Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries |
Florida Conference 2009. Part 5. Sit Walk, STAND.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The Christian STAND
Take a STAND against REJECTION
Something Good
Perhaps I had a wicked childhood
Perhaps I had a miserable youth
But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past
There must have been a moment of truth
Something Good
For here you are, standing there, loving me
Whether or not you should
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good
Something Good
Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good
Elliott Evan Clark
ROM 1:20
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes (divine essence), His eternal power (omnipotence) and (His) divine nature (deity), have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made (creatures…nature…things around us), so that they (the human race) are without excuse (before a justice).
Logistical Grace
“Dad… did you keek a shower?”
“When I am older, I agree to sit with my dad for fifteen minutes upon presentation of this certificate.”
Lead me, follow me, or get the hell out of my way
SIT-WALK-STAND
JOH 10:30
“I and the Father are one.”
PSA 9:9
The Lord also will be a stronghold for the oppressed, A stronghold in times of trouble
JOB 19:25
“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His STAND on the earth.”
ROM 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
HEB 4:12
The word of God is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit, of the joints and marrow, and is a critic of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
HEB 6:1
Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity…
1PE 1:8-9
…and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.
LUK 20:17
But Jesus looked at them and said, “What then is this that is written: ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone’?
Robert R. McLaughlin
Bible Ministries
Florida Conference
Speaker: Pastor John Farley
Sunday AM, April 26, 2009
Handing rejection from self and reaching spiritual self-esteem.
Handling rejection from others and reaching spiritual autonomy.
Handling rejection (hostility) from Satan and reaching spiritual maturity.
Dying to the things that are dead –
In order to live in what is truly alive.
The cross of standing is undeserved suffering, and the ultimate is evidence testing.
The three stages of spiritual growth are accompanied by undeserved suffering that is the accelerator pedal of that growth.
Our Lord Jesus Christ won the strategic victory in the angelic conflict by His substitutionary spiritual death on the cross.
HEB 1:13, which is a quotation from
PSA 110:1, was the announcement that the strategic victory had been achieved.
When Jesus Christ was judged on Calvary for the sins of the entire world, He provided not only eternal redemption for all mankind, but also the most advantageous tactical position for defeating the believer’s greatest enemies.
You have the privilege, in this great angelic war, of having your very own enemies to do combat against and vanquish.
The flesh
GAL 5:17 For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.
We have this built in system called the old sin nature that is anti-God. And when God shows up in force this guy goes on the warpath.
The world
1JO 2:17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
Our enemy, the world, is a power system, a force, a system of thinking.
It is the organized antagonism to the things of the Lord, the systematic opposition to Bible doctrine.
And the devil.
The enemy of God, Christ, the Jews, and the Church-age believer.
What is the cross of our Christian stand?
The secret weapon that our Lord used to defeat Satan was His spiritual death on the cross.
What weapon of Satan’s did Christ destroy at the cross?
The answer is the same – death.
What were we before Christ died to defeat death?
COL 2:13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
When we participate in Christ’s victory by believing in Him, where are we placed first?
We are placed into a death.
JOH 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Dying to the things that are dead –
In order to live in what is really alive.
ROM 6:3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
ROM 6:4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
Dying to the things that are dead –
In order to live in what is truly alive.
JOH 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
What do you think we are going to use to hold our ground against Satan when the evil day attacks us?
Answer: Death.
The death of undeserved suffering. The death of separation or being crucified to the flesh, the world, and the devil.
GAL 5:24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 36:09
GAL 6:14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
When we hold our ground against the principalities and powers and we take our stand, what is the very ground are we standing on?
The ground is perfect happiness in our death of undeserved suffering as we fix our eyes on Jesus.
It is the ground of occupation with Christ in the midst of that mantle of opposition from your enemies: the world, the flesh, and now the kingdom of darkness.
The Cross of our Christian stand means enduring a death through which an enemy is cut off from us.
Our enemies are…
The flesh
The world
The devil.
The flesh, the old sin nature, is DEAD… positionally, judicially, in the position of death and under a death sentence.
ROM 6:6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
The new nature is ALIVE… eternally, possessing ETERNAL LIFE.
It is most spectacularly the Cross of our Christian Stand that cuts between these two natures, and in the flame of death through suffering shines brightly on the scene, making it clear what is dead and what is alive forevermore.
The Cross of our Christian Stand reveals what is truly death, and what is truly life.
It reveals the total unfairness of the devil’s world, and the total fairness – and beyond fairness to grace and mercy – of the Father’s kingdom.