How to Stand When They Want You to Fall

You ever feel like you're the missionary surrounded by cannibals? And the missionary noticed one cannibal is staring intently at him and it got really nervous and said, why are you looking at me so intensely?

And the guy said, I'm the food inspector. You sort of feel like the world is watching you because they want to gobble you up. Well, Paul understood this dilemma. Paul understood that if you become a Christian and you follow Christ boldly, that the Christian life is not a playground, man, it's a battleground. The world is watching to see how Christians live.

You may be someone's only picture of who Jesus is and what he's all about. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares several ways you can stand strong in your faith and be a bold witness for Jesus. But before we begin, we want to tell you about a resource that gives you access to Skip's catalog of works to help you connect with God's Word even more profoundly. As we come to the end of the year at Connect with Skip, we have new plans for expansion that we want you to know about. In 2023, we hope to take these through the Bible teachings to more of the large population cities in our country.

When God deals with a nation, he often focuses on the cities and we know our nation needs the Word of God. We'll tell you how you can join this project. But first, this from Skip. I want my legacy to be I made much of Jesus, that Jesus became greater in people's hearts and lives because of my life and ministry, that they walked away understanding the Bible, that what seemed to be complicated was actually very simple, that I helped make it simple for them and understandable. When you help us expand into more metropolitan areas in 2023 with a year-end gift of $1,000 or more, we'll send you the Skip Heitzig Legacy Library so far containing 11 books, 17 booklets, and the Bible from 30,000 feet. Pastor Skip's incomparable teaching series of 64 full messages through the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation on a flash drive that also includes Learning from the Land, Skip's video tour of Israel. G. Campbell Morgan was called in his biography a man of the Word or the man of the Word. That's what I want to be, a man of the Word. The Skip Heitzig Legacy Library so far is a real treasure and it's yours when you make a year-end gift of $1,000 or more and you will be helping us expand the reach of these teachings.

Give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Okay, we're in Philippians chapter 1 today as we get into the teaching with Skip Heitzig. You ever feel like you're being watched by unbelievers? You ever feel that unbelievers look at you and they analyze you and scrutinize you?

