How To Take A Stand When Others Want You To Sit Down - Philippians 1: 27-30 Series

This week my assistant who works for me… Tracy, who's worked with me for five years…she's great. I love her very much. But she has decided to move on and is leaving us with a hole in our ministry. So in a desire to replace her quickly, I put an announcement out. You probably saw this. So you should see it, you should pass it on to others because I'm waiting for God to provide the right person for this position. It's a ministry person. I entitled the job Pastoral Assistant and Church Planting Team Member. I want people to know you're going to be part of Calvary Chapel. This is a very important thing that you're going to be doing. And because I wanted to get it out quickly, I not only put it on the Christian job search sites, but I put it on Facebook and Indeed and Google jobs, you know, out there, so all kinds of people can find it.

I was surprised at the responses. We have someone interested in coming and working for us from Nigeria and someone else from Kiev. I'm going okay, well, anybody locally? But here's what was most interesting – how many people that are nonbelievers responded to the opportunity to work in our church to be this pastoral assistant and church planting team member. So my response when I get the resumé, and it has nothing about anything about Christianity on it, my response was to say, “Can you tell me about your experience with church?” Because that statement is going to allow a believer to say, “Well let me tell you about my relationship with Jesus.” Where a person who's not a believer is going to tell me about their church experience.

One lady says, “Well I don't have any church experience, but I learn quickly.” I'm thinking you got a lot to learn quickly.

Someone else says, “Well I grew up in a Christian home.” Well, that's a little closer. Maybe this person is a Christian, I'm not sure. I don't want to judge people based on their responses here.

But someone else says, “Well my church experience is I went to a Catholic school.” So apparently sometimes people believe that because they have some past experience that that somehow gets them into a position. If they organized an insurance office in the past, maybe they can organize me and do ministry here at Calvary Chapel. I was surprised.

It was very encouraging for me to talk to one young lady who said, “I am saved. I've accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.” This is the right answer, by the way, as I'm asking the question. If you ever get asked the question what is your church background, this is the right answer. I'm going to tell you just so you don't mess this up anywhere you go. Okay? And if you don't know this, you need to know this answer now. I don't want anybody here at Calvary Chapel to be confused. Alright, if you're going to have an experience with church, if that's the question, your answer is this: I'm saved. I've accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I'm serving Him. That's what it means to be a Christian. Okay? If anybody doesn't realize that yet, I want to help you. I can help you today, I can pray with you and introduce you to God in a personal way because you want him to be your Savior, to save you from your sins, and yet you want Him to be your Lord, the one that you are bowing to, serving, that He's running your life. That's what we're talking about here in all of us.

Now once you do that, then your perspective of life changes. You see things differently. All of a sudden, you realize, as those of us who are Christians for a while realize, that the world is somewhat of a hostile place for Christians. I mean it's at least challenging sometimes to take a stand for Christianity. It's sometimes challenging to say, “This is what the Bible says or this is the right thing.” It's a challenge wouldn’t you say? Some of you? Maybe? Yes, it is a hard place. And I think that sometimes we want to take a stand when other people say you need to sit down.

Today we're going to learn about that. But I want to read the story about this young lady who's twelve years old. Brave girl. Stands up against a Texas teacher who told students God is not real. We need more people like this young lady, Jordan.

A young Texas girl is being praised for her courage and unyielding faith after she stood up against her teacher who kept insisting that God doesn't exist. Jordan Wooley, a seventh grader at West Memorial Junior High in Katy, Texas calmly testified at a school district hearing Tuesday after a bizarre reading assignment asked the class to say God wasn't real and left several students in tears. “Today I was given an assignment in school that questioned my faith and told me that God was not real,” she said at the podium, addressing eight members of the panel. “We were asked to take a poll to say whether God is fact, opinion, or a myth.” The assignment laid out several statements including ‘there is a God’ and prompted students to weed out the facts from the opinions. “Youngsters who said the statement was a fact or an opinion were flat out told they were wrong,” Jordan said. “When kids would argue she told them they would get in trouble,” the little girl said during her five-minute testimony. “When I tried to argue, she told me to prove it.” Jordan cited the Bible stories and people coming back from heaven. Her teacher slammed both saying they were just things that people were doing to get attention. Those who wouldn't be swayed on their beliefs turned in their assignments, saying it was a fact that God exists. “Their answers were crossed out several times,” Jordan said, “I know that it wasn't just for me who was affected by it. My friend, she went home and she started crying. She was actually supposed to come with me to testify, but she didn't think she could.” Several members of the Katy Independent School District called the girl courageous for her giving her side of the story. “Very brave of you,” one said. “Good job.” The video of her testimony has been viewed by thousands of people on Facebook, where it was captioned “Bravery.” I think we need more people like Jordan who are told to sit down when they need to stand up or we try to stand up for Christ.