Get Up! Series

Get Up! A Spiritual Knockout: How getting knocked down can change your whole life. Nov. 16, 2008

Review: Acts 1-8 The Church is in a great transition: from inward (Jews) to outward (Gentiles)

C. S. Lewis said “God whispers to us in our pleasures; speaks in our consciences; but shouts in our pains.”

Explanation: Saul is the key to the transition: God takes the greatest threat to the church and makes him the greatest voice for the church! (The church is in transition)

• He is blinded by the light: Sometimes we think we are spiritual, living in the light, but we are blind.

• People love the darkness. But in darkness, disease and infection flourish. John 3:19-20

How do we handle sin in the church? Privately. Mt 18:15 God’s desire is not to embarrass people, but to heal people. God is mostly concerned with sin in the Church.

A Spiritual Knockdown can change your life: Sometimes we are living life according to our own plans and desires, thinking we are serving God, but we really need spiritual knockout to get on the right path.

I. He fell to the ground: When God shows, up, get down.

The Priests could not stand in the presence of God (1 Kings 8:11) (2 Chron 5:14)

• When the darkness of sin encounters God’s holiness – it turns to repentance

• Deut. 9:25 Moses "I fell down and lay before the Lord for forty days and nights when he was ready to destroy you.”

• 1 Chron. 21:16 (NLT) David fell down with face to the ground.

• Job 1:20 (KJV) Then Job arose, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,

• Rev. 5:14 (KJV) And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him

Have you ever been “knocked out” spiritually?

We don’t need a nice, calm spiritual experience. We need a knockout!

Every knee will bow and confess…Rom 14:11 Bow now or bow later.

Physical and Spiritual attitude: You can bow down physically, but not spiritually: We have to get down before we can get up.

Humility: You are God, I am not!

You might be going through a knock out experience and its okay: let God have your attention. He is changing your life.

II. He picked himself up: Saul did not lay there licking his wounds – he got up.

Proverbs 24:16 (KJV) For a just man may fall seven times, and rises up again:

When the power of God knocks you down, he doesn’t intend for you to stay there

• Achan sinned, Joshua fell down – God said get up! (Josh. 7:10)

• Gideon worshipped God before the battle, God said, “Get up, I have given you victory.”

• Peter and James said to the lame man, “Get up and walk!”

• Peter was in prison when the angel said, “Get Up!” and his chains fell off.

• When you get knocked down, pick yourself up! Get up!

• You may have failed, get up!

• 2 Kings 7:3 (KJV) The four lepers, “Why sit here until we die?”

• Some people live their lives on the ground – get up!

• When David and his men had lost everything, they got up 1 Samuel 30:8

The word of the Lord is get up!

“But it’s hard to get up!”

• Through great personal struggle that Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the Wittenberg church doors.

• “My conscience is a prisoner of God’s Word. I cannot and will not recant, for to disobey one’s conscience is neither just nor safe. God help me. Amen.” Martin Luther before the Roman emperor

• This country was founded by people who stood for religious freedom. It wasn’t easy – it won’t be easy. Being a Christian might be hard at times, but having no hope or faith is much harder.

Perhaps we are headed for a spiritual knockout: we are facing a great threat to our faith. Perhaps God is using these days to get our attention. We cannot stay down, we must pick ourselves up.

III. They led him by the Hand: He needed some help: When you are blind and on the ground, get some help!

• The American idol of prideful independence does not work in Christianity.

• Moses: needed help from Aaron and Hur.

• David needed help from his men.

• Peter had James, Paul had Timothy

• Even Jesus asked his disciples to pray with him (and they failed)

We all have needy times, but we don’t have to build our house there.

IV. “They’re here!” The world is mad at the church for getting involved in moral issues, yet they ask the church for help when they need money. (It is amazing that people will ask for money from a church they would not darken the doors of).