Stand Firm - Cornerstone Graham

Week 1 – Stand Firm

Matthew 7:24-27

Series Slide

Good morning again to those who joined us earlier this morning, and to those that are just now joining us, welcome to worship! I am Jay Fraze, the Presiding Elder for this amazing gathering of believers. It is truly an honor to gather and worship with you! I have brought a special guest with me today... my wife, Renee Fraze. I don’t usually get to introduce my lovely bride of nearly 27 years because she is usually serving as the interpreter for the deaf in our local church in Brownwood.

Cornerstone Graham, you are a part of something amazing and new. Yes, it’s a new thing that God is doing here in Graham, but it is also an amazing new thing that God is doing across the more than 2100 Global Methodist Churches around the world. Our mission, locally and globally, is to make disciples of Jesus Christ who worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly! Amen!

I bring you greetings from the Mid-Texas Provisional Annual Conference and our 210 churches stretching from the borders of Oklahoma and Mexico! I also bring you greetings from Dr. Leah Hidde-Gregory, our President Pro-Tem. You need to know that she is very proud of the work you are doing here in Graham!

But you didn’t come to hear me ramble on like a politician, you are here to hear the word of God.

Since the beginning of the church, we have found ourselves in conflict with the culture around us. The early church was dealing with the realities of the Greek and Roman cultures that attempted to influence and impact faith in Christ. Consider Gnosticism, or the worship of knowledge or gnosis. The battle between orthodox Christian teaching and Gnostic teaching was fought through the 1st and 2ndCenturies, but the remnants of these philosophies continue to be a part of our culture today. And that’s just one example of many.

Simply put, the values of the world do not align with the values of our faith. The priorities of the world do not align with the priorities of our faith. The kingdom of man is not seeking the same things as the kingdom of God. Sometimes we try to force them to align, or we let parts of one mix with the other because it seems more palatable, but the result is something less than the abundant life Jesus Christ created us for.

GH1

When I was about 17, I went on a High Adventure type outing with the Scouts. We had climbed the Greenhorn Mountain just outside of San Isabel, CO.

GH2 – Blue Lake

On our first day we hiked up to the tree line and camped at a place called “Blue Lake.” The next morning, we broke camp and got our packs ready, then took a side hike to summit the peak with only our daypacks or canteens on our hip. The views were amazing.

GH3 – From The Peak

I was standing at 12,375’ above sea level, higher than I had ever stood before, looking out at the curvature of the earth. It was amazing, we built our little ebenezer or cairn depending on how you want to look at our memorial pile of rocks, then we went down a little bit and played in a small snow slide. It was crazy for this Texan to be playing in snow in July! But, then it was time to descend the mountain, and that’s where it got dicey.

GH4 – Up the Peak

You see, the peak was covered in shale rock. You know, the kind of flat pieces of rock that are laying on top of each other. With every step I took, it felt like the rock I stepped on would slide out from under me and I’d fall and roll to the bottom. I carefully and gingerly took step after step. Then, I heard some guys whooping and hollering from behind me as our two Jamaican participants ran down the slope at full speed. It was as if they were floating above the shale rock. You want to talk about Collide - I thought for sure that they were about to bust it, but they ran all the way to the bottom where it flattened out in no time and they were sitting at the camp waiting on us when the rest of us got down.

Series Slide

Life as a follower of Christ kinda reminds me of that day. We spend so much time trying to navigate the culture, gingerly stepping through the minefield of political correctness, social media wokeness, and worldly pressures that we are never really sure where we will find solid ground that won’t shift under our feet. It seems with every step the values and principles of the world are constantly changing. Then, we look up and see someone who has risen above all the mess, as if they are walking by some other standard.

Ladies and gentlemen, that other standard is Jesus Christ and the Word of God. That is the standard by which we are to walk. That is where we find solid ground amongst the shifting sand of this world.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians 2:8. Before we get into the text for today’s message, I want us to hear these words of Paul.

