Faith Speaks | Fight the Good FIght | Pastor Rob Koke | Shoreline Church | Message

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Good morning everybody. Good morning. So great to have you. Welcome to Shoreline and a very warm welcome to all of you who are watching online. We're just so glad that you're a part of our services here today. You know, I was thinking about this 250 year celebration. What I love most about America is that it is a melting pot of all the different cultures and all the different folks from around the world that have made their home here. I'm a first generation American. My parents moved from Holland here to the United States in 1959 and I was born in 1960. So I just slipped in there and I love our country, but I gotta be honest when I think about all the ethnicities that are a part of our country, I love the Hispanic culture. You guys, you guys rock.

You're amazing. Your food is the very best and there's not even a close second. And maybe it's, you know, because I feel that way that I've discovered that my car is now Hispanic. I don't know why this happens, but it doesn't matter what I'm listening to when I pull it into the garage. When I pull it out of the garage, when I start it, it goes to a Spanish speaking station. And so this morning on my way to church, I back out of the garage and I don't know, it's like 104.9 or something, ole, ole. And so, well, it's just what it is. Anyway, we're delighted that you're here. Welcome to Shoreline. Let's all of us stand to our feet. We do this at the beginning of every single message. We recite some words that we call our Shoreline Creed. And it just reminds us at the end of the day that Christianity is all about God's amazing grace. If you're new to Shoreline, you can read along the rest of us. We're gonna say this with some enthusiasm and passion. You guys ready? Okay, here we go. I am loved by God. I cannot earn it. I cannot lose it.

I am forgiven and made brand new. In Christ, I live with passion and purpose. I am empowered by the Spirit to be the church in the world and to live this love revolution. Come on, let's give God praise for that. You may be seated. So the question that I have for you today is, not are my words a force, but what kind of force are my words? The reality is that our words are powerful. Now, this happens a lot, at least to me. I'll see Laura walking in the house and I'll just look at her and I'm just overwhelmed with emotion. And I'll just tell her, you are beautiful and you are smart and you are sexy and you are a lover of God and a lover of people. I don't know what I did to deserve you. And I said that just a couple of days ago. And you know what she said? It's a mystery. Not what I was expecting, not like you're handsome, you're courageous, you're brave. I'm glad I married you. No, it's a mystery. And the truth is, I couldn't agree more. When you are interacting with people, how do they leave your presence? What do your words do to the people in your world? When people are interacting with you,

do they feel encouraged or discouraged? Is there clarity or confusion? Do you make mountains or remove mountains? Do you solve problems or create problems? create problems? How do people walk away after having interacted with you? Do you create heaviness or do you lighten people up? Do you ignite fear or inspire faith? How do people leave after interacting with you? There are incredible, powerful forces at work in the words that we share. And I wanted to read to you a passage of scripture, some words, if you will, about the power of words. And this phrase of scripture is found in James chapter two, James chapter three, starting in verse two. We all stumble in many ways, but anyone who is never at fault in what they say, everyone shout out say. Say. Is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest fire is set on fire by a small spark.

The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body and sets the whole course of one's life on fire and is itself set on fire by hell. These words talk about the power of words. Three illustrations in this passage. There's an illustration about a horse, an illustration about a fire, and an illustration about a ship. And I think that there is a point of emphasis. There are three illustrations because James wants to make the point of how powerful our words are. But I also think that there's a little bit of a difference between each one of these illustrations that I think can serve to illuminate to our hearts today the importance of our words. So the first illustration is the illustration of a horse, a magnificent horse. And I think this particular illustration helps us to understand that our words can be a force for good. So you think about these magnificent animals and how these animals are guided by a four-inch little bit. And you can take the horse to the left and to the right, you can stop the horse. And there's so much that happens with this small little bit. And James says that our words are like a bit in the horse's mouth. And you get the impression here that this is a good thing.

We can partner with this animal and we can go places and we can do good things. And so our words have the power to be a force for good. It reminds me about the story I heard about a Christian horse. And so this owner of this Christian horse was bringing his friend on a trip out into the forest with the horse. And he told the friend, hey, listen, this is a Christian horse. And so you don't kick the horse in the side to make it go. The simple truth is all you gotta do is say, praise the Lord and the horse goes forward, hallelujah, and the horse stops. And so it took him a little while, but he got the hang of it. Praise the Lord and the horse went forward, hallelujah, and the horse stopped. And while they were on their journey out in the forest, something spooked the horse and it began to run and it was running straight for a cliff. And the guy forgot in his panic what it was that would make the horse stop. And so he just shouted out, God is good. But the horse kept running. Jesus, and the horse kept running. And then finally, as the horse was nearing the edge of the cliff, he remembered and he said, hallelujah. And the horse skidded to a stop right there at the edge. And the guy was so grateful, he wiped his head

