1 Corinthians 16:13-14 Part 2


STAND FIRM



We began a study on 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 yesterday with the first part of the verse in focus, “be watchful”.  Today we move on to the next 5 words of the text, which are “stand firm in the faith.”  What does it mean to stand firm?  When I served in the military stand firm meant holding your ground against enemy attack.  When you were standing firm in the face of danger.  The text here is very much the same.  The greek word steko (steko) literally means to stand firm in faith, to be constant, to persevere, to remain steadfast, to continue in a state, to be persistent.

Paul gives a good antithesis to standing firm in 1 Corinthians 6:18 when he tells the church in Corinth to “Flee immorality” to literally continue to fun from it, and keep running from it.  As much as the word flee means to run as hard and fast as we can away from something steko, stand firm, means to be immovable.  Within the text of 1 Corinthians 16 Paul tells us to stand firm, but he gives us what we are to stand firm in, that is our faith.

Standing firm in our faith assumes the reader understands what their faith is, or whom their faith is in.  Often we wrongly assert faith and make comments like “I lost my faith in my church when they _________ (fill in the blank)” or “I lost my faith in the pastor when he ___________”.  You see we wrongly assert our faith away from the cross, away from Christ Jesus, away from the promises of Scripture that we are given.  When this occurs we make shipwreck our faith as Paul warns Timothy of in 1 Timothy 1:19.  The writer of Hebrews rightly asserts that faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen” that is the promises of scripture given in and through Christ Jesus.  Jesus tells Thomas in John 20:29 “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  Our faith is indelibly tied by grace to Christ Jesus and nothing else.

Let us be aware of dangers when we waver in our faith.  We must always be alert to the danger of spiritual drift.  The writer of Hebrews tells us “how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation.”  (Heb 2:3)  The danger of spiritual drift is often found when believers become self-righteous and pious in their faith.  Their faith becomes about their ability, their boasting, their works, and even becomes grounded in those around them they can visibly see such as charismatic teachers and leaders.  Spiritual drift most always leads to shipwreck because when our faith is rooted in anything other than Christ it will be pulled from it’s anchor and drift until it crashes on the shore.  

So what does all this mean?  As believers we must stand firm on the truth of scripture.  2 Timothy 3:16 assures us that “all scripture is breathed out by God…”  Our faith is in the infallible, inerrant, Word of God breathed out by God to faithful men who have handed down to us over the ages the Ancient Words of faith that we have in our Bible today.  Our faith is in the promises of the Scripture and we are to stand firm on those promises, to stand firm on the Word, to stand firm on what God has called us to.  Again we cannot stand firm in our faith if we are not grounding our faith in Christ; spending time in the word and time in prayer daily as well as time in the word with other Christians and worshipping together as the body of Christ.

If we are to truly stand firm in our faith then we are to believe all the God has promised to be truth and cling to that regardless of what the culture around us might say.  We hold fast regardless of the attacks leveled against us.  We know that in Christ He stands with us and He the anchor that keeps us standing firm daily.  Let us not waiver in our faith through spiritual drift, let us STAND FIRM IN OUR FAITH that others know the Christ whom our faith is in! 

  

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