Continue In Faith

Text

1 Timothy 4:16 KJV 1900

Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.

Introduction

Gizmo

Turn to two people next to you and tell them you like their hairdo!

Raise your hand if you are a cat person!

Raise your hand if you are a dog person!

Now - raise your hand if you are a reptile person!

Not near as many, right?!

Well I have someone special I’d like to introduce you to today...

From the point when I was just a little boy, I’ve always wanted some sort of a pet reptile.

My mom was always like, “No! Not in my house, not now, not ever!”

But now that I’m older and I’m married and on my own, I decided one day to go up to my wonderful wife… and I’m like, “Baby… you are sooo wonderfulll, AND THERE’S THIS GECKO that I really want...”

And the result of that was, right now there is a leopard gecko at 805 E 8th Street in Rector, AR.

“This… is Gizmo!” (Show picture of Geico Gecko)

My bad guys. This is obviously not Gizmo. He has no such accent and I am not aware of him saving anyone on car insurance!

THIS is Gizmo. (Show picture of Gizmo) He stays in my office at home. And he stays pretty chill unless you move him around too much - he WILL snap at you!

But in the next picture, you see a pretty large tail that he has. Its there for a reason (explain).

I’ve got a video of him eating when he was just a baby. (Play video)

I want you to notice the powder in the food.

It’s a mixture of mealworms, calcium, and vitamins. Three important parts, and it’s all completely essential for him to live.

If I don’t have the mealworms, he’s not going near it. But if I don’t have the vitamins in the powder, he’ll slowly die out.

If I want to keep Gizmo alive, I have to follow the instructions for his feeding!

The same is true when we want to get saved. We have to follow God’s instructions! We can’t just do it every way we want to!

1 Timothy 4:16 KJV 1900

Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.

And so the word of God is telling us, “You can’t just do it any old way, you need to CONTINUE in the doctrine; CONTINUE the instructions.

And that includes salvation.

In fact God is very clear in the Bible about how we must be saved...

Romans 1:16 KJV 1900

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Body

The Gospel Defined

If we want to be saved, we must believe and obey the gospel!

Now… that sounds good, but do you know what the gospel is???

How can we obey something if we don’t really know what it is?

Lucky for us, Paul made it very clear to us what the gospel is!

Paul writes to the Corinthian church () and says:

“I’m preaching the Gospel to you...

and this gospel is going to save you if you’ll obey it!

And it is the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ!”

That is exactly what the Gospel is!

So now that we know what the Gospel is, we need to figure out what to do with this information!

So my question for you is: How do we apply the Gospel of Jesus to our lives? What do we do with this?

Applying The Gospel

So my question for you is: How do we apply the Gospel of Jesus to our lives? What do we do with this?

Conclusion

If we want to figure that out, we have to go back to where the Church began!

In Acts chapter 2, the Holy Ghost is poured out and the who are seeing this happen have questions. And this gives Peter the chance to preach the very first sermon of the early church!

And guess what he just so happens to talk about in that sermon?

The Gospel!

He talks about how Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose again!

Now… when he gets through preaching, I want you to notice the reaction of the people around him:

Acts 2:37–38 KJV 1900

Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Acts 2:37-38

And what Peter is saying is that if we’re going to obey the Gospel of Jesus (and I sure want to obey the Gospel of Jesus!),

We’re going to be crucified with Jesus in repentance.

We’re going to be buried with Him by baptism in His Name.

And we’re going to be raised up with Him through the Holy Ghost! (And the Bible tells us that there is a way we know we have the Holy Ghost - the evidence is when you speak in tongues!)

If you’ve not repented of your sins, been baptized in the name of Jesus, and received the Holy Ghost, you need to experience the Gospel!

Back to the Gecko - If we can’t even make the gecko’s food to live any way that we want, how can we expect to be saved any way that we want? We have to follow the instructions!

Maybe for you today, you’ve repented, but you haven’t done the other stuff yet. If that’s the case, I’m excited for you today! You are on the right track, but don’t stop there!

If that’s the case, I’m excited for you today!

We continue in this faith because it’s the only way to be saved! We can’t stop halfway through. We can’t pick and choose. We must obey the Gospel of Jesus! In His death, burial, and resurrection!

Conclusion

(Personal Story)

God has a plan to change your life - even in this week - just as He did for me and so many others, and all we have to do is follow His instructions!

And these instructions, what I’m telling you today, and what our Bible says… it’s not something we’re making up! It’s written clearly in the Bible!

If you’ve got questions about these things, don’t just go to a friend that doesn’t no any more about it than you do. Ask somebody who knows! Go to your pastor, your youth pastor, your section youth president - ask for a bible study! We’ll show you where to find these things we’re talking about.

Because we want to CONTINUE in God’s plan in every area of our lives!