I would like to welcome everyone to Faith Forward Baptist Church. Happy Father's Day to all.
Please take your song books and turn to song number 413. Song number 413. Stand up,
stand up for Jesus. Song number 413.
service dearly father thank you for today and everything that's done for us
Lord thank you for our fathers here on earth and thank you for our salvation
through Jesus Christ and please bless all aspects of the service do you stand
pray amen turn to song number 472 song number 472 this is my father's world
This time we'll go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bulletin,
slip up your hand right now.
We'll get you one.
Can I get one too, please?
On the inside, we have our service time.
Sunday mornings at 10 30 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at six, Wednesday nights at seven.
Normally our Bible study, but this week we will be hearing
from Pastor Corbin Russell from Straight Paths Baptist Church.
And so I know most of you know him well.
and that'll be a treat to have him come preach this Wednesday night.
So even if you don't normally come on Wednesday night, please come out to hear
Brother wrestle this Wednesday night.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below as well as
salvation and baptisms and thank you to everybody who participated
in our Flagstaff soul winning marathon slash hiking trip.
We had a really awesome time, what a cool weekend.
And Flagstaff is historically a really unreceptive place
to go soul-winning.
So I didn't really expect much, you know,
but obviously we're supposed to go out there
and preach the gospel to every creature.
And so we wanted to do what we could up there
and go soul-winning in Flagstaff.
You know, I would have expected just a handful of people
to have gotten saved.
I was just hoping that anybody would get saved
because it's been so unreceptive in the past.
But we actually had a great day of soul winning.
We had 84 people from our church go up there
and do soul winning for several hours.
And we ended up with a total of 27 salvations,
which really exceeded our expectations.
And so we're really happy about that.
So thank God for that.
And then we also had a wonderful time yesterday,
or maybe it was torture, you know,
depending on what your perspective was,
climbing up Mount Humphreys, it's a very difficult hike.
And, you know, you're dealing with just the altitude,
it's really steep, and there are just a lot of challenges,
but we had about 36 people or so make it
all the way to the very top.
But I believe we had about, what, 45, 48 people out there
total, you know, at least climbing part of it,
getting, a lot of people got to the saddle,
which is kind of a natural stopping place
for a lot of people.
So good job, everybody.
And we had a great time with that.
On the back of the bulletin, we've got the list of expecting ladies.
Pray for them to have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.
You've got a big list going there.
And so thank God for that.
Below that, we've already talked about
Brother Russell coming this Wednesday,
and then down at the bottom,
a few other upcoming events off in the future.
That's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and sing our next song.
Come lead us.
And by the way, this guy was the first one to the top
and the first one back to the parking lot.
Buy a lot.
He's fast.
Alright, take your, in your song books, there should be an insert for the next song, God of Our Fathers.
And if you don't have one of the inserts, then we'll come and bring one to you.
God!
I hear, oh, on their joyous side.
All right, good singing. Go to song number 407 in your hymn book, song number 407.
Faith of our Father, song number 407.
Faith of our Father's living still, in spite of God.
In fire and soar, O now our hearts keep high with joy.
When are we here?
That glorious word.
Faith of our Father.
In prison's dark, we're still in harm, and conscious grief.
How sweet would be their children's fate, if they liked them,
could die for thee.
to death. Faith of our fathers, we still strive to win all nations on to thee and through
the truth that comes from God.
faith of our father's holy faith. We will be true to
Teach thee to have some no doubt, by kindly words and virtuous words.
Faith of our Father's holy faith, we will be true till the end.
All right, this time we will pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Hebrews chapter 6.
Hebrews chapter number 6, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number 1.
Fall along silently with Brother Corbin Brock as he reads Hebrews chapter 6, starting in verse number 1.
Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on under perfection,
not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.
Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead,
and of eternal judgment, and this will we do if God permit, for it is impossible for
And we're made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come
If they shall fall away to renew them again under repentance
Seeing they crucified of themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame
For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh offed upon it and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is
Dressed receiveeth blessing from God
but that which bear thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned.
But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.
For God is not unrighteous to forget your work in labor of love, which ye have showed toward his name,
and that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end,
that you be not slothful, but followers of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises.
For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater,
he swore by himself, saying,
Surely, blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.
And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
For men verily swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
wherein God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel
confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie
We might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us
which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
and which entereth into that within the veil, whether the forerunner
is for us entered, even Jesus, made in high priests forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Our Father in heaven, firstly we thank you for being our great Heavenly Father and your goodness and kindness towards us
We thank you for all the godly men here the fathers in this church Lord
We ask that you would continue to work through them Lord according to knowledge. We ask now Lord that you would
Bless the preaching of your word you pastor Anderson
Great boldness and knowledge as he preaches your word and may we have readiness of
mind to receive all these things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Man, the part of the chapter that I want to focus on is beginning there in verse
number 18 where the Bible reads that by two immutable things
in which it was impossible for God to lie
we might have a strong consolation who have fled for
refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us which hope we have as an anchor
of the soul both sure
and steadfast and which entered into that within the veil.
And the title of my sermon this morning is
Sure and Steadfast, Sure and Steadfast.
Now this sermon is inspired by the hike
that we went on yesterday and also some other hikes
that I've gone on in the last few weeks.
Because if you think about it,
our Christian life is a lot like hiking
and there are obviously a lot of parallels
and analogies there when it comes
to just sort of staying on the right path.
being diligent, being patient, persevering,
enduring hardship and so forth.
So there are a lot of different analogies
that you could draw with that.
And throughout the Bible,
those kind of analogies are definitely there
in the Bible itself.
But I wanna really focus on this idea
of the fact that our faith is sure and steadfast.