Well, if you ever get that feeling, you're right. That's what they're doing and not only are they analyzing and scrutinizing you, they're criticizing you and probably more so now than ever before in American history the Christian church is being criticized by the unbelieving world. Every Christmas you hear the same stories about how kids can't sing Silent Night in a public setting or throughout the year you hear about a Christian group who doesn't go along with the mainstream idea of sexuality etc and they're labeled as being intolerant and mean spirited. I was listening to the news yesterday and in North Carolina the board of commissioners every year get together and for the last 50 years it has been their practice to get together and open up their public session with the pledge of allegiance followed by a prayer. It's been in their history a long time so they did it this time they opened up their session with pledge of allegiance and prayer but this time the ACLU is watching them and filed a lawsuit against them because they prayed and get this they said the worst thing of all you could say they said at the end of the prayer in Jesus name. So that became a violation and a lawsuit was filed and you know I've been asked to pray publicly from time to time and a couple times people said well the only thing we're skittish about is if you use that term at the end in Jesus name you probably shouldn't use that I said so do you want the prayer to work? I saw an article on cnn.com that admitted that Christians are becoming a hated minority a hated minority. I've long had an article in my arsenal about the neighbors that Americans don't want living next door the article is called not in my backyard and it's actually a little graph that shows this truth it says this is the percentage of Americans who do not like the following minorities as neighbors one percent say they don't want Catholics living next door two percent don't want Protestants living next door three percent don't want Jews living next door nine percent say they don't want Hispanics as neighbors then comes unmarried couples then comes blacks and finally the bottom of the list the highest percentage 13 percent say they don't want religious fundamentalists as neighbors they especially hate bold believers the kind that make a stand for what they believe because bold believers you know the kind that don't fold with the culture and just sort of go along with the flow the the bold believers they're the ones that will be labeled narrow myopic bigoted and biased one website that I found one honest atheist wrote and I quote I've considered myself an atheist for four or five years and I feel a real hate of Christians more so than any other religious cult and it's growing inside of me I cannot just read a story or watch a video of a Christian without this huge fireball of impatience and anger coming up through my body close quote so who's intolerant you ever feel like you're the missionary surrounded by cannibals and the missionary noticed one cannibal is staring intently at him and it got really nervous and said why are you looking at me so intensely and the guy said I'm the food inspector you sort of feel like the world is watching you because they want to gobble you up well Paul understood this dilemma Paul understood that if you become a Christian and you follow Christ boldly that the Christian life is not a playground man it's a battleground he got that he understood that in fact here's part of his resume in 2nd Corinthians 11 he says I've been imprisoned frequently I've been flogged severely I've been exposed to death again and again five times I received from the Jews 40 lashes minus one three times I was beaten with rods and once I was stoned that's not Colorado stone that's stoned with rocks now as we have been reading in the book of Philippians this chapter this book of joy we saw that Paul begins by writing to the Philippians as saints Paul and Timothy to the saints who are at Philippi in Christ Jesus then he writes to them as servants those who enjoyed the fellowship of the gospel with him they were partners in the gospel but now there is a shift now he writes to them not as saints not as servants but as soldiers as it were and the focus of his letter beginning in chapter 1 verse 27 turns from his imprisonment to their his imprisonment to their predicament and you'll notice by just the wording in this little grouping of sentences the word adversaries appears or enemies the word suffer shows up and the word conflict is all in what we are about to read so what I want to show you from this set of verses is how to stand for Christ when the world wants you to fall verse 27 Paul writes only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or I'm absent I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel and not in any way be terrified by your adversaries which is to them a proof of perdition but to you of salvation and that from God for to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake having the same conflict which you saw in me and now here is in me I want you to picture something in your mind I want you to picture a man and around him is standing a hostile crowd the crowd does not like the man the crowd is yelling at him shouting at him threatening him they're jeering and they're taunting and they wish him ill they want to see him gone or hurt now with that picture in mind I want to show you four qualities on how to stand and not fall in the midst of a hostile world I want you to picture it's sort of like a stool with four legs each leg will add a little more stability to the whole first consistency consistency is the first quality verse 27 Paul says only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ you see the word conduct I'm going to give you a literal translation of it then I'm going to explain of it the word means your political affiliation don't think of politics in the terms of modern America the Greek word is Polituo and Polituo is the word by which we get our word political or politics or policy or police they all come from this word because Polituo was all about the polis in ancient times a polis is a city or more accurately a city-state a free state it's citizens that belong to a city-state and they conduct themselves in a manner that represents the best of that state so the idea carries the word carries the idea of being a good citizen honoring the political affiliation or the city state that you're a part of and what what are we a part of chapter 3 will say your citizenship is in heaven so the idea is let's conduct ourselves so that we are offering the very best of the kingdom of God you know wherever we travel we represent our nation whether we like it or not you're an American I don't know if you know what the reputation of Americans is around the world it's not favorable in most cases the loud American the ugly American there's several things that we are noted for around the world and I remember on one trip I was on in India I was with a group of people from different places and there was one group of guys that were very very loud and they were at a meal and they're being laughing and loud and obnoxious and the Indians in that culture didn't know how to read these guys they just sort of thought I guess this is how Americans act you know and I'm over in the corner you know with my head and my hands going they don't represent the best my country has to offer trust me but they were representing their kingdom they were conducting themselves in a certain way or like the time I went to England and tried to sound like I was English I tried really hard to come up with the best British accent I practiced it I thought I had it down so we went to breakfast and I ordered in an English accent and the maître d looked at me and said and you're from California so I must have given myself away either in my fake my fake British accent or the mannerisms that I displayed so let your conduct your display of your national identity and notice what it says let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ the word worthy means to balance the scales or to weigh as much that is the weight on one side of the scales equals the weight on the other side of the scales we use the word in that way we will say that person is worthy of his pay what we mean is the money we are giving that person corresponds or weighs as much as the output of the work that he or she produces if we say she is worthy of this honor we are saying the accolades we give her weigh as much or correspond to the productivity or the achievement