Stand Fast In The Faith

"Stand Fast In The Faith" – 1 Corinthians 16:13 “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” Four commands in a single verse, and the study takes them one by one: to watch is to be awake and alert to temptations and to the times, and to watch is to pray, because he who prays learns to discern and he who discerns becomes sober; to stand fast is not to waver nor be moved with every wind of doctrine; to quit you like men is, in the Greek, to act with courage and maturity, because we are not victims but soldiers in battle; and to be strong is a great exertion of faith, because God has not given us the spirit of fear. But the heart of the message comes at the end, with a distinction that reorders everything: the difference between assimilated faith and personal faith. The assimilated kind is adopted from a parent, from culture, from tradition; it stays in sayings of the mouth —“I will pray for you,” and by the time you reach home you have forgotten—, it is a form of godliness without inward power, and it collapses on the day of trial because it has no roots. The personal kind is the one you have made active: it is passion, conviction, and you go straight to God. The study closes with examples of each: the sons of Eli and the Pharisees, set against Abraham, Joshua and Timothy.

I. The Word takes hold of me.

A. It is the only thing one can rely on, with faith and with eagerness.

1. It works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

2. No one will love us as God loves us.

3. There is something we cannot let Satan steal: faith.

B. In life there are no middle terms.

1. One strengthens where one lacks; but how long does it last? Not long.

2. So the Word must be read every day, and one must pray every day.

3. We came to the Lord with many bad habits: it is not that we have attained it all now.

II. Watch: be spiritually alert.

A. To watch means to live alert to temptations and to the times.

1. It is not to shut oneself away: it is that the flesh is spent to become spiritual beings.

2. A moment comes when you see things as God wants you to see them.

3. To grow careless is very easy; that is not complicated.

4. The only one who can guard you from temptation is you.

B. We must live and exist for faith.

1. Faith is what moves the hands of God, and faith is what moves mountains.

2. So let us begin to move faith, and then we will move mountains.

3. The circumstance is there, but faith is there: one waits for what God’s hand will do.

III. Stand fast in the faith.

A. Not to be moved by false doctrine nor by the pressure of this world.

1. And by world I do not mean human beings: I mean powers and principalities.

2. The just man stands and nothing can touch him; but he can still be attacked.

3. We can no longer play house: we are the called and the chosen.

4. Not only on the good day: a living, constant faith, day after day, moment after moment.

B. Faith is not carried away by doubts nor by trials.

1. It gives no weight to doubts: it is there to favor our spiritual life.

2. It is more pleasant to doubt, and easier to complain and give up.

3. Faith is the only thing that can keep us standing.

IV. Let us hold fast without wavering (Hebrews 10:23).

A. To waver is to move from side to side: without stability.

1. Today yes, tomorrow we say otherwise: unstable, not firm.

2. If anything is attacked, it is faith: because faith makes all our well-being.

3. Now tell me whether at times you do not lack faith.

B. A church is not upheld by any human being’s goodwill: it is faith.

1. A miracle does not come because “luck was with me”: it is faith.

2. The evil day is faith; as we walk, there is already an essence of faith in us.

3. I must affirm my faith; I cannot live an unstable life.

V. Watch and pray (Matthew 26:41).

A. A sleeping Christian is easy prey for the enemy.

1. Always doubting and living troubled becomes a habit in people.

2. If everyone at home is the same, who strengthens whom? Do we all drown?

3. Life is one: do not waste it.

B. To watch is to pray; and he who prays learns to discern.

1. When you discern, you have become one who distinguishes: this is yes and this is no.

2. That discernment leads us to be sober.

3. “The Lord God will come out on my behalf”: and there you activated faith.

4. We learn to discern when the enemy stirs someone up to pull and tear.

VI. Be no more children, tossed to and fro (Ephesians 4:14).

A. Nor carried about with every wind of doctrine.

1. If the enemy is expert at anything, it is confusing us with winds of doctrine.

2. Remain constant in Christ and in the Word: read it every day.

3. Let us not play the fool: love the Word with all your strength.

B. Firm faith rests on the faithfulness of God.

1. “This will not come out right”: then resolve it. With what? With faith.

2. Believing that God will give us His hand, because we cannot.

3. And how do we make Him understand we need help? The little word is prayer.

VII. Quit you like men.

A. In Greek it means to act with courage and with maturity.

1. When one is tangled in thought, one is already paralyzed: we turn into mummies.

2. We do not exert ourselves in faith because what we do is complain and lament.

B. We are not victims: we are soldiers in battle.

1. “I have many trials”: no; you are a soldier in the battle.

