Stand Firm In Faith - Part 3 Series

Stand Firm - Part 3

June 2, 2019

I know when it comes time for my birthday or Christmas, or our anniversary, I tend to drive Debbie a little crazy. She always asks me what I need . . . and my usual answer is ‘nothing.’ I don’t need anything. I have everything I really need. I’ve got my God, my family, you, I have pretty good health, and I could go on with my list of why I don’t really have any needs.

Of course, I have my wants, that list could be a mile long of those fun little things I could go for, but really don’t need . . . but they would be fun for about a week, then we’d have to find someplace to put them.

That’s something we really need to differentiate . . . our needs from our wants!! Often times we confuse the two. We think our needs are our wants. They’re not, and in fact, they’re nowhere close to being the same. I think that often gets us in trouble. We think our wants are our needs, so we get more stuff which hurts us in the end.

So, what is it you really need? That’s what we’re going to talk about today. But we’re going to talk about our needs in terms of what will help us best to stand firm in our faith. This is the 3rd week of this series and the hope is that we will better be able to use our faith to help us stand firm . . . to be that immovable object when we face those tough times.

For the past 2 Sunday’s we’ve looked at standing firm, specifically standing firm in the face of our doubts. And today, we’re looking at standing firm when we have needs.

With that in mind . . . what is your greatest NEED? We can vary in that answer, but I want to give you what I believe is the best answer. And you know where I’m going to go with this . . .

God is everything you will ever NEED

That’s it! We could be done right now and you’ll beat all the other churches to lunch. But, no. We’ll talk for a little longer!!

Think about your lives . . . think about all that is going on right now. Consider your health, your wealth, your family situation, your job, your income, your living situation . . . whatever it is . . .

God is everything you will ever need! But here’s the kicker . . . Do you believe that? Do you believe God is everything you will ever need? Because that one answer should determine the path, the course, the direction your life moves in.

To show you God is all you will ever need, I want to look at a couple of Bible stories and what we’re going to see is that just like on Mother’s Day when I talked about some different names for God, I’m going to do the same again.

Genesis 22 contains a pretty amazing story. It’s the story of what God asked Abraham to do. If you recall, Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 when their only child, Isaac was born. When Isaac was a boy, God told Abraham to take Isaac and sacrifice him. So Abraham set off with Isaac and as he was preparing to follow God’s command, in Genesis 22:12, an angel spoke to Abraham and said - -

12 “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns.

And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide;” as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Abraham was so struck by this encounter with God, that he gave an additional name to God. In Hebrew we would call God Jehovah Jireh. God my provider.

This is really important. Because one of the things we realize is that hindsight is 20/20. When we look at the past, we often recognize how God helped us overcome what was going on in our lives so that we could stand firm through our difficult times.

But now, we’re in another struggle, whatever it is, and we begin to wonder once again if God is going to provide for us. It’s easy to look around and say, “well, others have it worse than me.” But then when we’re all alone, and we’re in that dark room at night, laying in bed, tossing and turning and our mind and our heart are racing and we can’t turn them off, we question, we wrestle, we wonder and ask questions the psalmist asked in Psalm 77. These are some of the most poignant questions ever. It’s amazing that God said, “YES, put them in the Bible.”