Defeated Lives - Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. And on it, I buried ten million dollars. I buried ten million dollars in that field. And then I came to your house and I said, I want you to have the field, here's the deed. Are you rich?

Not yet, huh? Why? You got to do the work. You got to be diligent. Let me ask you, just knowing it, would you be?

If somebody gave you a few acres and said buried on it is ten million dollars and it's yours, how many days and nights would you spend shopping? Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. How do I become diligent? How do I apply this? How does this work in the context of my life? You see, applying all diligence, the word applying means make a strong effort and diligence means a determined zeal.

He says you got to have both of those. Now I want to illustrate this. Go with me back to 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 3. 1 Peter 1 and verse 3. Peter's going to do the same thing.

It's different but it's similar. He starts off by what will God do? What does God do in your life?

Here he goes. He says blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He said who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the dead. To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled.

It will not fade away. It's reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Three things he says right there. God caused us to be born again. To obtain an inheritance that can never be taken away. It's reserved in heaven for you and that we are protected by the power of God. Great things. And notice the condition verse 6. In this you greatly rejoice even though now for a little while if necessary you have been distressed by various trials.

Now they have a lot going on. They're suffering. He said it's okay. It doesn't matter if you're suffering. These things work out to be true even if you're suffering. And then he tells them again what they should be doing at the beginning of verse 13 of chapter 1 of 1 Peter.

He said you want to know your part? Here it comes. Therefore prepare your minds for action.

That's what the numeric standard says. Prepare your minds for action. That's what being diligent means. You have to prepare your minds for action.

Actually I like it literally better than what the numeric and standard translators. Literally it says this. Gird up the loins of your mind. Gird up the loins of your mind.

You have to do that. Now you want to gird up your loins? What's he talking about? Well, if you're going to run, but especially if you're going to do battle in Peter's world, you can't do it unless you gird up your loins.

What's that mean? Well, they wore clothing that went down basically to the floor. And so when you're going to go into battle, you picked up the front of your clothing and you tucked it in your belt. That's called girding your loins. Now my legs are free. You see, now I can run.

Now I can do battle. He said, yeah, that's what you need to do. You need to gird up the loins, he says, of your mind. Oswald Chambers said this, and it's so profound. He said, God will not make me think like Jesus.

I have to do it all by myself. I have to bring every thought under the captivity of the obedience of Christ. I don't think a lot of us do that. I just don't. I don't think a lot of us are diligent, and I don't think a lot of us gird up the loins of our mind. And I believe that's why so many of us live defeated lives.

Certainly not victorious lives. We don't do the work. We just don't. And we pay for it. We pay for it. I think we often think, as long as I'm a believer in Christ, then I can endure three or four sermons a month, we're good.

You know, God and I are good. You're not. You'll not have the resources to deal with life. You just won't.

Let me illustrate it this way. What if I owned a field, a large field, a few acres, and on it, I buried $10 million. I buried $10 million in that field. And then I came to your house and I said, I want you to have the field. Here's the deed. Are you rich?

Not yet, huh? Why? You've got to do the work. You've got to be diligent. Let me ask you, just knowing you, would you be? If somebody gave you a few acres and said buried on it is $10 million and it's yours, how many days and nights would you spend shoveling? I'm serious.

$10 million. Boy, diligence wouldn't be an issue, would it? No, I'm out there all the time.

I got lights for nighttime. I'm doing it all the time. I'm digging. And that's nothing compared to what God buried in your field.

He already buried it. But you have to have the diligence to go and get it. You see, that's your part.

You have to actually have the diligence to go and get this. Go with me to 2 Timothy chapter 2. Let's take a look at this diligence. 2 Timothy 2 verse 15. Paul writing to a young pastor about how to cope with ministry in life. And he says in numeric and standard here, notice those first two words, be diligent.

Same word. You've got to be diligent. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed. Accurately handling the word of truth. You have to be diligent. You see, that takes a diligence to hand, rightly handle the word of truth.

The King James Version for 2 Timothy 2.15 says this. Study to show yourself approved a workman that does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. In other words, you have to do the work. You see, if you don't do the work, it won't help you. That's the point.

It doesn't help at all. You see, I have to be diligent in order to do this. How can this be such a sort of magical cure? It's simple. Hebrews 4, 12 says this. The word of God is alive.

