S04 Ep 32 Conformity Over Faith. Why Do We Compromise?

Welcome to Man Talk, a ministry sponsored by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where we're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and to point men to their God-assigned roles.

Now, here's your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. Welcome to Man Talk again. You know, Roy, we were talking about last week, which was really, really, you know, I get passionate over stuff like that. Just a little bit.

Just a little bit. But, you know, we were talking about compromise, and I think it's something that as a believer in Christ and man in particular, that we as God's people, we have an obligation to hold true to the values in which, you know, we say we love God and we honor His word. And so as we do that, we should hold to these values.

But there's a way in which you can communicate the values that you hold to others without sounding derogatory toward them or bringing any type of hurt. Now, if a person is hurt, you know, by some of the things that you say in reference to the word of God, then I think they have to deal with that when it comes to the word of God and how that word is affecting that particular individual or group of individuals. And of course, we know, I mean, Jesus said we're going to be hated people, you know, and you're going to you're going to be hated because the world first hated Him. So we're following one who people who don't believe hate. And so as a result, we're going to be hated. Guilty by association.

Guilt by association. And that's a good thing. It is.

It's a great thing. And to your point, we're going to be persecuted. We know that. But, you know, it's in our society where we talk often about we can't disagree anymore and still love each other.

And, you know, this is a prime example. This is our heart. This is how we live our lives because we're following God and we're trying to be disciples as Jesus told us all to do and go and make more disciples. And being in this conversation is always challenging, no matter what the topic is with other folks.

Absolutely. Because we've become such a society. We don't want to offend anybody.

We don't want to have a difficult conversations. We want everybody to feel good about everything they're doing, irrespective of the consequences. And I mean, that's across the whole spectrum. That's not down to one particular sin. It's across the whole spectrum. And that's why we're in the mess we're in today.

We talk about this often. There has to be some moral guidelines. Society has to function with moral guidelines and expectations and standards. Without those, it's nothing but anarchy and confusion and discord. Discord in the greatest sense. And what are we in the middle of right now? Anarchy, confusion, discord. And if you boil it back down, it goes back to 1962 when they took prayer out of schools and they basically said we don't want anything to do with God here in the U.S. as a public decision.

And you see all of the statistics, all the rapes, all the violent crimes, everything you can measure that's on the books has skyrocketed since 1963. Exactly, Roy. And, you know, when you're talking about the morals, you can't waffle on your morals either. No, you can't compromise. You know, that's that's the same word.

Same word. You can't go back and forth and say, OK, today I'll accept this and then tomorrow I'll accept that. Because when we were when we were talking about last on last week and we were finishing up Revelations Chapter two and that verse 17, you know, I want to definitely get to that because what Jesus Christ said to this particular church in Pergamon is he said that if a person overcomes, he would eat of the hidden manna. And then he said, I will give him a white stone. And in that stone would be a new name written that no man know, except the person who receives that stone.

Now, Roy, I don't know about you, but when I read that. I think about Lord, you know, one day I'm going to have a name that no one else will know, except me. And and the beauty, and the beauty I think behind that is, but I have to overcome.

So this is why we're talking to you today about compromising, because we want you to be an overcomer. We want you to be in a position to where one day Jesus Christ will give you that white stone, because this is Jesus speaking here. He's going to give you that white stone with a new name. So they won't know you by Roy anymore.

They don't won't know me by will anymore. But there is a white stone that no man, nobody will know that except the person who received Roy. And it just brings chills to me to think about.

I can see it. I mean, it's so beautiful, you know, to know that one day this is going to happen. You know, as fathers of Christ, we we don't think about the long view very often, do we?

No, we don't. And this is one of those prime examples when you stop and you think about what's going to happen. And folks, compromise is will result in slow fade. If you compromise, you will slow fade into complacency, slow fade into accepting things that God says are unholy. So we really, really want you to listen, but always come from a position of love as you stand on your standards.

And oftentimes you don't have to say anything. It's just removing yourself from conversations or walking away from conflicts. But remember, you are a disciple of Christ. If you've accepted Jesus as your personal savior, you are a disciple and your accountability and responsibility is to be accountable to the Lord and to the Bible and your responsibility is to make disciples of all the nations. And first and foremost is to love your neighbor, which translated is everyone that you can see.

And I think if we want you to walk away with something through these programs is just strive to be a little bit better, strive to work a little bit harder, strive to share the message just a little bit more. Give your story to a few more people this week. You never know when God's going to say, hey, Will, this person that you're getting ready to talk to is in dire need. And that one little conversation, that one comment or that one, did you know God loves you, may be the very thing that saves that person, not just for eternity, but in that moment. You know, Roy, in Second Timothy, chapter two, verses three through five, the the apostle Paul speaking to young Timothy, the pastor there, he says that you must endure hardship as a good soldier because no one who is engaged in warfare will entangle himself with the affairs of this life. So when when you compromise yourself, you, number one, allow yourself to be entangled with the affairs of this life, number one.

