I want to share something with you that's
very much on my heart.
Over the past 23 or 24 years, involved
in Christian work and spreading the gospel in
many countries of the world, I've noticed that
Satan attempts to get dedicated Christians into extremes
or into some kind of tangent or secondary
road.
And through this, I've received a great burden
from the Lord to speak on the subject
of spiritual balance.
Coupled with this, I've seen that oftentimes, when
people go off balance, Satan manages to destroy
their testimony.
For many years, I continually preached on the
subject of commitment, and I still do, and
discipleship, and that is still a very basic
message on my heart.
But in the past two years, the Lord
also has given me a message on the
subject of survivalship, and I'd like to speak
to you about survivalship at this time.
I'd like to read from 1 Corinthians 9,
where Paul says, starting at verse 23, And
this I do for the gospel's sake, that
I might be a partaker of it with
you.
Know ye not that they who run in
a race run all, but one receiveth the
prize.
So run, that ye may obtain.
And every man that striveth for the mastery
is temperate in all things.
Now they do it to obtain a corruptible
crown, but we an incorruptible.
I therefore, so run, not as uncertainly, so
fight I, not as one that beateth the
air.
But I keep under my body, and bring
it into subjection, lest that by any means,
when I have preached to others, I myself
should be a castaway.
Paul had a program for survival.
One of his greatest goals was to run
the race right to the end, and I'm
sure this is one of the goals that
you also have in your Christian life.
A.
W.
Tozer said that often it's the more keen,
the more enthusiastic Christian that is more easily
led astray, and I've seen that this is
true.
And I think sometimes it comes through an
overemphasis on commitment, dedication, and all of the
important truths along that avenue, without emphasizing some
of the other truths that bring all of
this into balance.
It's not God's plan for us to just
live a few years totally committed to Him,
and in any case, total commitment is a
constant process, and we're constantly committing to God
new things that are being revealed to us
from our subconscious.
But it's our desire to be able to
run the race to the end.
I've been greatly inspired by men like Oswald
J.
Smith, now 80 years of age, still running
the race, and many others, and this is
why I want to share with you on
the subject of survivalship.
Satan is out to destroy us.
The Word of God says, be not ignorant
of his devices, and I believe these principles
of survivalship will enable us to stand against
the fiery darts of Satan.
The first principle is that we need to
know that we are accepted and we are
forgiven.
We need to have the reality of accepting
ourselves.
Ephesians 1.6 says that we are accepted
in the Beloved.
This must not just be something that we
have in our head.
It must be something that we are experiencing
in our life.
We know that God has accepted us.
This will be tested, especially when we are
rejected by people.
This will be tested during times of failure,
when we will be tempted to reject ourselves,
and to belittle ourselves, and to run ourselves
down.
This is not the way of true spirituality,
and it's not really humility either.
It's just one of those more subtle forms
of self-love.
God wants us to know the reality of
really accepting ourselves, and yet at the same
time knowing that God has accepted us, and
God has forgiven us.
Our message is a message of forgiveness.
The great danger of many churches, when they
have begun to move into a message on
commitment, and into a message on discipleship, is
that they have gone too extreme into legalism,
and the process is destructive.
People are hurt.
People are destroyed.
We build up a terrific level on where
we think people should live, but then we
fail to minister to people in the process,
so they are destroyed by the very standard
that they set, or that we set for
them, supposedly from the Word of God, by
especially taking verses out of context.
Remember, we can prove almost anything by taking
verses out of context.
And even as I share this message with
you, I hope you will not just accept
what I have to say, but search the
Scriptures to see if these things be so.
The second principle of spiritual survival is the
principle of casting every care upon the Lord.
Now, how easy it is to say that.
We all know 1 Peter 5, 7, casting
all your care upon him, for he careth
for you.
But are we doing it?
Am I doing it?
How easy it is to cast a care
upon the Lord, and an hour later to
pick it up and try to carry it
again along life's road.
I want to recommend John Hagiai's book on
how to win over worry.
I'm convinced that worry is doing more harm
to Christian workers than even such heavy problems
as immorality or bitterness.
And of course, they're pretty big problems as
well.