Powerful. Sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing us under the soul and the spirit. And it's a critic of the thoughts and the intents of my heart. Word of God's alive.

You see, if you want to know its power and its life, somebody at some time in your life, somebody gave you the gospel from the word of God. They explained to you that sin separates people from God and that you're a sinner. The wages of sin is death. And that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin without an Adamic nature and that he lived a perfect life on earth. And he went to the cross to be your substitute on the cross. It satisfied the holiness of God.

He was buried and raised from the dead. And if you put your faith and trust in that truth, you'll have eternal life. You'll go to heaven. And you believed it and you're going. You see, all you did is you took the word of God and you said, I believe that. And now you're going.

And it's not like you're improving your life. You have an eternal life. That's the power of the word of God. In Timothy, Paul wrote to Timothy and said, all scripture is God breathed. All scripture is God breathed and it's profitable. You see, it's profitable for doctrine and correction.

It's profitable for everything in life. That's the word of God. That's why he said to Timothy, Timothy, you've got to be diligent.

You've got to go and get this. But I don't think most of us do. We're not diligent.

We're superficial. It's such a blessing to be diligent. I spent over 40 years studying the word of God. And I'm just telling you, there's hardly a week goes by that in my study, I don't learn something new about Jesus Christ. Forty years later.

It's not like, well, I read that last year. I got it down. I don't have it down. It's alive. It continues to grow as I continue to grow. There's a life to it, but there's got to be a diligence on your part.

And if there's no diligence, there's no real growth. You see, some Christians and I hope you're not one of them, but golly, they find themselves in terrible circumstances. And and then they get their Bible out and then they say, God, help me in this. And then they flash through the Bible.

God, please pick me out. Say something to me, Lord. And then you pick and point at scripture.

And by the way, when you do that, God does say something to you. You need to study the Bible. See, that's nonsense.

That's complete nonsense. I'll just find a verse and point to it. And then that's what God wants from me. There's no diligence in that. There's nothing in that.

There's another aspect. Go with me to James chapter one. Verse 19.

Here, James is writing and notice what he writes. He says, This, you know, my brethren, my beloved brethren, that everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger, for the anger of a man does not achieve the righteousness of God. He said, look, therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all the remains of wickedness in humility, you have to receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. That's what the gospel did. And then he says this, but prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves. See, there's tremendous delusion in hearing the Bible. You think you've done something.

I heard what the Bible said. I've done something. You've done very little. You see, you've done very little. He says, Look, if anyone is a hero, the word of not a doer is like a man who looks at his natural face in the mirror. And once he has looked at himself and gone away, he's immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and he abides in it, not having become a forgetful here, but an effectual doer.

This man will be blessed and happy and everything he does. The only thing that can help you, by the way, is to do the word of God. When it comes to temptation, what's the word of God say? Run. You see, run, flee. Get out of there.

Is that what you do? Whenever you're tempted, you say, I've got to get out of here. I might see something I shouldn't see.

I might say something I shouldn't say. I'm getting out of here. Is that what you do? No. You know the word. Does it help you? No. It doesn't help you at all because you're not going to do it. When someone insults you, tries to hurt your feelings, Jesus said, if they slap you on the face. What do you do? You see, Jesus said, you turn the other cheek.

Do you? Well, I'm not not going to do that. Can't insult me.

I'll give you one back. You're not doing the word of God. You see, and you're going to reap what you sow. Let no unkind word come from your mouth. Anybody saying unkind last week? To anyone?

How about this? Jesus said, do not be anxious about your life. Do not be anxious about your life. Anybody have any anxiety? You see?

Yeah. You see, yeah, Jesus said, no, no, don't be anxious. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

You'll be fine. You see, what happens is we don't do it. We just simply know it. But that doesn't help us at all because we're not about to do the word at all. That's the problem that we run into. The Bible tells me what to do and the Bible tells me what not to do.

You see, I need to know what those things are, but I have to do those things. If I'm going to reap into my life the power that God's already placed inside of me. What if we don't do this and many of us don't?

Let's go back to where I started. 2 Peter chapter 1. I skipped the verse, verse 9.

Verse 9, 2 Peter 1. He says this, for he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. If you don't apply all diligence, Peter says, you're blind or what he calls here short-sighted. We know it's near-sighted.