And tying this in with the hiking that we've done,
Number one, I want to talk about the importance of having sure footing sure.
footing. You know, one of the worst things is when you're hiking and the trail is really slippery,
right? Whether it's muddy or icy or a bunch of loose rock and loose dirt and things like that.
Boy, it just makes it so much harder to hike when the footing is bad. And the Bible actually talks
a lot about this. You don't have to turn there, but I'm going to read for you a bunch of scriptures
from Psalms. If you want, go ahead and jump over to Psalm 73.
But while you're getting over to Psalm 73, I'm going to read some of these.
There's a prayer made in Psalm 17, verse 5,
Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.
Psalm 18, 36, thou hast enlarged my steps under me,
that my feet did not slip.
Then there's an imprecatory
prayer in Psalm 35 against the enemies of the Lord,
let their way be dark and slippery.
and let the angel of the Lord persecute them.
Psalm 38, 15 says,
For in thee, O Lord, do I hope, thou wilt hear, O Lord, my God,
for I said, Hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me,
when my foot slipeth, they magnify themselves against me."
Right? So what we pray for as Christians
is that we would have sure footing, firm footing in the Christian life.
And it's a curse.
It's a catastrophe when you are set in slippery places
and when your footing is unsure.
Psalm 73 verse two says this,
but as for me, my feet were almost gone.
My steps had well nigh slipped.
for I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked, right?
So we need to have sure, firm footing in the Christian life,
and we need to be founded upon the rock of God's word in order to do that, right?
Jesus Christ said that if you hear his sayings and you do them,
you are like a man, a wise man who built his house upon a rock.
The rains descended, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not because it was founded upon a rock.
Whereas the one who hears Christ's sayings and does them not is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, right?
The wind came, the floods, the rains, the storms beat upon it, and of course, it's just a crash and burn
because it's not firmly founded upon the rock.
And the same idea is here with these sort of footstep analogies and slipping analogies, right?
We were, in fact, Kevin was hiding with me yesterday.
And he said, you know, I'm always trying to put my feet on the rock because he said,
I don't like this dirt because it slips and slides and whatever.
And so, you know, that's the same idea here, right?
The Word of God is the rock.
Every step that we take in our Christian lives, we want it to be on firm footing
because we don't want to slip.
We don't want to fall.
We don't want to get hurt.
We want to be founded on something that doesn't change, which is the Bible.
And thank God that the Bible is exactly the same as it was when I was born, when I was
a child, when I was a teenager, when I was a young man, when I was starting out, pastoring.
Now that I've been pastoring for 20 years, the Bible has never changed.
But the world's philosophies are constantly changing, constantly shifting.
And if you're going to take all your steps through life just relying upon and putting
your weight down on what this world thinks and their opinions and their views and what's
popular today, you are going to slip and slide.
My daughter and I were hiking a few weeks ago and boy, this hike was brutal and it was
because it was just so slippery.
The whole thing was just filled with mud.
We got like, we hiked for seven hours and 45 minutes
on just steep, rugged mountain terrain.
This was about three weeks ago.
And we were out there and just the first like 20, 30 minutes
in our shoes were just saturated with water.
And it was just cold and it was just slippery.
And it was just ice and mud and snow.
And that was one of the most difficult hikes
that we've ever done.
And I think, you know, we were just kept falling.
We were just kept slipping and just falling
and we were just covered in mud.
By the time we got back, I mean, just cut,
you know, I have this great picture of Rebecca
where just her skirt just is mud.
Like you can't even see,
you can't even see the skirt that she's wearing
because it's just mud.
And we were just covered in mud
because we're just falling, falling, falling.
And you know what?
Here's the thing about that,
is that you'd rather do a steeper hike,
You'd rather be out there longer, you'd rather go more distance, and at least know that your footing is firm.
But you know what's interesting about that too, is that when we were on that hike, on the way up, we only slipped and fell a couple times.
But on the way down, we were slipping and falling like every five or ten minutes.
Because here's what I've noticed.
When you're going up, your footing is a lot more sure and steadfast on the way up than the way down, right?
Anybody who's done a lot of hiking knows this, that going up, it's harder, it's more strenuous,
it takes more work, but at least your footing is sure and firm and you're not as likely to fall and get hurt.
You usually get hurt on the way down.
And you know, the Christian life is kind of like that too.
It's hard to keep pressing upward in the Christian life.
It's hard to keep increasing and doing better and,
hey, let's ramp up our church attendance, ramp up our soul winning,
ramp up our Bible reading, ramp up our prayer life.
It's hard. It's strenuous. It's work.
But you know what I've found is that you're a lot less likely to get backslidden
when you're in that upward phase.
When you're in those upward phase, when you're having revival, when you're excited, when you're turning it up,
it's easier not to fall, not to slip, not to crash and burn.
Now look, obviously just the reality of life, life has its ups and downs.
You're not always just going to be going upward all the time, just a perfect upward trajectory.
There are going to be times when you do have to slow down a little,
when you do scale back a little, when you are just kind of coasting and regrouping.
But here's the thing, you better be careful during those times because those are the slippery times.
Right? And so the firm footing is when you're working hard, ramping it up, and going higher.
When you start to back off, man, you better be super careful
because that can be a slippery slope.
You better be careful, you know, back off too far
and you don't get going down too steep of a hill.
Next thing you know, you're slipping and sliding in the mud
and you're crashing and burning and you're getting hurt.
We got to be founded on the rock.
And you know what?
The Bible is right.
God is always right about everything his way never changes the word of God doesn't change
And we need to make sure that we're on that firm
secure footing of the rock and not relying on all the little slippery
Scree that's out there in this world now in this particular passage that I had you turn to
He is about to slip and slide and you know so I'm slipping and sliding could mean going off the edge of a cliff
You know, we're on that hike, there were some steep cliffs, and I was telling Rebecca,
hey, you better be super careful on this part because, look, I said that's death down there.