and he said, praise the Lord. Your words can do something good. Martin Luther King had words. I have a dream and those words changed the world. President Lincoln. had words about our government, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Those words helped to shape our nation. Winston Churchill, in the midst of the battles that were raging over England in World War II, facing the onslaught of the evil Nazi regime, he just declared, we will not quit. We will not quit on the beaches. We will not quit in the plains. We will not quit in the air. We will not quit in the sea. Everywhere, we will fight and fight and fight, and his words inspired a nation. So our words can be a force for good. Perhaps the most incredible words ever spoken John records in his gospel, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. So words can be a force for good. But we also know that words can be a force for bad, for evil. And James gives the illustration about how a great big forest can be set on fire by a small little spark.

Just a small little spark can start a fire that consumes a whole forest. I was a little bit of a pyro growing up. And there was one time that I went across the street from our house and I lit a field on fire. I don't think I've ever confessed to that. And my mom is watching right now online. I just wanted to let you know, mom, that was me. All those years ago, when the fire trucks came, I told you I had no idea. I apologize. But it's interesting, right? What a small little spark can do to start a huge fire. Our words have power to destroy. How many friendships, how many marriages, how many relationships have spoiled or diminished or been destroyed by negative words? How many dreams have been quenched because someone, instead of inspiring words that would encourage, gave negative words that caused them to step back when they should have been stepping forward? How many reputations have been destroyed because of gossip? We just think small little words, but they have powerful effect. I heard the story about a pastor whose reputation was at risk because someone in the congregation spread a rumor that wasn't true. And the pastor went up to this gentleman and said, what you said was not true.

And he said, I know it's not true. I was just mad. And he said, I'm so sorry. This man apologized and apologized. And the pastor said, hey, if you wanna make it right, I want you to come with me. And so they arranged a time and they went up into a tower. And the pastor brought a pillow, of all things, and handed the pillow to his friend. And he said, listen, I want you to take the feathers in this pillow and I want you just to throw them up in the air. Well, it was a windy day and those feathers just went up into the air and the wind took them and spread them all around the city. He just took a handful and the pastor said, take another handful, take another handful, until all of the feathers in that pillow had spread into the wind as far as the eye could see. And the pastor turned to the gentleman and said, if you wanna make it right, I want you to go and find every single one of those feathers and put it back in the pillow. And the man said, I could never do that. I couldn't even find them. And the pastor said, exactly. The truth is you can never tell all of the places where your lies about me went. You told one person, you told two people, you told five people, but you have no idea

how many people they told and how many people they told told others, you can't put back into the bottle the poison of gossip. The truth is our words are powerful and they're a powerful force for good, but they can also be a powerful force for bad. And then we have this final illustration, this illustration of a ship. And I think that the point of this particular illustration was to communicate to us that words have a disproportionate impact. They may be small in nature, but they are powerful and large in terms of what they do. And to illustrate that, he talks about a ship and he says, on every single vessel, there is a rudder, a small little apparatus that actually guides and directs where. the ship goes. In the case of the ship that's behind me, the rudder is 0.01% of the size of the ship, 0.01%. That means that 99.9% of the ship is not the rudder. But the rudder determines where the ship will go. And so you got the currents, and you got the winds, and you got the waves, and wherever the pilot wants to steer that ship, something that is 0.0% of the mass of the ship is directing that ship. And I'm here to tell you your words, they might be small, but they are powerful. They really do make an impact.

And some of you might be wondering here this morning why words are so powerful. And I'm gonna give you two reasons why our words are powerful. Number one, words spill. And number two, words shape. Let's talk for a moment about how words spill. Every night, one of my jobs in the house, Laura's got her jobs, I've got my job, is to grab some hot tea for myself, sleepy time tea. And Laura doesn't want the tea, she just wants a cup of hot water. So I'll go to the sink and get the hot water, and sometimes I overfill her cup and it's right there at the very top, and I gotta walk really, really carefully. Why? Because what's in the cup can spill out. And no less an authority than Jesus himself talked about this idea of what spills. He said, a good man out of the good things a good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. Now, here's the kicker to the verse, for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Do you wanna know what's in your heart? Listen to what you say. And I think you gotta listen to what you say

in a number of different ways. I think we gotta listen to the internal dialogue that we are communicating, because we're all speaking to ourselves from time to time. The words you say to yourself, about yourself are really important. Sometimes we can be hard on ourselves, and we tell ourselves that we're worthless or that we're not smart enough, we're not good enough, that we're not strong enough, that we're not talented enough. In a healthy world, we can speak to our hearts and we can tell our hearts to worship and tell our hearts to move forward. We can tell our hearts good things about what God has done in us and to us. But often we listen to our internal dialogue and it brings us in a negative direction. The apostle Paul was writing to his young follower in the faith, Timothy, and he encouraged him about his internal dialogue. I think it was probably something like this. Timothy was talking about how he couldn't measure up and Paul had given him a ministry assignment and perhaps he didn't think that he could do it. Maybe fear was getting the best of him. And Paul discerned that through the conversations that they were having. Listen to what the apostle Paul told Timothy. He said, I want you to strengthen your internal dialogue.