We're told not to be anxious.
And the Word of God is clear that
worry is sin.
If we think it's just some kind of
problem or a personality difficulty, we're not going
to be able to deal with it effectively.
It's when we realize worry is sin, and
we repent and really cast it on the
Lord, that we're going to discover greater victory.
I find that a great cure for worry
is thanksgiving and praise.
And we're going to emphasize that later on.
The third principle, the third principle of spiritual
survival, is making God your goal.
There's a great danger, especially for those of
us who are activists, to make the work
we're involved in our goal.
We've got to do this, or we've got
to do that.
We've got to reach another million people, or
we're going to plant a church, or we're
going to accomplish something.
This often can be a dead-end street,
a cul-de-sac.
Our goal is God.
This is one of the reasons that we
have been emphasizing the writings of A.W.
Tozer, because this man emphasizes that our goal
is God Himself.
J.I. Packer, in his book Knowing God,
brings this focus back into view, and we
need it.
We see this also in the amazing book
Destined for the Throne.
By Mr. Bilheimer.
Our goal is God.
We have been created to worship Him.
When our goal is God, then difficulties in
the work, misunderstandings among our co-workers, problems
in the church, do not destroy us spiritually,
because our eyes are on the Lord, and
our joy comes from the Lord.
If we put our eyes on other people,
often we will be disappointed.
If we put our eyes on the circumstances,
we will easily get discouraged.
And if we put our eyes inward into
ourselves, in operation introspection, then we'll probably eventually
get depressed.
Let's learn that great secret of spiritual reality
and spiritual survival.
Making God our goal.
DeVerm Fromke has some unique books on this
subject that you may want to read.
The fourth principle of spiritual survival is learning
to be heard.
Learning to be heard.
You say, well, that sounds rather strange.
Well, it's one of the most important lessons
we can learn in our Christian life.
I remember way back in grammar school, in
high school, the football coach telling the team
and telling some of us it doesn't really
hurt to be heard.
Some of life's greatest lessons are only learned
through trial, misunderstanding, being neglected or being hurt
in some way.
And we must learn this.
It's an important lesson.
It's a hard lesson.
But it's God's principle for spiritual survival.
This is especially emphasized in the Sermon on
the Mount about blessing those who persecute us.
And seeing this in its right focus, realizing
also the truth of Romans 8.28, that
all things work together for good for those
who love the Lord.
Fifthly, we need to learn the reality of
praise and thanksgiving.
In 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 16, we're told
to give thanks in all things.
How many of us are actually doing that?
Giving thanks for the problems.
Giving thanks when things go wrong with our
bicycle or our vehicle.
Giving thanks when great mistakes are made.
I recently read the story of a young
man in an Asian country who because he
made a mistake, a serious mistake in repairing
the engine or doing the maintenance work on
the engine of an airplane, that missionary plane
crashed and seven people were killed.
When he found out that it was his
fault, it was an overwhelming emotional struggle that
I think very few of us have ever
been through to that degree.
And yet by God's grace and the love
of other people, he bounced back and was
brought to a place of praise and thanksgiving
and victory.
All of us who live for Christ are
going to be tested to the very fiber
of our spiritual being.
We have not been called into an evangelical
game.
We have been called into a spiritual warfare
and we must learn to use the weapon
of thanksgiving and of praise.
There are times when it's not appropriate to
praise the Lord out loud, but we can
praise Him in our heart.
There is a place and a time for
legitimate sorrow in the life of a Christian.
We weep with those who weep and we
rejoice with those who rejoice.
But the fruit of the Spirit is joy
and as Christians we must learn what it
is to spend more time in the Psalms
praising the Lord.
I find it a great blessing to go
off into the woods or to go anywhere
alone and just spend time singing the Psalms
and praising the Lord.
And a renewed interest in praise throughout the
church today is a wonderful thing.
I hope you're experiencing it not only in
the church service but in your own life.
Praise is one of God's remedies for all
kinds of difficulties in the Christian life and
one of the basic principles of survivalship.
It's what I entitle knowing the reality of
the rest of faith.
In Hebrews chapter 4 we read these words.