Do you see that?
That's death do not go off this cliff because you know this is horrible
And and so we had to be real careful on certain parts because there was a cliff there
Well, guess what that's how life is. There are some pitfalls. There are some cliffs
There are some drop offs that can really hurt you or even kill you
But the reason that ASAP almost slipped here in Psalm 73 is because he's looking at the prosperity of the wicked
Right. He's having a midlife crisis is what he's doing
And what is a midlife crisis?
It's when you get to be about 40 years old
and you start to ask yourself,
did I live my life the right way?
Because I'm looking at what other people have.
I'm coveting their wife.
I'm coveting their house.
I'm coveting their car.
I'm coveting their career.
I'm coveting their success.
I'm coveting something about other people's lives.
And I'm wondering, did I take the right path?
Because you know what, I'm deep into this thing.
Did I get where I want to be?
And I still have time.
You know, I can just probably just barely get
that young chick instead of my current wife,
that sports car, that convertible, that motorcycle, right?
And you see these idiots in their 40s
divorcing their wife and marrying some young girl,
you know, going out and just trying to be young again
and trying to be something that they're not.
Right and getting on a weird path when they turn 40, right? We've you know, it's it's the it's a cliche the midlife crisis
Or you just see people that'll just decide like I don't like where I'm going in life
And so I'm just gonna totally change and do something different because I'm still young enough change now
You know this could be a good thing if somebody's not living for God if somebody's not doing right and then they kind of hit this
Midlife crisis and then said you know what I've been doing it wrong time to start living for God
You know, I would love to see those kind of midlife crises happening, right?
Instead of getting, instead of trading in your spouse and trading in your vehicle
and getting a, you know, getting a Harley or something, right?
You could actually, and I'm not against Harleys per se,
but I'm just saying, you know, you could actually focus on something spiritual and say,
you know what, I'm going to change. It's not too late for me to do great things for God.
And so, you know, Asaph is kind of having the wrong kind of a midlife crisis here
because he's looking at the foolish, he's looking at the wicked and thinking,
well, maybe their life might be a little better than mine.
Because I'm having all these problems every day.
And then that's something that's going to cause you to slip.
Why? Because he's not looking at the Word of God.
He's not looking at eternal truth that never changes.
He's looking at the ways of this world.
and then that's when he almost slips.
But then he catches himself, because look at verse 17,
it says, until I went into the sanctuary of God,
a.k.a. church, right?
Till I went into the sanctuary of God,
then understood I their end.
Surely thou didst set them in slippery places.
Thou casted them down into destruction.
How are they brought into desolation?
As in a moment, they are utterly consumed with tears.
You see, when you go to church and you hear the preaching of God's word and you read your Bible,
you realize, whoa, the wicked are on slippery places, and at least I'm on the rock.
And look, life is hard.
Nobody's saying that the Christian life is going to be easy.
Nobody's saying that it's not going to take endurance and diligence.
And guess what? It's going to be painful.
But you know what? No matter how painful that hike is,
no matter how many miles it is, no matter how steep it is,
you know what? When your footing is firm, you can just get through it.
And you can grind it out, and all of these things ultimately come to an end.
Every brutal hike I've ever been on eventually ends.
Right they all you know, you think it's never gonna be over, but it always is
Right firm footing is what I'm talking about and you know what the Christian life's hard
But at least we're on firm footing. I'd rather be on a hard hike with firm footing than on an easy hike
I'm slipping and slide. That's where you're gonna get hurt
Psalm 94 verse 17 says this unless the Lord had been my help my soul had almost dwelled in silence
When I said my foot slipeth, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up, right?
So God can keep us from slipping, God can put us on the rock,
God can take us out of the mirey clay and set our feet upon a rock and
establish our goings and give us
firmness and security and steadfast and sureness and that is worth more than anything else in this life.
So number one,
When it comes to sure and steadfast when it comes to this hike that we're on called life number one
We want to make sure that we have sure footing sure footing and that means we want to be
Planted on the rock. We want to be standing on the word of God
We want to be going upward as much as we can and when we do have to scale things back
We want to be super careful that we don't just get on this slippery slope or next thing
You know, we're just totally out of church totally not reading our Bible
totally not soul winning, right?
We don't wanna just start slipping and sliding.
Wanna make sure that we're staying sure with our footing.
We need to pray to God to give us sureness in our footing.
We need to not envy the wicked, not look at,
and you know what, look,
I'm not gonna look at some church down the street.
That maybe is having numerical success financial success. They have a big fancy building or something
I'm not gonna look at them and then wonder who I wonder if I'm pastoring, right?
No, I'm gonna look at the word of God to figure out if I'm pastoring, right?
I'm gonna look at souls saved. I'm gonna look at spiritual things not just envying the prosperity of the fun center down the street
And by the way, I don't want to be old IFB either. I'm new IFB
I'm not trying to regress and go backwards.
I'm pressing on the upward way.
New heights I'm gaining every day.
I don't want to go backward.
Not interested in being another old IFB.
Lame, slow, sorry, barely doing any soul winning church.
No man, we're faithful word.
And you know what?
2025, we're going to do more.
We're going to push it harder.
We're going to go bigger.
We're going to go better.
We're not going to sit there and look at some watered down, scissified church and say like,
oh, look at that big obelisk on top of their building to the Egyptian God.
Maybe we can have one of those too.
Nuts to it.
Let's meet in a strip mall.
Let's have a storefront.
Let's meet in Reddipop.
Let's have drop tile ceilings until Jesus comes.