What happens when you're near-sighted? What do you see? Things that are near, right? What don't you see well? Anything that's not near.

Anything that's far away. I don't see it. You see, all I see what's right in front of my face.

That's what I see. And that's what ends up happening to so many Christians. They only see the things that are close.

They completely lose perspective. See, why do you think the Bible has so much prophecy in it? It doesn't have any point. I don't see any point in it.

There's a tremendous point in it. How's the world out there? Nice place? Good place? Place you feel wonderful about?

Getting better and better every year, right? It's not. Every day we're faced with the news. I woke up this morning and Velma said to me, she said, they shot 11 people down in Canal. Eleven people were shot.

Happens every day all over the world. It's not a great place. There are terrorists everywhere. There's all kinds of stuff going on.

Okay, that's true. So what's prophecy tell me? It's not going on forever. It tells me God's in control. It tells me it's all going to stop. That it tells me there's a second coming of Christ. You see, it tells me that you may think the whole world's going to hell in a handbasket because it's so terrible out there.

And he says, yes, it's going to be terrible and stay terrible until I come. What's that give me? Perspective.

That gives me sight. I can understand. I'm not afraid of the world. You see, I know what the world's like. It's okay because I know what he's like. I say that over and over.

How many times have I said to you, I read the end of the book. You win. That's important. And on a personal level, how important is this? You see, that I have a long-range perspective. That becomes an extremely important thing for me. What if I have terminal illness?

What if I have stage four advanced cancer? Is that tough days? Yes. You know what else I have? The surety of heaven.

I'm certain. My Lord said, let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many dwelling places.

If it were not so, I would have told you. I go and I prepare a place for you, Bill, so that where I am, you may be also. And I'll come and receive you to myself. I need that. If I'm facing state, I need that.

I need that surety of the long range. The trouble is if you don't apply the diligence and you're not into the word of God, you don't get it. And all you see is what's in front of you and the circumstances terrify you. If you have horrible circumstances, you have horrible days because you can't see down the street. You don't see ahead.

You just think this is terrible, this is terrible, this is terrible. I love when he says you're either blind or you're just nearsighted. You see, when we're nearsighted, we become reactive. And as long as everything close to us is nice, it's a good day.

But when everything turns sour close to us, it's a terrible day. We just react to what we see and we don't see much. But when you have long-term vision, it's proactive. I can filter all of the bad things that are in front of me. I'm proactive, I can filter all of the bad news, personal bad news, national bad news. I can filter it all through my vision of what's ahead.

That makes a big difference in my life. That's why this is so important. Why is it that so many Christians live defeated lives? It's not because we don't have the power. I'm just telling you, it's not because you don't have the power. We have the power to cover everything that life has to offer us.

Everything. You and I have the power to face anything that life has for us. God has granted to us every single thing we need. This power comes through our knowledge of him and that is revealed through his promises. But, and that's the help word here, the word's but, but we have to apply all diligence if the power is going to rule our lives. We have to.

We have to gird up our minds for action. We have to be doers of the word of God. That's the thing about being a child of God. If you and I are not growing on the word of God, we're not growing. And because we're not growing, then we don't have this victorious abundant life filled with hope and joy and peace. None of that stuff happens to us. We live lives that are circumstantially driven.

We live defeated lives. So all I'm saying this morning is don't be short-sighted. Don't be near-sighted. Don't be blind to the truth. In whatever, think about yourself. Am I living the victorious life?

Or do I live a life that's mostly defeated? Let's pray. Father, these words are so important.

They affect all of us. And yet, Father, it seems to me that so many of us never really apply this to our lives. You've provided everything we need, not just for heaven, but for life here on earth. You've provided everything we need, not just for heaven, but for life here on earth. Everything according to life you've given in your power to us.

But you will not change the way we think unless we change the way we think. Father, that's the challenge here for each and every one of us. We have to ask ourselves the question, am I really growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ? Am I maturing as a believer?

Do I have a peace about life and a joy about it because of the increasing depth of my relationship with Christ through His word? Father, only each of us can answer for ourselves, but it's such an important thing. My prayer for each and every one of us is that we become more diligent in the days ahead because not only will it be for our good, but we will truly be light and salt in this world and it will be for your glory. This we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for you can listen online or if you prefer you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. .