And number two, if we continue to allow ourselves to be entangled with the affairs of this life, what we end up doing is allowing ourself to now engage in the very same things that the word of God is telling us that we need to abhor. So that, I think, in and of itself should give us should give us some type of lantern to say when I walk forward, because I was I was in the military and when you're in the military, you're not focusing on what you're going to have for dinner later on. If you're engaged with the enemy and you know the enemy is around you, your focus is on the enemy. So God blesses through the apostle Paul to Timothy to give this illustration of a soldier. And he's saying, if you're enlisted as a soldier, you have a responsibility to be alert.

Well, let me read it from the NIV as well. Join with me in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. And we know who our commanding officer is. And as a result of knowing who our commanding officer is, we should be willing, ready and able to submit ourselves to exactly what he told us we need to do.

Amen. So that we can be overcomers in this warfare, which is an unseen one, because remember Ephesians 612, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities of power. And see, that's hard for believers, for whatever reason, Roy, to see that you're fighting against an unseen enemy, but that unseen enemy is manifest itself through people, some of which say that they are born again. So when they allow themselves to be overcome by the and entangled with the affairs of this life, now the enemy comes into their mind, introduce thoughts, and they're completely thrown off course.

Will, you bring up a good thought in my mind as of recent. We were reading the book This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti. It's a novel, but it's a perfect illustration of what's going on in the society. So if you haven't read that book, please read that book. It talks about the spiritual warfare and what's going on below the scenes and behind the scenes and below deck that you may not realize through people's behavior, people's narrative, things that they're being influenced to say or do, just like when the angel is in front of the donkey, right?

It's moving the direction, but the same holds true on the other side of that coin, right? If spirits are involved, involved, bad spirits to create activity that Satan's using, people's thought processes, people's conversations, people's commentary to us. There's a lot going on, folks, that it is truly all spiritual warfare at the end of the day. That's what's going on.

Satan's battling us as follows with Christ to try to get people distracted, try to continue people staying away from God, get them looped out. And all these was the civilian affairs, if you will. So remember that don't get focused on civilian affairs, stay focused on the one that matters. And you know, Roy, when he was talking about, he gave another illustration when it comes to athletics in verse five, he said that if a person is competing, you know, they're going to compete according to the rules. I remember when I, I used to run track years and years ago. And of course you get on the starting line and if you cross that starting line before the gun goes off, that's considered what? A false start. And so now everybody has to come back and reset.

So, so you have to reset your thought pattern because a lot of those folks, when they get to the starting line, they're already seeing themselves run the race. Okay. We are coming up on a break right now, but when we come back, we're going to continue talking and walking Christian men's ministry. We'd like to invite you to our monthly men's breakfast held every first, third and fifth Friday of each month. You enjoy fun fellowship in the word of God. As we break bread together, the meetings are held at First Christian Church, 1130 North Main Street, Kernsville, North Carolina.

We start promptly at 6 30 AM and have a hard stop at 8 o'clock AM. Come join your hosts Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. And we were talking about Roy right before the break that we have to see ourselves running this walk as a believer, as a kingdom citizen, as men of God. We have to see ourselves already at the finish line. And so what we're doing in this life right now, we're running the race, but we have to see ourself finishing the race because when you, if you don't finish, you get a DQ and we know what a DQ is.

It's disqualified. So we have to ensure that as believers, we adhere to the standards because the standards, as the verse talked about, you can't compete as an athlete unless you know the rules, because no one wants to go out there and do their own thing that prevents you actually from going out and doing your own thing. So the word of God has been laid out for us to read, to understand and follow according to the way God said it. So we have to compete according to the rules.

We do. And the standard has been laid out for each and every one of us. So I'm thankful to God because, you know, as, as a believer and as a kingdom citizen, that I am assured that not only that if I stay the course in what God told me to do, that even though things will start to come and be a roadblock in my life, that I know that I have already overcome the thing, whatever it is, you know, whatever obstacle is put in front of me, in front of me, God said I'm an overcomer. And, but I have to have confidence that when I do pray and I ask God for direction, for insight, He's going to give it to me.

1 John 5, 14 and 15, this is the confidence that we have in Him. That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, then we know that these are the petitions that we ask of Him.

So any petition, petition is something you send up. So when I send up the petition to God, then I know that God is going to hear me in His time, not my time, but in His time. And maybe on another broadcast where we can talk about the difference between God's timing and our timing.

I think it's a great next topic for us very soon, Will. How does the believer know, Will, what God's will is for their life? They pray according to His will. I think you'll never know what God's will is if you never get into His Word, because His Word is His will. So if we never get into the Word of God, we'll never know the will of God. If we never know the will of God, then we won't know what God wants us to do for our life.

Statistically speaking, Will, we've spoken about this before. 40% of the Christians today are those that profess to be followers of Christ do not believe or indicate they do not believe the Word of God is the absolute Word of God. So if we've got 40% of those of us that say we are followers of Christ not believing that the Bible is real, then that means 40% of us aren't chasing what God's will for our life is. Well, and if we, again, don't understand what the will of God is for our life, then we're going to default into doing our own thing. And this brings us to that last, the last passages that we're talking about, Roy, is when God spoke through the Apostle Paul to young Timothy to say, Flee also useful lust.