that she has produced so when Paul writes let your conduct be worthy of the gospel that's his way of saying that your practice must match your proclamation if it's like a set of scales and on one side you say well this is what I believe that's your proclamation your practice what you do needs to match up needs to weigh as much and by the way John the Baptist used this word like that he said bear fruits worthy of repentance if you say you have a repentant life let's see it in what that life will produce so what Paul is doing here is calling us to a consistent Christian life if you're called Christian then live up to the name a Christian must never live beneath his theology a Christian must never live beneath his belief I know that you've heard all the research statistics for years Barna research every year comes up with what Americans say they believe in and every year we're always astonished because every year we find out that a large majority of Americans say that they're Christian and a lot of them say they're born again Christians but as I look at the American landscape I just got to say it didn't quite weigh the same what they say we are isn't really what we are there's got to be some inconsistency in that back in 1986 get this an IRS 25-year auditor a veteran of auditing for the IRS was arrested and convicted for tax evasion you know that just gets to you right it's like yeah those are the guys that try to stiff me you know they're always bummed out about this little discrepancy they audit me well this auditor thought that he had found a loophole that he had found a flaw in the system he didn't the system found a flaw in him and when they found it they fined him a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars he was inconsistent what he said he believed in and what he actually practiced in his personal life were vastly different and John Bunyan put it this way a man can be a saint abroad and a devil at home and if that is the case then that is unworthy conduct it is inconsistent now let me turn that around one of the greatest weapons you can use against the devil is a consistent life a consistent life a godly consistent life not that God expects perfection he does not the Bible says he knows our frame that we are dust but he does expect that as citizens of the kingdom of God of the kingdom of heaven that we show a consistency in that John says 1 John chapter 1 verse 6 if we say we have fellowship with him and we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth so simply put our lives must give proof that they have been touched by the gospel by the good news about Jesus Christ that's worthy of the gospel so here's a question is your life filled with love because the gospel is for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son is your life filled with forgiveness because the gospel is is your life filled with hope because the gospel is is your life filled with holiness because the gospel is so consistency is the first tool weapon strength that will help you stand when the world wants you to fall here's a second unity unity he says continuing on in verse 27 so that whether I come and see you or I'm absent I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together that's the unity for the faith of the gospel now Paul doesn't know if he's going to live or die he said that I don't know if I'm going to live or die I don't know if I'm going to be set free or stay incarcerated I may come and see you I may not but that doesn't matter whether I'm around or not does not matter what matters is that whether I'm with you or not you stand firm now that's soldier talk the word that Paul uses here in the imperative stay cate stand firm means stand your post don't leave your guard it speaks of a soldier who would stand his position even with the onslaught of tremendous opposition or temptation so go back to that little picture I put in your mind here's a man there's a hostile crowd around him he's standing maybe he's sort of standing upright in a relaxed position but the crowd gets louder and closer and so he does this he widens his stance to give him more stability he's now going to stand firm stand fast he's not going to move his position but he would be better served if he himself wasn't the only one standing fast but he had a whole bunch of friends next to him kind of doing this right when you have other people standing with you your odds for victory increase that's the thought of this verse stand stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel I just got to say there are some great metaphors in this section Paul the apostle uses some great words the words for striving together a single Greek word sun athlete oh sun the prefix for together athletic oh we get the term athletic or athlete from it so come together as athletes you might say strive and stand together in this race as athletes it is clear it is evident that Paul saw the church as a team sport not as some little private personal island experience that I have with God all by myself no he said our team is in conflict our team is in a battle and it takes team work we have to stand together we need unity now I would like to explain when the New Testament talks about unity what it doesn't mean and what it does mean unity in the bible doesn't mean necessarily unanimity where everybody thinks exactly the same it doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't necessarily mean uniformity where everybody acts exactly the same if you think that you're going to get every Christian to agree on every point of doctrine and style of worship good luck not going to happen you may not agree with my view on certain things you may not agree with my view on eschatology the rapture of the church you may not agree with my view on spiritual gifts you may not agree with my view on the election of the believer and I always give anybody the privilege to be wrong you can believe whatever you'd like somebody once said if you find two people that agree on everything one of them is not thinking so I think vigorous debate can be good it can be healthy can be helpful as long as we don't divide over it can you imagine if we could assemble the great Christian minds throughout the centuries and put them in one room together for example if we were to go back to the fourth century and get augustine of hippo north africa who spiritualized so many texts of the scripture put them in the room and sit next to him the 10th century bernard of clarevaux and for fun let's add the 16th century reformer john calvin next to him and then to really spice things up we'll go to the 18th century we'll get john wesley charles wesley and george whitfield just those three in and of themselves would be fireworks then let's go to the 9th century and put in charles haddon spurgeon and d l moody we'll go to the 20th century we'll put cs lewis in that room and billy graham we'll go to the 21st century and put the likes of nt wright in there i'm gonna tell you something there is not going to be unanimity on every single point it'll be a very very lively discussion but at the end of the day what you will have is unity when it comes to the essential historic christian gospel that concludes Skip heitzig's message from the series technicolor joy find the full message as well as books booklets and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com now here's Skip to share how you can keep these teachings coming to you while connecting others to god's word bringing jesus into every relationship in your life is one of the best decisions you could ever make that's why we want to make these biblical teachings available to even more people through this broadcast and you can help connect others with these life-changing truths when you give today here's how you can join in this mission to connect listeners like you to jesus visit connectwithskip.com donate to give your gift today that's connectwithskip.com donate or call 800-922-1888 again that's 800-922-1888 coming up tomorrow Skip heitzig shares how christ's humility led him to the cross and to your eternal hope it was pride that took adam out of paradise it was pride that took Saul king Saul first king of Israel out of the kingdom it was pride that took Nebuchadnezzar king of babylon out of babylonian society it was pride that changed angels into demons it is pride that changes friends into enemies pride ruins everything and here's why pride is the cancer of the soul connect with Skip heiter is a presentation of connection communications connecting you to god's never-changing truth in ever-changing times