There remaineth therefore a rest to the people
of God.
For he that is entered into his rest
he also hath faced from his own works
as God did from his.
Let us labor therefore to enter into that
rest lest any man fall after the same
example of unbelief.
We're told also in the earlier part of
that chapter that the message preached in verse
2 was of no value because it was
not mixed with faith.
I believe this is important as we think
of all the promises of God which we
must learn to draw upon if we are
going to survive in the spiritual warfare.
It's important to realize that faith is the
key and we need to learn to exercise
faith.
Some people are wanting to be great men
of faith and to have great answers to
prayer and yet they've never exercised the little
faith that they already have.
There are different interpretations of Hebrews chapter 4
but I believe whatever interpretation you look at
you see that it is God's plan for
the Christian to know something of a restful
lifestyle.
This will be worked out in different ways
and in different people.
Some people are slightly more active even in
some cases physically speaking more nervous and yet
may know in their inner being more quietness
and more peace than someone who appears to
be very peaceful.
The Bible says man looks at the outward
appearance but God looks at the heart.
It's God's plan for us to know the
rest of faith.
Some people seem to enter into this by
a crisis experience.
Others seem to just progressively move into a
more restful walk with God.
I am convinced that God works in different
ways in different people.
I think that's so important if we're going
to be able to really understand people and
understand ourselves.
God may bring a crisis in your life
but that crisis without a process will probably
become an abscess and you must avoid that
at all cost.
The seventh principle of survivalship is realizing that
God is easy to live with.
Some of the strongest statements I have ever
read apart from the word of God are
some of the statements by A.
W.
Tozer about the church, about the Christian life,
about many aspects of our spiritual pilgrimage.
And yet this same man who spoke so
strongly said that God is easy to live
with.
He went on to say how God knows
all about us and yet loves us still.
I believe the victorious life does not just
include knowing how to maintain victory.
It includes knowing what to do when you
fail.
Our burden is not to sin.
We're told that in 1 John 2.
But in the same verse we're told what
to do if we sin.
No one is going to walk for Christ
in the long run if he does not
know how to handle sin and failure in
his own life.
I'm convinced God loves us as much when
we've fallen flat on our face as when
we're zooming along having just led five people
to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We must learn how to bounce back from
failure.
We must learn that God operates with us
on the basis of mercy, on the basis
of forgiveness.
And this is important if we're going to
become strong and stable believers.
God is easy to live with because He
loves us.
Because our sins are forgiven through the Lord
Jesus Christ.
And this is important to remember.
Number 8.
We need to understand God's growth pattern.
Lane Adams has written an amazing book Why
Is It Taking So Long?
He speaks very honestly in this book about
his own struggles and his own failures.
And this is good.
And we need to be able to do
this as well.
Different people depending on their background will grow
and proceed in their Christian life at a
different speed.
We must not be discouraged with our own
spiritual growth.
If you went out to a nearby forest
and found someone standing next to a tree
and you asked them well what are you
doing?
And they said well I'm watching this tree
grow.
You'd probably have question about their sanity.
And if we are going to be strong
Christians often times our spiritual growth will be
more like a tree.
It will be slow.
It will be steady.
We will not be able to see it.
A weed grows much quicker but it doesn't
last very long.
We need people today who are going to
understand God's principle of spiritual growth.
They also therefore are going to refuse to
judge others who may be having problems and
difficulties in their Christian life because of some
struggle maybe they've had from their own background.
Of course generally speaking someone from a stable
home is going to grow quicker in his
Christian life than someone who has not experienced
any stability in his home background.
These things do affect us though they are
never an excuse and we are responsible for
our own walk before the Lord.
I love Philippians 1.6 which we've all
heard many many times.
That which the Lord has begun in us
he will continue to perform or to do.
The ninth principle of spiritual growth is the
freedom of a disciplined and ordered life.
Shelly Taylor has written an excellent book on
the subject of the disciplined life which I
want to strongly recommend.
Billy Graham speaking many years ago at the
great crowd who gathers at Urbana.
Many of us have heard this tape.
Clearly shared that if we didn't learn the
disciplined life we could never live for Christ.