Why? Because we are here to serve God, not Mammon. That's why.
And look, it's not easy being a fundamental Baptist. It's not easy living for God.
It's not easy taking a stand on the word of God, but you know what? At least you're on firm ground all the time.
And it's not like, well, how far are we gonna slide? Whoa!
No, we're just staying right here.
Firm secure solid is what I'm talking about and I don't know about you
But when I'm hiking, you know, I love the parts where it's solid now
Let's think about the hike yesterday because I know a lot of you guys were out there, you know 40 some people were out there on the hike
From the parking lot to the saddle you're on pretty firm ground
Now here's the thing that's kind of the steepest hardest part of the hike though
From the parking lot to the saddle is where you're on some of the steepest climbs you're you're putting in the most work
You know as far as just how much altitude you're gaining and so forth and so it's hard
It's very hard to hike from the parking lot to the saddle
But you know what it's the most enjoyable part of the hike because I just love being on that firm ground
You know, I don't like slipping all over but then when you go from the saddle to the summit
You know, you do you do climb higher, but most of the climbing is already behind you
It's just a lot of climbing on rocks and
Slipping and sliding and everything so if you're gonna get hurt somewhere
You're probably gonna get hurt between the saddle and the summit because that's where it's all
Slippery and all that scree and you're climbing on rocks and by the way, that's also where you're most likely to get lost
You know because from the parking lot to the saddle the trail is pretty easy to follow
Right, but then it's like once you you know just when we got to the saddle and it was time to go to the Humphreys Peak
I'm just like okay. Where's the trail?
You know and then I get on this and then there's always signs like stay on the trail and I'm like I'm trying
You know, I don't know. I don't know where it is. You know hiking off trail is prohibited
It's like yeah, I don't want to be off the trail
But I mean I probably got off the trail between the saddle and the summit. I probably got off the trail at least like ten times
You know anybody else kind of trying to figure out where that trail was right and
That's why you know, I'm saying in the Christian life. Sure. It can be steep
It can be difficult, but you know what I'd much rather be on firm footing and
Knowing where the trail is
You know even if it's steep even if it's hard even if I'm working hard
At least I want to have that sure footing and that leaves me to my second point number one
We want to have sure footing, but number two we want to be sure about our direction
Right number one sure footing number two sure navigation a sure direction
So if you would go to second Peter chapter one
Second Peter chapter one because here's one of the worst things about a hike is where you're not sure if you're lost
You know, and you're not sure if you're on the course or if you're or if you're in a race if you're in like a
Marathon or an ultra marathon or one of these just kind of shorter trail runs
It's really frustrating
When you're not sure if you went off course and and I've gone off course in an event like that and just adding a mile or two
Is pretty soul-destroying
When it's already some super long race and you just added a mile and a half
I mean, that is just soul-crushing when that happens, right?
And look, life's hard enough when you stay on the course.
You want to add a mile?
You want to add a mile and a half?
You want to add two miles to this thing
that's already long and difficult?
Not me, man.
I want to stay on the right path.
I want to be sure about my direction.
And so on the hike that I was on with Rebecca several weeks ago the one that I
said was a lot of mud and slipping and sliding and falling down. The one good
thing about that hike though is that it was very well marked of a trail. So the
one thing is that even though we were slipping even though we were falling on
our backsides a lot at least we always knew we were on the right trail. You know
at least we knew that we weren't lost.
because that can be a scary thing, right?
You want to make sure that you're sure about your direction.
So look at 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 19.
It says, we have also a more sure word of prophecy.
Whereon to ye do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star
arise in your hearts, knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation, for the prophecy came not
an old time by the will of man.
but holy men of God spake as they were removed by the Holy Ghost.
And so this is, of course, a really important Bible verse doctrinally,
letting us know that the biblical authors,
they didn't just write what they wanted to write and just kind of,
hey, this is my opinion, this is what I want people to do,
this is what I want people to believe, right?
that they spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
It didn't come by the will of man.
It wasn't like Jeremiah says,
well, here's what I think people need.
It was, he's getting it from God.
And all of the biblical authors were inspired by God,
and they're not writing according to their own will,
but they're actually speaking as they're moved by the Holy Ghost.
And in fact, when Old Testament scriptures are quoted in the New Testament,
the Bible will even say,
the Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of David the prophet.
or the Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of Isaiah the prophet,
showing that this is not just from the heart of David or from the heart of Isaiah.
No, this is from the mouth of God, right?
Man does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that precedeth from the mouth of God.
You know what that tells me?
The Bible precedes from the mouth of God.
It's not David talking, that's God talking.
That's not Isaiah talking, that's God talking, right?
And so Peter calls this the more sure word of prophecy, right?
More sure than even that which we've seen and heard with our own eyes
and ears is that scripture that came to us by holy men of God
who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And so we can be really sure
about our direction when we're following these trail markings right here.
And this is similar to point number one about being founded upon the rock, right, making
sure that our footing is sure.
Also number two, we want to make sure that we are going in the right direction and that
we are on the right path and it's the word of God that is the lamp to our feet and light
to our path to let us know that we are going the right way.
Another verse that I really like, if you would go to Luke chapter one, of course we have
The four Gospels emphasize different things and they're written for different purposes and so even though they essentially all four tell the same story
They emphasize different details different doctrines and they have a different focus
The book of John tells us that it was written
So that we would have eternal life by believing in Jesus
Right so that we would know Jesus Christ believe in Jesus Christ and that my and the believing we would have life through his name
And so if we read the book of John it says the word believe
I believe 90 times it says the word believe because it's telling people how to get saved.
And there's this constant emphasis on eternal life, everlasting life, believing in Jesus.
