BOUT OF YOUR LIFETIME
(All my sermons use illustration found on www.sermoncentral.com and all scripture is NIV unless otherwise noted.)
Oh, the hype of a good fight! We see the advertising on television, trying hard to sell PPV tickets to the bout of the century. The WWF is always advertising how great their fights are going to be, and the truth is people are interested in a good fight. BUT, the truth is that you don’t have to pay to see a good fight, you are already in one!
Each of us in a part of a struggle between evil and righteousness, each of us needs to be a well conditioned, practiced and technical fighter with a strong heart and a big faith if we are to prevail.
It will take a strong endurance, and good offense and defense, as well as heart and faith to win this fight. Jesus warned that it would be tough. What if a time comes when the world is the enemy and they are jabbing and punching and pushing, what will we do?
If you have your Bible with you this morning please turn with me to the 24th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew as we read verses 9-12
Matt 24:9-13 "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
PRAYER
A time will come when men will no longer put up with the truth, but surround themselves with people who will tell them what they want to hear. We are in for a fight. AMEN? Already I have heard people tell me that the Bible is just an old book, that the truth written in it was for back then, that things have changed and God is doing something NEW today that He didn’t bother telling us about.
I have heard people tell me that the Bible is the truth for all people, BUT it means different things for different people and some that say some of the Bible is true, BUT not all of it. We are in for a good fight, AMEN?
Paul fought the good fight, he finished the race, he did what needed to be done and he was certain that he was awarded the crown. You see the heavyweight belt is not at stake here, but a crown of righteousness.
2 Tim 4:6-8 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day-and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
This morning let’s look at some things you and I can do to insure that we fight the good fight and are awarded that same crown.
There are some tools that every good fighter must have, us included:
I. A STRONG PUNCH (offense and defense)
1 Tim 1:18-19 Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, 19 holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.
You can almost picture Paul in the corner of the ring, giving Timothy last minute instruction, “Tim, you need to keep the truth in front of you at all times, don’t let them catch you with your guard down. The best defense is a good offense, and knowing and speaking the truth is the best offense we have. And Tim, whatever you do, don’t quit, keep fighting, I know you know this is what needs to be done, you have the heart, and the faith, so fight the good fight son.” And the bell rings, and Timothy is out there doing his best. And why not, there have been people since the times of Christ who have tried to topple the truth.
2 Tim 2:17-18 Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some.
Paul says, here is the enemy, right in front of you, they are trying to bring down the truth and their lies are spreading like wildfire, (gangrene). This enemy has only one thing in mind, to DESTROY the faith of anyone they can. To take down Christians, to get others to wander away from Christ, to get the knock out punch.
But if we have the Bible, the Truth, no one can knock us out:
Someone once said: A Bible in the hand is worth two in the bookcase.
A Bible stored in the mind is worth a dozen stored in the bottom of one’s trunk.
- Here’s a pop quiz: Which of the following aren’t in the Bible?
-Cleanliness is next to godliness
- God helps those who help themselves
- Confession is good for the soul
- We are as prone to sin as sparks fly upward
- Money is the root of all evil
- Honesty is the best policy.
Though these are all true, or partially true, none of them is in the Bible. The LOVE of money is the root of ALL kinds of evil, not money itself.
We have learned to treat man’s opinions with as much respect as the Bible.
DL Moody said: “The scriptures were not given for our information but our transformation.”
Mark Twain, not exactly a die-hard Christian, wrote these words: “Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me most are those I do understand.”
No matter how many times you have been through it, let it go through you.
God’s word is like salt in the back of your car in the winter. It’s a lot more useful when you take it out and apply it.
We get more out of the Bible when we let it get into us.
2 Cor 10:3-6 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 6 And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.
That divine power comes from having a strong knowledge of God’s Word so that we may capture the arguments and the garbage that comes from those who want to topple the truth and we can hit back with the infallible, inerrant, all powerful WORD of God! Take those attacks and make them obedient to Christ.
II. A STRONG HEART
No Christian can fight the good fight if their heart is not in it. Paul tells us we must fight the good fight with: a good conscience.
Your heart has to be in the fight, or you will most definitely lose. I have wondered about this for many years and I am sure that God has shown me that this means we must understand that this is His fight too, it is being raged on us, BUT our defense is God’s plan, His Word, not ours. Our only defense is the truth of God’s Word.
So many times we think we can do this battle on our own, we can tell people what they want to hear, and sound very righteous, and we are doing a good job at fighting the good fight. BUT, when we are alone we don’t have a clear conscience. We really don’t have our heart in the right place, and any fighter will tell you if you don’t have your heart in it, don’t expect to win.
Willie from Moon Mullins comic strip, says of his conscience: “Every time I listen to that darn thing, I end up ruinin’ my relaxin’!”
Mother Teresa says; “ You need only ask at night before you go to bed, "What did I do to Jesus today? What did I do for Jesus today? What did I do with Jesus today?" You have only to look at your hands. This is the best examination of conscience.
-- Martin Luther - - - My conscience has been taken captive by the Word of God, and to go against conscience or Scripture is neither right nor safe.
We enter the fight with a clear conscience if we know God’s Word and are doing it right, but so many times people are mis-led because they do not know what God really wants.
One guy puts it this way: My dad had paid for a membership at Rainbow Falls – a fishing lake about 1 hour into the mountains from our home. About our 2nd visit there, the fish just weren’t biting. That happens at stocked lakes. You could see them – right there in front of you, but they wouldn’t bite. So, my brother and I put on some great big bear hooks. We’d cast them just over a big fish, then snag him in the side and drag him in sideways. It was great! Here we were, catching some pretty big fish, while most everyone else there wasn’t catching anything. We were so elated, when the guy managing the place came by, we showed him our fish and told him of our ingenious idea. Oops. He kindly told us that was against the rules. There went that great idea! We had done it with a clear conscience, but it was still wrong.