We may experience a great blessing.
We may love the Lord but if we
don't know something about discipline.
Discipline in the area of food.
Billy Graham has accused us of being a
generation of gluttons.
Discipline in the area of time and the
use of time because the word of God
in Ephesians says redeem the time for the
days that are evil.
Discipline in the control of the television knob.
I think the problem today are not the
evil programs that Christians perhaps easily tune out.
So many good programs which often rob us
of time that could be used for better
things.
Christians are not going to know the reality
of discipleship until they can discern the difference
between the good and the best.
And if the world is going to be
reached for Christ, we need more people who
are going to get involved in the best
even if it means sometimes sacrificing the good.
Discipline does not bring bondage as some people
would teach us.
Discipline brings freedom.
We're told that we are called on to
liberty in the book of Galatians but not
to use the liberty as an occasion for
the flesh.
But to use that liberty to serve one
another.
One of the reasons we named our second
ship Doulas is because our greatest burden for
those coming on OM is that they would
learn to serve.
This is basic to spiritual growth and discipleship.
The tenth principle I want to mention to
you is the principle of learning how to
refuel and relax.
Different people relax in different ways.
I find it very easy to relax even
on a train or a quick walk into
the woods.
Some people seem to take almost days before
they can unwind and really relax and be
able to refuel.
For some a change is as good as
a holiday but for other people it's not
quite that easy.
Some people can lie down in their bed
at night and within five minutes they're off
to sleep.
That's generally my situation.
Others can toss and turn for hours and
suffer from insomnia or lack of sleep.
This is why it's impossible to categorize God's
people or to label God's people or to
classify them especially after we read this book
or that book.
There's such a wide range of people and
God is working in different ways in different
places and we need to learn to relax.
It's true we're in a spiritual warfare but
our finger is not on the trigger of
the weapon all of the time.
There's got to be the refueling.
In my life music has played an important
role in enabling me to relax and refuel.
And there's nothing like getting out, at least
for me, on the tennis court for an
hour or two.
Some people have even classified such things as
worldly.
But I think if we study church history
we'll discover that men and women who do
not have a form of recreation, who do
not have an outlet of that time often
end up in all kinds of nervous tension
and other problems which they may not even
be aware of.
But others around them soon know the difficulty.
And then the eleventh principle I want to
mention is learning what it is to have
real fellowship.
Real fellowship is really opening up with people.
Learning to relate to people.
James chapter 5 verse 16 tells us to
confess our faults one to another and pray
for one another that we might be healed.
We can be over protective of our reputation
and therefore fail to share areas of trouble
and difficulty.
I'm not saying we parade our sins or
we stand up in public meetings and bring
out all kinds of details.
This doesn't edify God's people and love must
be the rule.
But each one of us should have someone
we can really share with and really be
open with and then we can pray for
one another.
I have a relationship with some that if
neither one of us are in a heavy
temptation about something we can even call one
another on the phone and pray immediately for
the victory.
Satan has many methods and if we are
going to stand against the fiery darts these
days we need each other.
There may be times when we can't get
fellowship from others and we're alone in a
prison and at that time God will give
special grace.
But before that time we need to know
the fellowship of his people and what it
is to walk in the light and to
really share.
And then the twelfth principle is keeping a
positive attitude and a positive lifestyle.
Philippians 4.8 emphasizes this, thinking on that
which is lovely, that which is pure, that
which is a good report.
This is so essential.
It's so easy to become cynical in our
day.
So easy to be negative.
There's so many problems.
And the church emphasizes this, thinking on that
which is lovely, that which is pure, that
which is a good report.
This is so essential.
It's so easy to become cynical in our
day.
So easy to be negative.
There's so many problems in the church and
out of the church.
And I believe unless we develop a positive
attitude we're going to find that the judgment
we give is the judgment we get.
We point one finger at someone else but
three fingers are pointing back at ourselves.
We need to learn how to believe the
best about God's people and maintain a positive
attitude in the midst of a negative world
situation.
Only through this are we going to become
Christ-like victorious individuals who will stand against
all the resistance.
Philippians 4.9