And of course the most famous verse in the whole Bible, John 3.16, is found in the Gospel of John,
which is one of the best verses to show someone how to be saved, right?
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have.
eternal life. We're not saved by works. We are saved by faith in Jesus. Saved by believing.
But the Gospel of Luke gives a different reason at the beginning for its existence and it's
actually written as a letter.
to a guy named Theophilus, and then later the book of Acts is going to be like a follow-up to the Gospel of Luke.
So Acts is actually sort of a sequel to the Gospel of Luke because Acts is written by Luke and it's also addressed to Theophilus, right?
So look at Luke chapter 1 verse 1.
It says,
Among us he's saying look, you know, there are a lot of people who've written down things about
Jesus and they've written about his life. They've written his, you know, his words and his preaching
And he says a lot of people have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration
of those things which are most surely believed among us.
He's saying, look, we're sure about these things.
We're sure about the Lord Jesus Christ, that He's the Son of God,
that He's the Savior of the world, that He's the only way to heaven,
that He died and was buried and rose again.
We're sure about that.
These things are most surely believed among us.
But he says, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses
and ministers of the word.
So he's saying, you know, we've gotten all these things from eyewitnesses and people
who were there, apostles and just people who were present during Christ's work and ministry
and even at his crucifixion and so forth.
But he says in verse three, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding
most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed.
So he's starting out in verse number one saying, you know, we are sure about these things.
We most surely believe these things, but I'm writing this to you so that you, verse four, might know the certainty of those things wherein thou has been instructed.
Because this is how God wants us to be, sure, certain.
He wants us to know what we know, not to just believe the Word of God,
but to believe it with certainty and to be sure about it and to know why we believe it
and to be firmly grounded on these things so that we have firm footing
and so that we know that we are going the right direction with our life
because it's based on the Word of God.
And so Luke is saying to Theophilus here,
I'm writing this because I just want you to know
how sure these things are, how certain these things are.
I don't want there to be any doubt in your mind
about these things.
And so I'm going to lay out for you
this super detailed accounting of Christ's life and ministry.
And of course, Luke is the longest.
of the four Gospels is extremely detailed and it's extremely precise and it ties in historical events
that are going on at the same time and everything and so it is unique among the four Gospels as each
of the four Gospels is unique in its own way. But God wants us to have certainty. He wants us to be
sure. We need to know what we know and why we believe it and that's what the Bible is trying
Number two, we want to be sure about our direction.
We want to make sure that our life is heading in the right direction because we're following
the Bible and we know the Bible's right.
But number three, we want to have sure friends, right?
And what I mean by that, reliable friends.
So we want to have, number one, sure footing.
Number two, sure navigation.
These things come from the Word of God.
Number three we want to have sure friends reliable friends and what one of the things that I really liked about the hike yesterday
Is that because the weather was so good? There were so many people out on the mountain
And here's the great thing about having a lot of people out on the mountain, you don't get lost.
Because when you have a whole bunch of people on the mountain, you just kind of follow the people in front of you.
And you can look at what other people are doing and people are around you.
It just makes it so much easier to be on the right path when there are a whole bunch of people out there.
Because other days we've gone to that mountain and hiked it.
and it was bad weather and there were very few people on the trail and we'd
miss a switch back and we'd get a little bit of loss and then have to try to find
the trail again and and so forth. You know it's nice when you have a lot of
people out there because it helps you stay on the right path when you got
other people that you could follow and not only that there were times when I'd
be hiking with somebody yesterday
And it made me go a little faster than I would have gone because I might have just gotten a little lazy and slowed down.
But you know, you're in a conversation and then you feel like you have to keep up with the people that you're having that conversation with.
Or it's, you know, it's just, you keep just drifting away and then the conversation ends.
And so sometimes that can help us.
Sometimes other people that are going strong
kind of push us to go strong ourselves.
And iron sharpens iron in that way.
Also on the trail, people are helping each other out
with advice, people are helping each other out
with snacks, drinks.
But I feel like one of the most valuable things
about being in a group is not getting lost
because I hate to say it,
but I get lost a lot when I'm out hiking.
Like, I'm horrible at this.
So I tend to just go on the same hikes over and over again
because I know I'm not going to get lost.
Because whenever I go on a new hike, I tend to get lost.
So if I'm with other people, then they're kind of like,
um, excuse me, I don't think you're going the right way.
That helps, you know, to have people with me to do that.
and keep me on the right path.
And so we want to have sure friends,
and life is kind of like this, right?
We want to make sure that we surround ourselves
by reliable people.
It's going to make it easier for us to stay on the path,
to push ourselves, to work hard, to do a good job,
and then if something bad happens,
we have somebody there to pick us up and help us out.
And be there for us.
We want to have reliable friends.
When I say sure friends are reliable friends, I mean this in two different ways.
Way number one is that we want to have reliable friends in the sense that they're on the right path themselves.
It's not going to be helpful to have a buddy on the trail who's even worse about direction than you are,
because then you're going to have the blind leading the blind, right?
Jesus said, can the blind lead the blind?
Shall they not both fall into the ditch?
So we were out there hiking yesterday
and Rebecca was hiking by herself
in the sense that she was not with
other people from our church at this time.
Frankly, she was just too fast.
You know now we already said that Caleb was the fastest and I mean that you know no no shock there
But Rebecca was the second one back to the parking lot. So she was the second fastest so she won in the female division
but and she basically beat virtually every man in the church myself included so we all got chicked yesterday
but here's the thing about that is that Rebecca
She was not with
The group and so at one point she gets off the trail with just some rando
You know and here's the thing and that what happened was this rando didn't know where he was going
Becca didn't know where she was going and so basically they were kind of like following each other
And so it was kind of like the blind leading the blind
So they got off the trail and then finally they both realized like this isn't the trail. Where where are we?