The clear and good conscience we must have is one that knows the rules, knows the will of God, and does whatever, to insure we stay with the fight plan. There are so many things in this world that will attempt to get us off the fight plan, to see things another way, to bend just one time, to stick and move when we need to jab and hook. How many of us have been influenced to keep our mouth closed when things are less then happy? How many of us have run back to the corner when we know we should have taken a big swing? How many are afraid of the battle and so allow things to go away silently when we should be in there swinging.
A enormously muscular guy with a bad stutter goes to a counter in a department store and asks, "W-w-w-where’s the m-m-m-men’s dep-p-p-partment?" The clerk behind the counter just looks at him and says nothing.
The man repeats himself: "W-w-w-where’s the m-m-m-men’s dep-p-p-partment?" Again, the clerk doesn’t answer him. The guy asks several more times: "W-w-w-where’s the m-m-m-men’s dep-p-p-partment?" And the clerk just seems to ignore him. Finally, the guy is angry and storms off.
The customer who was waiting in line behind the guy asks the clerk, "Why wouldn’t you answer that guy’s question?" The clerk answers, "D-d-d-do you th-th-th-think I w-w-w-want to get b-b-b-beat up?!"
III. A STRONG FAITH
1 Tim 1:18-19 Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, 19 holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.
You see, being in the bout of your life, you must follow the advice of your coach and HOLD ON TO THE FAITH. Some did not and they were shipwrecked, KNOCKED OUT, ten count they are out. We have to stand strong in our faith if we are to fight the good fight.
You might ask, where do we get this fighting faith.
Rom 10:17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
FAITH comes from hearing the WORD of God, hearing is something that takes an effort on your part, you need to listen to hear, you need to absorb it, you need to allow the Word to train you to be a good fighter.
1 Tim 4:8 For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.
How strong is your faith? Are you a well conditioned, strong faith based Christian? Can you fight the good fight? Do you have the wisdom of God’s Word to fight the good fight, or are you just getting through life, one day at a time, based solely on what others tell you?
A story… It was autumn, and the Indians on the remote reservation asked their new Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was an Indian Chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn’t tell what the weather was going to be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared.
Also, being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"
"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed," the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared.
A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. "Is it going to be a very cold winter?"
"Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "it’s definitely going to be a very cold winter." The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find.
Two weeks later, he called the National Weather Service again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"
"Absolutely," the man replied. "It’s going to be one of the coldest winters ever."
"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.
The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting wood like crazy."
How can we be sure about God? How can we have a strong faith? How can we fight the good fight? By KNOWING the truth of God’s Word.
Folks, are you ready for the BOUT OF A LIFETIME?
Do you have a strong punch, a strong offense and defense? Able to give a reason for the hope that you have? Prepared in season and out of season. Able to stand up when people turn to the lies they want to hear rather then the truth of God’s infallible Word?
Do you have a clear conscience, a strong heart, able to KNOW you are doing the right thing because God, who knows all things, is telling you to do so? Is your heart in the battle or are you leaning toward staying out of it?
Do you have a strong faith that comes from hearing the message through the Word of God.
Christian author Neil Anderson wrote a list he called The Twenty Cans of Success. These are based on what the NT says is true of Christians. These are promises, claimed by believers through the centuries. Allow God to speak to you through these assurances.
1. Why should I say I can’t when the Bible says I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13)?
2. Why should I lack when I know that God shall supply all my needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19)?
3. Why should I fear when the Bible says God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7)?
4. Why should I lack faith to fulfill my calling knowing that God as allotted to me a measure of faith (Romans 12:3)?
5. Why should I be weak when the Bible says that the Lord is the strength of my life and that I will display strength and take action because I know God (Psalm 27:1; Daniel 11:32)?
6. Why should I allow Satan supremacy over my life when He that is in me is greater than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4)?
7. Why should I accept defeat when the Bible says that God always leads me in triumph (2 Corinthians 2:14)?
8. Why should I lack wisdom when Christ became wisdom to me from God and God gives wisdom to me generously when I ask Him for it (1 Corinthians 1:30; James 1:5)?
9. Why should I be depressed when I can recall to mind God’s loving kindness, compassion, and faithfulness and have hope (Lamentations 3:21-23)?
10. Why should I worry and fret when I can cast all my anxiety on Christ who cares for me (1 Peter 5:7)?
11. Why should I ever be in bondage knowing that there is liberty where the Spirit of the Lord is (2 Corinthians 3:17)?
12. Why should I feel condemned when the Bible says I am not condemned because I am in Christ (Romans 8:1)?
13. Why should I feel alone when Jesus said He is with me always and He will never leave me nor forsake me (Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 13:5)?
14. Why should I feel accursed or that I am the victim of bad luck when the Bible says that Christ redeemed me from the curse of the law that I might receive His Spirit (Galatians 3:13-14)?
15. Why should I be discontented when I, like Paul, can learn to be content in all my circumstances (Philippians 4:11)?
16. Why should I feel worthless when Christ became sin on my behalf that I might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21)?
17. Why should I have a persecution complex knowing that nobody can be against me when God is for me (Romans 8:31)?
18. Why should I be confused when God is the author of peace and He gives me knowledge through His indwelling Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:33; 2:12)?
19. Why should I feel like a failure when I am a conqueror in all things through Christ (Romans 8:37)?
20. Why should I let the pressures of life bother me when I can take courage knowing that Jesus has overcome the world and its tribulations (John 16:33)?
FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT
INVITATION