I'm going to 22. For pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, and those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Then he goes on to say, but avoid foolish and ignorant disputes. Don't get into any arguments with non-believers on things that you're standing on because you know they're true according to what the Word of God says.

And I have seen that, Roy, occur so many times in ministry. People, they'll come to a conference, they'll come to a convention, and you might have a speaker who's up there speaking, and then you have someone in the audience who disagreed with some of the things the speaker was saying. And then all of a sudden you have all this contention outside of the convention center once the talk is over.

I've seen two guys like nose to nose, one disagreeing and one agreeing. And so I think these things leads us to a point of separation. And if we're not careful, if we have a weak position, and what I mean by weak is not understanding what the Word of God says and defending that word based on what he says, then we can easily be overcome. We'll be overcome by what? We'll be overcome and now.

Will, we need to take a break here real quick. We'd like to tell you about an event coming up each two months. The next one will be the end of September. We have a men's dinner that we do for the community. It's currently being held at First Christian as our host site, six o'clock on the fourth Thursday of the second month.

So the next second month will be September. We'd like for you to join us if you can. Speaker to be announced and we thank you for your participation and hope to see you there. So what we were talking about, Roy, is we were talking about avoiding foolish disputes and ignorant conversations because they generate strife, according to 2 Timothy 2 and 23. And then he said, the servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach patient and humility, correcting those who are in opposition. Now, that is when I think you will actually get into a opposition conversation when you're attempting to correct someone, because what you encounter there is you encounter someone who might have a certain take a certain stand on something that the Bible says in reference to like we were talking about the gifts of the Spirit. You know, some denominations believe that you have to speak in the tongue. Some believe that you have to be baptized in the water.

And of course, feet washing, you know, so you can go and get into all of these disputes, if you will. But they're not pertinent, Roy, to the core values that salvation speaks about. Amen. That's the key. Will the NIB version says at the very end of opponents must be gently instructed in the hope that God will grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of truth. So I really love that opponents must be gently instructed. If you think about the word opponent, that's that's the person on the other side of the line, right?

That's the person you're competing against or you're having a conversation with. And maybe you disagree. Right. So we're referring to them as opponents, but they must be gently instructed.

Think about that. That doesn't mean you ram it down their throat. That must doesn't mean you get angry with them. As you said earlier, you've got to be kind, the scripture tells us, be kind to everyone. And I guess that goes back to where we've gotten. We tend to get escalated when we disagree rather than just say it's OK for us to have different views because, you know, the Holy Spirit is within me. This is what he's put on my heart. This is what I can or can't handle in terms of my life. And this is based on his word.

These are the things I do. But if we could get to those kind of positions where we can have an amicable conversation and we remind ourselves as follows request, we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard as it relates to this being kind, as it relates to gently instructing. We don't need to behave like those in the world behave because if they're seeing the same, they being people that don't believe in Christ or seeing the same behavior out of us that they see with the nonbelievers, what's different about us? What would attract them to become a part of the kingdom of God and see? And I think that's why the condition, the conditional word there, if if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth. So that would only come if the individual who is in opposition against God's word look and view what they're saying and God convicts them of what they're they're saying and their belief. And then as a result of that conviction, then they repent of their statement. And if they if they repent of their statement, then God will grant them that repentant heart. But if they resist, then God don't have the repentant heart.

Absolutely. Then God is going to resist them. Well, folks, we just want to remind you as we're nearing the end of the show that God loves you wholeheartedly more than you could ever understand. If you haven't accepted Christ in your life, we just encourage you to do that. This is a very simple prayer.

Just ask God to Jesus to come into your heart, ask God to cleanse your soul, repent of your sins and start following Jesus Christ and giving the word of God is that simple. And we just encourage you to do that if you haven't made a decision. And Will, it's been a great show talking about compromise.

Absolutely, Roy. And, you know, we know that as followers of Christ, that is probably the biggest issue. And the word we didn't use today, which typically is associated with compromise is hypocrisy because of the unbeliever. Here's your story.

Here's you. And then you compromise on your standards. Then they're saying, hey, that's a hypocritical approach. You're saying one thing, but doing another. Absolutely, Roy. And I think when you do that, you have no no testimony because folks are saying, well, if you do that, then why should I even engage myself in something that you can't even hold as truth?

That's right. Well, Will, you want to give us a quick prayer on the way out? Lord, we thank you for this opportunity that you've given us to come on the air. We just thank you, Father, for all of the listeners.

We just ask God if there's anyone out there who have a compromising heart, that you would just break down the barrier, Lord, and just have them their eyes open so they can see the truth. We love you today. And we thank you for everything that you're doing with the Man Talk podcast. We thank you all. And may God bless you may God bless you and may heaven smile upon you. Amen.

Amen. As we conclude today's show, TAWCMM talking and walking Christian men's ministry are building a community of men to be servant leaders in their home communities, churches and work environment. Check us out on our Web site for upcoming events and regular scheduled meetings. Don't forget to send us an email for topics that you would like us to visit in the future. Thank you for joining us today on Man Talk. Visit us at TAWCMM.com.