.

They train incorrectly, they don't train.

You know, when something comes at you, how, what's your response?

Is your response in the flesh is your response oh, I give up.

Oh, I don't know, I can't, I can't do this anymore.

No glory to God.

Thank you, jesus.

You are more than enough.

I'm an overcomer.

I mean, you are faithful, you've been faithful to me, you are.

You've made me the head and not the tail, above and not the knee, and so you have to make sure to declare the word train in the spirit and not in the flesh.

That's how we stay in the fight, right.

Most people get give up.

They're not in the fight anymore, they're and they're doing their own thing, their own fight right.

And so we have to make sure that every word, every action is lines up with the word of God, that we train in the spirit and not in the flesh.

I like that.

I think I think you hit on something Earlier, though that you said that's a whole nother message.

But you're talking about Searing your conscience.

And I think, as far as making decisions, you know, sometimes we make bad decisions and we go around.

It could be like major things, that major sin, major whatever, but, but sometimes it's just the little foxes that spoil the vine, and but you'll make a little, you know, but it's still a bad decision, and you'll go around and you'll seek Counsel to try to back up, to try to justify that bad decision.

And you do that enough times and you get enough Wrong voices speaking into a situation and that can sear your conscience.

And then it's easier and easier to allow yourself to grow out of, outside of the will of God and further away from God's plan for your life.

And so I just thought that that statement that you made about having a seared conscience, it kind of tied back into Second Timothy 1, you know, talking about we serve God out of a pure, undefiled conscience.

And so it's.

It's, it's very as we're doing what you've, you know, training in the spirit, training in the spirit, we're looking after our heart, we're guarding our heart and we're not allowing evil to take any hold of our heart and to sear our conscience in any way.

But we're keeping our thoughts pure, we're keeping our actions pure, we're keeping our motives pure, and we're doing that through our relationship with God and being real with God.

When we're real with God, god's real with us.

Trust me, he's always real with you and he always knows the real.

There's nothing, there's literally zero, that you can hide from him.

He already knows your deepest thoughts, he already knows your deepest desires, and so spend time with him, allow your desires and your thoughts to line up with his thoughts.

You know, power 11, a sound mind.

We have sound, a sound mind and sound thinking from patterning ourselves after the thoughts of God which he was so gracious to write down for us and put here, right here in this book.

And so many of us get so busy and then we ignore what's right here in front of us, which is the word of God, and so I kind of go back and talk more about training in the spirit.

Yeah.

So just like an athlete, you know training the spirit, not in the flesh.

You know both of our kids are very busy, both in band and athletics, but Ethan back when they were growing up.

It's different to have adult kids now.

I just it's a blessing.

We're not quite used to it, but go ahead, it's a blessing.

It is a blessing, but you're gonna find out here shortly as you know, our daughter is about to receive the offering here.

I was gonna come and see the offering in a little bit, but training.

so when we train we have to train correctly.

You know an athlete like when Ethan took private lessons with baseball, there were certain things that the coach worked with him.

They trained correctly.

They trained on his pitching If he was gonna pitch, you know he played different positions.

And so if he was, just if his hips were just off just a little bit, you know that throw it's, that ball is not gonna, you know, land correctly.

It's not, you know, and so or it's not gonna go straight, it's not gonna go straight, it's gonna go right.

That's gonna take time away.

And so how you train is so important, how you training in the spirit, praying much in the Holy Ghost, digging into the word.

You know, the word of God is our standard.

A lot of times we, you know, society or the culture or this is it's cool to do this or it's popular to do this.

Where is that?

What is it in the word?

Is that?

What did it come from?

The word Well, what's your standard?

Well, I gotta dress this way because it's or I gotta do this and I gotta move over here because that's a popular, you know like is it?

Point it back to the word and what God told you to do, right.

And so if it's your will, lord, so we should be saying that.

So that's just part of training staying in the fight, in the good fight of faith.

Right, it's a fight that's already been won, but we have to lay hold of it, we have to claim it.

Amen, god's faithful, we have to keep at it.

Amen, amen.

So refuse to quit, refuse to give up.

Quitting is not an option and I just encourage you to grab a hold of the faithfulness of God, especially.

You know we need to finish 2023 strong and we're looking forward to 2024.

2023 has been the year of God's power and we've seen an increase in his power and we've walked in an increase of a level of power.

But I'm telling you, 2024 is like nothing we've ever seen.

You know, there's a level of deception that's coming on God's people that's gonna be sad for us to witness, but I'm telling you we hold on to the truth.

We know the truth.

There's so many things just in AI, artificial intelligence, alone.

You know news stories that everybody's gonna think is real.

The White House is gonna say that this happened, that this war is taking place, and there's gonna be wars and rumors of war Is Jesus warned us about that and I'm telling you rumors of wars?

They're not even real, they won't even be happening and people are gonna be so scared and so, taking back.

I really believe God was showing me that a couple of weeks back.

But I'm telling you we are beacons of light, we are beacons of the truth, we're holding on to the truth and nothing can deceive us.

When we're in lockstep with his will, with God's will, when we're mouthpieces, we're speaking the truth, and so there's no amount of deception that can take over a committed, born-again Spiritville Christian amen, amen.

One other thing that goes with the sound mind that I have in my notes, that I thought was good, and we'll wrap it up Once you got what God says about something what you think about it needs to change, right.

And so once you have his word on that situation, how our thought process needs to change, and so we're not doing what we wanna do.

To stay in the fight, we train right, right.

That's right.

And so I rhymed and I didn't even didn't do that on purpose.

So we are staying in the fight.

Amen, the good fight of faith.

So we just wanna encourage you.

Yeah, it's a good fight.

It's a fight that's already been won, so we just lay holds of it.

Whatever you're going through, it's not too much like a hopeless situation.

God knows it, god sees it, he loves you, he has a plan for your life, he cares about you.

Keep at it.

Train right, train in the Spirit, and our knuckles aren't even bloody.

Look at that.

Yeah amen Amen.