Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Let Us, Part 2: Hold Firmly to What We Believe

Episode Date: October 16, 2016

The incredible happens when we embrace the things God has Let Us do. Want to know how? Dive into a special mini-series with Pastor Craig—you’ll only find it online, in the Life.Church App, or on the Life.Church podcast. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thanks for joining us here in Life Church, where we are one church meeting in multiple locations and reaching around the world with the help of Church online. If you have any questions or you'd like to learn more about us as a church, you can always check us out online simply by going to life.church. Or you can stay connected throughout your week and everywhere you go with the all-new Life Church app available today, wherever you download your apps from. Today we continue in our exclusive online mini-series where Pastor Craig Rochelle will take us back to the book of Hebrews and help us hold firm in what we believe in part two of the

mini-series, let us. Hey, it's great to have you with us for the Life Church podcast. If you're a regular listener, what you'll normally hear is the weekend message, but we're in a short window, a three-week window, where we're actually not allowed to show the weekend messages after they're taught in a live environment. And so what I'm doing is I'm sharing with you kind of some behind-the-scenes thoughts on what God has shown me recently in my personal devotion time. I was doing a U-Version reading plan through the book of Hebrews, and I was in Hebrews chapter 4, and I noticed three different times the author used this real inviting phrase. He said, let us, and they went on. Last week we looked at

the first let us, when the author said, let us do our best to enter God's rest. I want to look at the second one this week, and then next week we'll look at the third. The second Let us, from Hebrews chapter four, is found in verse 14, and we'll also look at verse 15. The writer says this, he says, so then, since we have a great high priest who has entered heaven, Jesus, the son of God, Jesus is that great high priest. Since we have this great high priest, the author says, let us, and then what are we to do? Let us hold firmly to what we believe. Let us, together, hold firmly to what we believe.

verse 15 goes on to say this this high priest of ours understands our weaknesses he faced all of the same testings that we do yet he did not sin now what's so amazing is we have this high priest jesus who's sitting at the right hand of god making intercession for us that's a big way of saying he's praying for us jesus the son of god is praying for us and the author tells us to hold firmly to what we believe. Now, not just blind faith for no reason, but the reason is because we have this high priest who has entered into heaven. And it always blows my mind to think about the disciples that they walked with Jesus, talked with Jesus, and they actually ate breakfast with Jesus after he died and was risen for the dead. They were there with Jesus when he ascended into heaven

and they were willing to give their lives for the reality that Jesus died, was raised again, and entered into heaven. And they were willing to die for that. We hold firmly to what we believe because Jesus was tested as we were and now dwells with God in heaven. In fact, verse 15 says this, and I want to say it again,

the high priest understands our weaknesses. He faced all the same testings that we do, yet he did not sin. Imagine that Jesus has been where we've been, he's hurt like we've hurt, he's been tempted like we've been tempted, and yet he did not sin. And the good news is, because Jesus overcame, we can overcome as well.

So what do we do? We hold firmly to what we believe. Now, it's really, really interesting in the world we live in today. There's so many people who really don't know what they believe about spiritual things. In fact, I was reading recently about kind of a new and common mindset about spiritual things in my part of the world. there was this phrase that was coined in 2005 in a book that's actually getting a little more traction now today. It's called moralistic, therapeutic deism. Moralistic, therapeutic deism.

When people look at God, they have this view, most people today, many people, moralistic, meaning, okay, if I believe in God, I believe he wants me to be good, he wants me to be nice, he wants me to be moral, moralistic. Therapeutic, a lot of people think, well, okay, if I am nice, and I believe in God, then my life will be better. God exists to make my life better. Deism, a lot of people believe that God created the world, set it in emotion, but is not real involved. This is a challenge, okay? This moralistic therapeutic deism is really very, very different than the God of the Bible that we read, the Father of Jesus Christ. So why do we hold firmly to our beliefs? What beliefs do we hold firmly to? For years, I was an associate pastor at a Methodist church, United Methodist Church, and we would actually say the Apostles Creed every week.

It was really pretty cool. I had to wear a robe, and I'd stand up behind this big pulpit. I would lead the church the Apostles' Creed. And for centuries, and people still do today, they would declare the core beliefs with millions of believers around the world. And I just want to share with you, this is what we believe. This is what we hold firmly to. And here's how the Apostle of Creed goes. I believe in God the Father Almighty,

creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontchus Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day, he rose again.

He ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Universal Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen and amen and amen. We hold firmly to this belief. Let us hold firmly to what we believe. Now, whenever I teach anything, I always try to imagine what someone might be enduring in my church family. What might someone be going through? And even as I share this small devotion, I'm aware that some of you might have received a very bad report from a doctor this week.

Or there might be someone who's really in a financial tough spot right now. There's someone certainly that's just been crushed by someone, someone that you trusted, let you down in a big way. There would be those who have a marriage that's hanging on. someone that you love is in a really bad spot right now. One of your kids is struggling. People all over face depression. There's anger. There's unforgiveness.

They feel desperate. What do we do when we're facing these problems? Let's go back to this text. Since we have a high priest, Jesus, since we have a savior who loved the unlovable, since we have a high priest who accepted those that religion rejected, since we have one who healed the sick, raised the dead, since we have a Savior who understands everything that we're going through

was tempted in every way and yet did not sin, we can hold firmly to what we believe. Jesus was good, he is good, he paid the price for our sins, he suffered and died so that we could live. And since he is with God at this moment, and yet he is with us. He is with God and he's with us. ever present, all powerful, and ever faithful. Since he is always good, we hold firmly to what we believe.

He is our Savior. We are His, and nothing can take us out of his hand. So what do we do? We hold firmly to that which we believe. What do we believe? We have a high priest, Jesus, our Savior, seated at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. So therefore, because he was faithful in every way, experience all the temptation we experienced that never sent. We hold firmly to what we believe. So Father, today, I pray for those who may be struggling in their faith. God, I pray that your word would build faith, that we would draw near to you. We'd enter into that special rest. And God, because of who Jesus is and what he did, we can hold firmly to that which we believe. In Jesus' name we pray.

As a church, it's our honor to play a small part in all that God's is doing in and through your life, and we would love to continue with you on that journey. To find out what your next steps could be in your relationship with Christ, all you have to do is go to life.church slash next. As a church, we care deeply about people who are vulnerable to dangerous situations no matter where they are in the world. They need to be protected and cared for, and there's no greater place of where that's happening than in the case of human trafficking in India. I recently had a chance to sit down with some leaders from our church who traveled to India to see what our global mission partners are doing in the fight against human

trafficking. Take a look. Well, guys, thank you so much for taking the time on the backside of what I know was a really long and at times kind of emotional trip. Learning about some of the issues with human trafficking that take place right in the heart of India, help us understand the issues there and some of the things that you saw. The stuff that we saw was incredibly difficult and really, really hard to sit with. And what makes human trafficking such an awful thing? is that it's business, that people are profiting from other people's vulnerability. We as a church we're passionate about making sure vulnerable people are safe.

Help me understand how our church is a part of what's taking place to prevent and bring restoration in the area. Well, you said prevent, and I think that's really the key. We got to experience our global missions partners going in and doing things like education, job training, and a lot of things to really work on the front end so that people never have to worry about making a drastic decision or being deceived into human trafficking. I mean, Tier Fund and Hope International are just amazing. You know, for example, Hope International actually does savings groups. So what they do is they bring 10 to 12 people together.

They're coming to learn about biblically based financing and they're coming together to save money. Over time, what this is doing is empowering them. It's giving them dignity. It's giving them ownership over the situation that they're in. In fact, we had this incredible experience with a man there that's got a young family. He works at a rock quarry where he's just beating rock all day, 12 hours a day, and he gets injured on the job. In most situations when somebody gets injured and they don't have an income coming into them, they get extremely desperate.

What desperate parents are going to do is they're going to turn around and sell their children because they need to have the finances to feed themselves, to clothe themselves, house themselves. But because of this savings group, this group surrounded this man and his family and supported them for two whole weeks. until he was able to start working again and get back on his feet. And it prevented them his family from being vulnerable. This is a really cool thing that's happening is Life Church, the local church on one part of the world, is actually supporting and coming alongside the local church all the way on the other side of the world.

And they're in the trenches. They're building relationships with people who have been victims. And through those relationships, they're building community that's bringing people out of this very vulnerable state. It's amazing to think that we as a church play a small part and really what the local church is doing there. The local church truly is the hero. They are the hope of the world.

We know that here at home, and it's just as true over there in India. Thank you so much for all that you learned and all that you're bringing back to us. We really appreciate it. To find out how you can connect with the work of our local partners or support the work of our global partners around the world, just go to life.church slash life missions. Here at Life Church, it's our mission to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. That statement drives everything we do here as a church because we believe whoever finds God finds life.