Colossians 2:8

Sermon Slide

In this one verse, Paul warns us about the world’s logic and values. He calls us as believers to stand firm on a different set of values, those of Christ. But even when we choose to stand firm on the things of God, we will still be faced with the values of this world. How do we know when something we hear is worldly? How do we know when something we hear is Godly? How do we know when we are being led astray, or worse, being held captive by worldly principles and teachings?

And, as we get started, I want you to think back to what I said a moment ago, “It seems with every step the values and principles of the world are constantly changing.” That is an important lesson for us to remember. Worldly Values are Inconsistent.

Worldly Values are Inconsistent.

Let me help illustrate this point with something that we are all familiar with: some of the primary mottos of the kingdom of humanity.

“Follow your heart.

Do whatever makes you happy.”

This is among a long list of things that God never said.

They sound good, maybe even something God might have said – You know, “God just wants you to be happy!”

“As long as you believe in something, that’s what matters.” Right.

But the problem is these concepts are inconsistent, shaky, and they contradict the very teachings of scripture.

The word says in Jeremiah 17:9; “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” The world says, follow your heart, but the Bible warns us the heart can be wicked, deceitful, and confusing.

Jesus says in Matthew 10:39; “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” The world says that you need to make sure you’re happy no matter what, but Jesus says we should lose our lives for His sake… meaning we trade all of the stuff that makes us “happy” in our kingdoms for life in His kingdom… where amazingly, we find deep abiding joy – the abundant life we were actually created for – in this life and beyond!

The heart is inconsistent, always changing, falling in and out of love with any number of things. Happiness is an ever-moving target from one day to the next, sometimes an hour at a time. You don’t believe me? Just watch any Jr. High romance!

We can’t build our lives on statements like these.

We need to build our lives on the Word of God!

Turn with me to Matthew 7. We are going to look at the final illustration Jesus gave, as recorded by Matthew, in the sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 7:24-27

Ok, Who’s already singing the old VBS song – “The wise man built his house upon the rock…”

I know. I can’t help but hear that song when I read that passage. Jesus is literally telling us that his teachings… the things we can read from Matthew 5-7 as well as other places in the Gospels, are the foundation upon which we need to build our lives.

The thing is we know it. We’ve heard it all our lives if we’ve been in church.

Love our enemies…

Leave vengeance to God…

Be salt and light…

Give generously…

Live a life of prayer and fasting…

Don’t judge…

Do unto others as you would have done to you…

We know these teachings. We know that living this life Jesus has taught us is the way to abundant life, to being all that we were meant to be… so why do we so easily let anger get the best of us? Why do we live selfishly? Why do we seek revenge? Why don’t we spend more time in prayer and fasting?

Well, simply put, the ways of the world are seductive.

Worldly values are seductive

Another word for seductive could be “enticing.” Either way, the truth is, the ways of the world look and sound very attractive when we see and hear them.

Scripture Talks about this. Turn with me to 2 Timothy 4:3-4.

For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths.

We live in a culture that looks for things to support their lifestyle, not the life they were created for. We look for biology to confirm our feelings.

We look for sociology to affirm our actions.

We look to psychology to verify our version of life, and yet we as a society continue to see more and more mental health issues. Depression is rampant among our youth. Much of the drug use and abuse by adults is actually self-medication for undiagnosed mental illness. We are told that we are no longer living in a mental health crisis, but a mental health pandemic… and few even recognize it. I think a big part of it is we are living lives contrary to the teachings of Jesus. We are living on the shifting sands of societal influence.

We are like the Israelites wandering through the desert during the Exodus, complaining that we aren’t slaves in Egypt. You remember the story… God has rescued them from the life of slavery and torture in Egypt, and they are on the way to the Promise Land, but then they started complaining that they didn’t have food, when God was already supplying all their needs according to his riches and glory.