What do we do here?
So then Becca figured out where the trail was and figured out that they had to bushwhack to get there and
And she ended up getting this guy back on the right path. Okay
And this guy was a complete bozo,
and he was taking the Lord's name in vain,
and he was a pain, and he was obnoxious, and whatever.
So then Rebecca, she had,
and the guy had been out of water for a long time
and just looked like he was just kind of dying.
So Rebecca said she wanted to practice loving her enemies
because she said the guy was just irritating her so bad,
and she just like did not like the guy at all.
You know, and I'm kind of even toning down her words.
She said, I practiced loving my enemies by giving this guy the last of my water, you know, just to kind of like do good unto them that are a pain in your whatever, you know.
So anyway, you know, those kind of friends, you know, it doesn't help, does it? When they're not, when they're off track, and you're off track...
You know that you need to have friends that are on the right path
You need to be hiking through life with people that are going the right direction
That are on the sure footing that are on the same
Trajectory that you are that have the same goals as you it's not just hey just have as many friends and just whatever friends
No, no, you need to have good friends
Reliable friends sure friends and what I mean is friends that are on the right path
What do I mean? Godly Christians
People who love the Lord, people who love the Bible,
people that are not backslidden and worldly
and don't care about the things of God.
So we want to have sure friends, right?
Want to have reliable friends in the sense of friends
that are going the way that we're going.
But secondly, we want to also have friends that are reliable in the sense that they don't forsake you in your time of need
Right. So when I say when I have sure friends when I have friends that number one, they're going the right way themselves
But number two, they're not going to forsake you in your time of need, right?
because of the fact that when you're out there going through life and
You have a problem and you need help and your friends aren't there for you this can be pretty discouraging
Let me give you some Bible verses on this Proverbs chapter 17 verse 17 says a friend loveth at all times a
Friend loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity
the Bible says in Proverbs 27 10 thine own friend and thy father's friend you say I thought it's a father's day sermon
Thy own friend and thy father's friend, forsake not.
Neither go into thy brother's house in the day of calamity, of thy calamity, for better is a neighbor that is near
than a brother far off, right? Don't forsake your friend.
Why? Because someday you're gonna have a calamity, you're gonna need a friend,
so you got to be there for your friends, and then your friends will hopefully be there for you.
Or at least if they're not, the Lord will be there for you because he sees you be in there for your friends.
He's going to be that friend that stick is closer than a brother.
And so that's why the Bible says a man that half friends must show himself friendly.
Right? Because if you are a friend unto others,
then you'll be the type of person that has friends
to help you out in the time of need.
And by the way, that's not always going to be the same people.
Because sometimes you'll be a really good friend to someone,
you'll always be there for them,
and they can always count on you,
and then as soon as you need them,
poop, they're out of there.
Right?
But here's what I've noticed though,
God will give you other friends
that will be there for you.
You know because guess what confidence in man sometimes ends up letting us down
Right because it's like you can have that friend and you're just steadfast and you're there for them
You're there for them and as long as you're an asset to them. They'll be there for you
But then as soon as you're a liability
They're gone
Because they are selfish users
Instead of actually true friends who are in it for the long haul
And so the Bible says that I know a friend and I follow this friend for sake not, why?
Because you'd rather have that friend that's near when you need them
than to have to go to a brother that's far off, okay?
And so don't forsake your friends.
A man that had friends must show himself friendly.
The Bible says a friend loveth at all times, et cetera, et cetera.
It's so important that we do not bail on our friends at their time of need.
And it's funny because we have this saying, a fair weather friend.
And it almost kind of ties back to my analogy about hiking because what did I say was the
reason why there were so many people out there on the trail with us yesterday.
Why was the trail packed with people which made it so easy for us to stay on the right
path?
Why was it packed with people?
Because the weather was good.
And you know what's interesting is that when the weather is good in your life, you're surrounded
by friends.
And then, as soon as things go bad, all of a sudden, your friends are out the door looking for the exit
because they are selfish, fake friends who don't have love, they don't have charity, they are in love with themselves
instead of actually taking care of their friend when their friend needs them, okay?
And guess what? The world is just filled with people like this, filled with people like this.
Okay, but when times are good,
You're surrounded by friends. It's sort of like the prodigal son, right?
The prodigal son, he leaves home and he's out doing a bunch of riotous living
and he's partying with a bunch of people, but then as soon as he runs out of money,
the Bible says no man gave unto him.
Like he's probably ready to cash in some favors because hey, I bought you a drink. I bought you a drink.
I bought you this. I took you on that trip. I bought you dinner. I did, you know, and then it's like, sorry buddy, can't help you.
No man gave unto him. Part of that is because he was associating with a bunch of raunchy people.
He spent his substance with whores. You know, that's what his brother said about it, and his brother was probably right.
You know, he spent his substance with a bunch of wicked people, and then none of those wicked people are there for him.
And so the fair weather friend is like when you're hiking on Mount Humphreys, and it's packed with people because the weather's good.
But what about when the weather's bad? Then it's only going to be the diehards that are out there.
And you know what, we as Christians, we want to be those die-hards, right?
We want to be reliable people in the sense that people can count on us to be serving
God now, to be serving God five years from now, to be serving God ten years from now,
to still be the same in the sense that we love God, we're soul-winning, we're preaching
truth, we're uncensored, we're not sitting here and trying to go the way of this world
We need to be reliable people and we need to be there for our friends when they need us and help people out.
Why? Because someday we're going to need help and we want people to be there for us.
And therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them?
That's the golden rule. This is the law and the prophets. If we want people to be there for us, we got to be there for them.