2. If you have not been able to increase your faith, it is that you have not trained.

3. We look for how to flee, or for someone to solve it for us.

4. It is not a matter of gender or of age: a child’s faith is remarkable.

VIII. Be strong (2 Timothy 1:7; Joshua 1:9).

A. “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

1. How much cowardice the human being lives in. Cowardice must be left behind.

2. There are things in life that require a great exertion of faith.

3. “Let the universe fall: the God who called me is the God who will back me.”

B. “Be strong and of a good courage… for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

1. If the hard day dims and suffocates you, you will not win the battle.

2. You gave up, and you will hide in the cave: but war is waged face to face.

3. Instead of being strong, we doubt God and are troubled, and we sink.

C. Joshua spent his whole life behind Moses, serving him.

1. He stayed at the foot of the mountain, because he could not look on the glory of God.

2. And he never thought that he would be the one to divide the land.

3. The Christian life requires endurance: when one resists, the devil flees.

4. Human effort is completed by divine grace, which is what does the work.

IX. Assimilated faith.

A. It is adopted or copied from a parent, from culture, from tradition.

1. Learned outwardly, but not experienced in the heart.

2. And it is not functional: for warrior men and women it will not serve.

3. It becomes a saying: “I will pray for you,” and by the time you get home you forgot.

4. And sayings of the mouth compromise the word faith: it is a great danger.

B. It can remain religious custom or cultural inheritance, without personal conviction.

1. There is none of the conviction of Abraham’s or Moses’ faith, the kind that works miracles.

2. Whoever attends because his parents took him never had that real encounter with Christ.

X. Personal faith.

A. It is the faith you have made active: individual, because it is personal.

1. Not the children’s, not the spouse’s: what you acquire is wholly your own.

2. When a child enters personal faith, he asks for prayer because he wants God to step in.

3. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

4. It is not counseling nor someone’s exhortation: it is loving God with all your strength.

XI. The risk of assimilated faith.

A. It collapses when the trials come.

1. Everything collapses emotionally, and then one grabs hold of someone else’s hand.

2. There is no act of faith, because it is not personal; in faith one goes straight to God.

3. As in Matthew 13: it was sown in thin soil, and the wind came and carried it off.

4. The seed stays among stones, and there is no good for the one who needs it.

B. Why is there no fruit? Why is there no miracle?

1. Because there is much assimilated faith and little personal; that is why there is so much talk.

2. When it is personal, it is few words and precise; and there is the miracle done.

3. “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”

4. Everyone talks; it is our action that shows which faith we have.

XII. Examples of assimilated faith.

A. The sons of Eli (1 Samuel 2) were priests by family tradition.

1. But they knew not the LORD: they had the religious position, not the real faith.

2. And with Samuel’s sons it was the same: they profaned and turned aside.

3. Israel had seen miracles, but their faith was shallow: without Moses, the golden calf.

B. The Pharisees (Matthew 15:7-9) practiced the religion inherited from their fathers.

1. “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth… but their heart is far from me.”

2. Religion assimilated to custom: no purity, no sanctification, no passion.

3. Watch your children: see whether what they learn is assimilated or personal.

XIII. Examples of personal faith.

A. Abraham (Genesis 15:6): “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

1. He believed the LORD directly; he did not inherit his faith from idolatrous parents.

2. On reaching the promised land, all his kin were idolaters.

B. Joshua (Joshua 24:15): “but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

1. A personal decision, not mere tradition: he saw with his own eyes the sea open.

2. The others said they were giants: where was their faith? It was assimilated.

3. He stood surety that his house too would love God.

C. Timothy (2 Timothy 1:5): the faith that dwelt in Lois and Eunice, “and in thee also”.

1. He did not assimilate it from his mother and grandmother: it was passed on, and he made it his.

2. The assimilated is learned, cultural, shallow, and easily totters.

3. The personal is one’s own, experienced, firm; and no one can steal it from you.

XIV. May every believer have a faith of his own.

A. Not only a faith inherited from grandmother: the grandchildren need their own prayer.

1. God stirs each one differently; one person’s troubles are not another’s.

2. We pray together on Fridays; but each must pray his own, personally.

3. The times are short and life is short, and in life victories must be won.

B. The gospel is the same yesterday, today and forever.

1. Not to draw crowds nor to charm them; you have never seen me doing tricks.

2. I will not mix my faith with anyone else’s assimilated faith.

3. We have had to fight, and we have done it: come what may.

4. We live afflictions, but out of them all God delivers; oppression is when he wants us off the road.