That’s what we are doing… God sent his son to show us how to live and to love… He taught us the way to abundant life… and we are grumbling because it doesn’t match up with the seductive things of this world that we want to do.

Paul reminds us in Ephesians 2 that

Ephesians 2:1-5

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

Just like Paul in his day, that is the life of the world we live in… following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. We even make excuses for it… We say, “I was born this way.”

“Oh, my dad was an alcoholic, so I’m an alcoholic… it’s hereditary.”

“Oh, My whole family is fat so I’m fat, I was born this way.”

“Oh, my mom had mental health issues, that’s why I struggle with anxiety, … I was born this way.”

We use the “Born this way” excuse for so much more to explain why we don’t live up to the ideal God has given us.

You know what, Yes, we may have been born “that” way, that’s why Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3 that we must be born again.

Reborn, not in the ways of the world, but in the ways of God.

Reborn in the life that God created us for.

Reborn in the ways that lead to life – abundant life.

When we are living in ways that lead to death, when we are living a lifestyle that does not create life, then we are living contrary to the way we were created to be. You and I were made in the very image of God, we were created to be creators. We were made to give life. We were made to love.

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.

God raised us With Christ

God united us With Christ

God made us an example for the world With Christ!

We are With Christ! And as we grow in Christ, we will learn to recognize the ways of God… we will learn to recognize the way of this world that do not align with the Kingdom of God… and that is where we need to place our energy.

How do we learn to recognize these ways of God? By allowing the Spirit to guide us.

Allow the Spirit to Guide

You know, it’s one thing to say “No” to the things of this world that lead to death. It is quite another thing to say “Yes” to the things of God that lead to life. Jesus tells us about the Holy Spirit in John 14.

John 14:17

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

Jesus invites us to allow the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us in all that we do. Our problem is that often, we don’t slow down long enough to hear that still small voice.

I remember knowing that God had called me in the ministry. I was working for Farmers Insurance in Lufkin and attending First Methodist there. I helped out here and there, preaching occasionally, but mostly I was just going through the process of entering the ministry. I knew in my head that I was supposed to be doing this, but it was my heart that was missing.

Then, one morning on a retreat, I walked away from everyone else and spent the morning by the lake. Just sitting with my Bible, reading, praying, but most of all, just listening. Looking out as the early morning fog rose from the lake. It was there that the still small voice became audible, and I knew in my heart that God had called me into this life.

And you know… I’ve had sometimes where the ground seemed to be shifting under me. A Global Pandemic and a denominational split come to mind… but there have been other times as well. There have been times that I felt like I needed to gingerly step from one stone to the other, constantly trying to make sure that my feet didn’t slide out from under me. But, those times were temporary.

God’s love, the words of Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit are the constants.

I’m going to say that again, because I don’t think you all heard it.

The shifting sands of the world are temporary…

The constants in our lives are

The Love of God,

The Words of Christ,

And the indwelling of the Holy Spirit! That is the truth. That is what sustains us. That is what remains!

When the world tries to tell you:

It doesn’t matter what, as long as you believe in something.

God just wants you to be happy.

As long as you aren’t hurting anyone, it’s OK.

Follow your heart – it won’t lead you astray.

Go be you, whatever or whoever you want to be.

When you hear these things, know that these statements, as good as they sound, are contradictive to God’s Word. They may be seductive, but they lead us away from life and toward death.

How do we recognize these lies?

By being a people of the Word of God!

By living in the word and letting God’s Word dwell richly in us!

By building our lives on the foundation that will stand strong against the storms.

In other words, by taking Christ into us, the we may be changed from the inside out.

You are a part of something new… a new thing that God is doing in the world.

Don’t be ashamed of what God is doing in you, in your church, in your community, and across the globe.

Live by God’s Word, let it dwell in you richly, allow the Holy Spirit – dare I say the Holy Ghost, to guide you, to guide this church.

Be the Body of Christ here and Graham – sharing God’s love and grace with anyone and everyone!