If we want to have friends, we better show ourselves.
Look, this is something that is very near and dear to my heart,
something that is very important to me.
Because you know what?
I go through life always thinking about the fact that, you know,
I can crash and burn at any time.
Like, this is how I think all the time.
Because I know that life is fragile.
Nothing in this world is certain.
You know, you may think, oh, I have the most secure job.
My health is great.
My portfolio is strong to very strong, whatever.
You might think...
that you're just untouchable, but man, I don't feel that way.
I go through life realizing my health is fragile,
my finances are fragile, relationships are fragile,
just everything is fragile, because you know what?
At any time, things can go bad.
And some people, they're just going through life
and they just think that nothing bad can ever happen,
but you know what the Bible says,
blessed is the man that feareth all way.
You know and you got to be prudent and you got to have the fear of the Lord and realize hey, I am not invincible I
Am not indestructible and you know what here's the thing
I felt I felt pretty good going into that hike yesterday
Just because we've been on a lot of other giant hikes lately
And so it was gonna be kind of another day at the office for my daughter and me
But at the same time, you know, I mentioned to people though. I said, yeah, but you know what though even if you're super prepared
Anybody can have a bad day out there
Anybody can run into problems.
Anybody can twist their ankle.
Anybody can just, you know, have a bad day,
get dehydrated, whatever, who knows.
Get a little sick, get a little virus, whatever, right?
You never know.
And that's how life is.
I mean, you may think that it can't happen to you,
but I mean, health problems, financial problems,
family problems, church problems,
just there's all kinds of ways that we can crash and burn.
And I'm just constantly thinking,
well, I need to make sure I know that the Lord is with me.
Because man, when I, you know, when I crash and burn,
I'm gonna need the Lord to lift me up.
And obviously, I know that he's always with me in the sense of my salvation,
in the sense of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
He promised he'll never leave us or forsake us.
But I mean, I want God to have my back, have my back.
Like, I'm living for God, and so he's really got my back.
But not only that, I'm always thinking about the fact
that I always want to have other people that I can rely on,
even though I never end up needing it.
But you know what? What if I need it tomorrow?
What if I you know and here's the thing you go through life, and you don't really most time you don't need your friends most of the time
Most time you don't need them, but it's nice to know they're there
You know what I mean, and then when that time comes when you do need them they're there, and I think about this a lot
And I'll think about this, when I'm doing good,
and when things are going well for me,
and when I'm prospering,
I'm always trying to share the wealth
and do things for other people and do favors for people.
And I'm always thinking to myself,
these are favors that I can cash in later.
You know what I mean?
So I'm just thinking like, hey,
and by the way, as a biblical concept,
read Luke chapter 16, you know.
It's a biblical concept, you know, you be a friend,
you help other people out because you realize,
I'm not invincible and when something bad happens. I'm gonna be relying on other people to help me out
And I this is something that I think about a lot
And it's biblical and
It's important that as you go through your life
You don't think that you are invincible and then you just burn every relationship in your life
Well, then one day you're gonna need help and you're not gonna have anybody to help you out
Now look, sometimes your friend will bail out on you, forsake you, even though you've done so much for them,
but at the end of the day, when God saw you doing a bunch for them, God will just provide you other friends to help you out.
Hey, I don't care who helps me, I just don't want to be high and dry. Amen?
You know, let's say let's say I had a buddy
I was constantly giving them snacks on the trail giving them water helping them out and then I needed I
Need you know, I ran out of food. I ran out of water some of this is like
Oh, sorry sucka and they just let let me go. You know what?
I don't really care because as long as somebody else will give me some food or drink
You know, as long as I get what I need, and at the end of the day, God is ultimately the source of all blessings.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variable nest, neither shadow of turning.
And when my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.
And of course, my father and mother have never forsaken me, and I don't believe that they ever will.
And you know what?
I'm constantly thinking about the fact,
well, you know what, if I ever ran into problems in my life,
you know, it's really good to know that I could call my mom and she'll help me out.
I could call my dad and he'll help me out.
You know, that makes me feel good to know that.
But even if my mother and father forsake me,
I know the Lord will take me up.
So I'm going to honor my father and mother anyway.
And here's the thing about that, is that God will take care of you.
God will bless you if you are generous to other people.
He will bless you.
The Bible says, give and it shall be given unto you.
Now, it might not be the same people that you give to that give back to you.
In fact, usually it's not.
That's why the Bible says, if you really want to get the big blessings,
give to people that can never repay you.
And if you help people out that are for sure not going to repay you and you give to the poor and you help out the handicapped and people that are not necessarily going to be able to help you,
he says, well, if you give unto the poor, you're lending to the Lord and the Lord will pay you back.
And so, this is the way life works in the Christian life.
You're constantly giving, you're constantly helping others,
and then those people are going to be there for you.
Oh, they're not there for me.
Somebody else will be there for you.
Because at the end of the day, God's looking out,
even if you have these lame fair-weather friends
that aren't there for you.
And then I was thinking about this issue of having a sure friend,
and I thought about this verse, you know, with respect to hiking again.
Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble
is like a broken tooth and a foot out of joint.
Let me read that again. This is a great verse.
Confidence in an unfaithful, unfaithful in this context means unreliable.
Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble
is like a broken tooth or a foot out of joint.
You know, and what does that mean?
It's very painful.
I mean, I don't know about you.
If you've ever had dental pain, like a broken tooth,
it's one of the most excruciating pains that you can have.
It's torture.
The worst pain I've ever experienced in my life
was dry socket after having my wisdom teeth taken out.
You know, I'd rather be tasered by the police.
And I'm not kidding.
I mean, it was horrible.
It's bad.
Confidence in an unfaithful man in a time of trouble
is like a broken tooth and a foot out of joint.
Another very painful thing, rolling your ankle.
You know, I've rolled my ankle so bad
that it just had me screaming in pain.
And it's horrible and, you know,
that kind of ties in with hiking
because this is something that happens out hiking.
Sometimes you roll your ankle out hiking
and it's very painful.
It's really hard to finish the hike when you've sprained your ankle rolled your ankle or even worse the foot out of joint
I mean that sounds horrible
So we want to make sure that we are not that unfaithful friend
And we want to have some reliable friends in our lives, right, some sure friends in our lives.
Of course Christ is the ultimate friend that will never let us down.
But we also want to have sure friends, you know, if you have a good friend,
if you have a friend that has shown themselves to be reliable
and to be faithful to you through some tough times,
because some of you maybe, you've already been through some tough times,
you've already been through some battles,
and you had people that came alongside you during those tough times and helped you out.
came alongside you during those battles and helped you out.
You know what? If you discard that friend later, you're a fool
because friends are so rare that are that good.
So if you have a guy who you know is a good friend because he's already been battle-tested
and then you're just going to discard that guy,
you know what? That's stupid. And that's why the Bible says that I know my friend and my father's friend for sake not.
The battle-tested friends are few and far between. Lifelong friends are very rare.
You know, you go to school and you have all your little friends at school and high school
and oh, we're gonna be friends forever, sign my yearbook, and we're never gonna lose touch.
But guess what, reality, none of us is friends with our friends from high school.
None of us.
You know one time I asked for a raise of hands and it was like
You know less than five percent of people were still friends with their school friends as adults
You know, it's just not why because most of those relationships end up being really shallow relationships
You know my best friend when I was in sixth grade my best friend when I was in seventh grade
My best friend when I was in eighth grade my best friend when I was in tenth grade my best friend and my senior
I'm not friends with any of them
But I bet many of you could say the same thing
It's just the reality is those end up being shallow friendships usually, but you know every once in a while you get those friendships
that are real
People that will be with you
through thick and thin
That is worth more than all the money in the world
Do not discard those friends if you do you're being a fool
Do not discard those friends
Treat them well be there for them. Don't be
a one-way kind of a guy and so all that to say this number one go through life
having sure footing planted firmly on the word of God and especially if you're
scaling things back that's when you got to be really careful that you're on
terra firma that you're on solid ground right because when you're going downhill
as the slipperiest
So, you know, you say, what can I do to firm up my footing?
Well, how about ramping things up?
Turn up the Bible reading, turn up the church attendance,
turn up the soul winning.
That's a great way to get back on firm ground again.
Stop slipping, stop backsliding.
So number one, we want to have sure footing.
Number two, we want to be sure about the direction we're going.
Want to have sure navigation.
And number three, want to have sure friends.
Reliable friends, and this is why it's important to be in the right kind of church
Sure, you can just go to some fun center church where nobody really cares that much about the things of God and have your little shallow
relationships, but you know what I'd rather be in the trenches
With the special forces with the people of God a faithful word Baptist church
And by the way a lot of people in this church have been battle tested
battle tested people
And what's that worth?
Well, it's worth a lot.
It's worth the drive from across town,
if you have to commute a little bit to get here.
It's worth the drive.
It's worth the persecution.
It's worth the shame of people ridiculing you
and disdaining you because guess what?
I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
I'm not ashamed of Christ.
I'm not ashamed of his word.
I'm not ashamed of this church.
And I'm not ashamed of the people in this church.
Amen.
There is not a single member of this church
that I am ashamed of.
I would be glad to be seen publicly with my arm around you saying this is my church member
to every single person that's here this morning.
I'm not ashamed of a single one of you.
It's funny.
I said to a pastor friend of mine about six months ago, I said, man, our church has such
a great spirit, such great people right now.
And I said, you know, there's really only one person in the entire church that I'm ashamed of.
And I said, everybody else is awesome.
And then that guy's gone, Robert.
And so now, now I'm not ashamed of anybody.
There's nobody, there's nobody making us look stupid out there.
Amen?
You know, it's pretty awesome to be in an army of hundreds of people out there soul-winning,
living for God, serving God.
I mean, look, we had 84 people on a weekday drive up to Flagstaff and go soul-winning.
Two and a half hours away, let alone all the people who didn't go on that trip, who were
just faithfully soul-winning here in Phoenix.
Those are the people who take a day off during the week.
go soaring, you know, two and a half hours away.
Folks, what's it worth to be surrounded by 300 people
who are battle tested, who are solid people,
and you know what?
That is a safety net for you in the Christian life.
You're less likely to get back slidden,
be in in the trenches with faithful word
than be in at some watered-down liberal lame church.
Where it's it's all flat
There's no uphill battle
Except that it's a skating rink down there
You know you're sliding all over the place
Yeah, it's an uphill battle serving God a faithful word, but you know what?
Least our footing is sure we're on a rock and we and we know we're going the right way
We're looking at the people behind us look at the people ahead of us right. Yep. We're on the right path
We're all going the right direction. Let's bards and have a word of prayer father. We thank you so much for your word
Lord, thank you that more than anything your promises are sure and steadfast
You can't lie and so we can rely on every promise in the Bible
Lord God, thank you so much for a church that motivates us that that has been battle tested
and just thank you for this group of people
that just love you and serve you and Lord,
it's a privilege to be a part of this church.
Bless us now as we go our separate ways,
help everyone to have a happy Father's Day
and in Jesus' name we pray amen.
All right, we'll sing one last song before we leave,
song number 129, rock of ages, song number 129.
Song number 129
Stay from ground and make me sure
Good my dear
You are dismissed.