Listen, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind. Let me give you a couple of examples from the Bible about this internal dialogue and the different effect that it had on the outcome for each individual involved. You have this woman who was hemorrhaging for 12 years. She had an issue of blood. In Matthew chapter nine and verse 21, she said to herself, this is internal dialogue. If I touch his garment, I will be healed. She said to herself, she was speaking to herself. She had positive internal dialogue. And when she was healed, Jesus gave this woman's faith the credit. It was like she was speaking her faith. And a miracle unfolded. There's another story. This one is a story that Jesus told, it was a parable, and it tells a little bit of a different story. A man trusted his servants with some money and told them to invest that money. To one, he gave five talents, another two talents, and another person one. The one who had five gained five more. The one who had two gained two more. But the one who had been given one buried it in the dirt and listened to what he said. He said, I was afraid and I hid your money in the ground. His internal dialogue was negative. I'll lose it.

I can't do it. My boss will be mad. I'll lose my job. I'm just gonna play it safe. In one case, a miracle of healing unfolds. In another case, even what he had was taken away. Our internal dialogue is one key of recognizing what's really going on in our hearts. The other way is to listen to the conversations that you have with others. Negative conversations with others often reveal a heart that is full of negativity. Positive conversations with other people reveal a heart that is full of faith. If you're going through a tough season, I'm not talking about the kind of interaction that you might have with your small group or your trusted friends where you're going through a difficult time and you're just being honest and maybe soliciting some prayer. That's not what I'm talking about. You don't have to fake things. We value authenticity and realness here at Shoreline. So that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is the constant negative, critical, depressing, discouraging conversations that we seem to have with everyone around us. That's an indication that there's something in the heart that needs to change. If you listen to the words coming out of your mouth,

what do they say about what's inside? Are they filled with faith and hope? If it is, it's because your heart is full of that. But if it's negative and discouraging, then maybe that's an indication that your heart is not where it needs to be. Someone came up to me, have you ever woken up grumpy? I said, no, I just let her sleep. What a joy, isn't it, for all of us to be around people who speak encouragement and life and joy? Sometimes I can walk into a store and the people are so cheerful and so life-giving, it just lifts the atmosphere in that whole place. We wanna be filled with that kind of life. Words not only spill or reveal, but words shape. In James 3, he talks about the bit in the horse's mouth. It talks about the rudder that controls the ship. And what he's trying to communicate here is that your words are like bits and rudders. They steer the direction of your future. And I think that's exactly what King Solomon was trying to communicate in Proverbs 18, verse 21. He says, death and life are in the power of the tongue. Your words have the ability to create life. Your words have the ability to create death. There is a creative process that unfolds. And I encourage you. I mean, if you don't believe this is true, you can just try it.

You can go home. If you're married, you know, you walk in the door, maybe you're the husband in the house, you walk in the door and I just challenge you to do what I did the other day with Laura. Just say, oh, honey, you are so beautiful. You are so amazing. You're the best cook in the world. You're the best, you know, partner. You're so organized and life-giving and encouraging. I can't believe that I got to marry you and watch what happens in the atmosphere of that home. And it's just as a matter of comparison, the next day you walk in and you try the other experiment. Life is bad. I'm so down. What, another burn offering? I stepped on the scale and I'm weighing more than I ever have. And you're not doing very good either. And just watch the bomb that explodes in that place. Laura and I, we got into a fight the other day, but she came crawling back. back to me on her hands and knees. And then she looked underneath the bed and said, come out of there and fight like a man. Our words have power, they create. I've learned over the years just how powerful our words can be. And so I like to do this.

I make lists of confessions that I will speak over my life. And every single week I'll take out these confessions and I'll speak over me what I want my life to become. And there's one of these confessions that I read every single week. Today I will love freely, I will live fearlessly, I will dream expectantly, I will laugh deeply, I will learn insatiably, I'll take initiative ferociously, I will think purely, I will forgive wholeheartedly, I will persevere tenaciously, I will serve humbly, I will choose wisely, I will rest completely, I will give generously, I will give thanks audaciously, and I will surrender trustingly. And I say these words over my life because I know that words are like the bit in a horse's mouth, like a rudder on a big ship. And I want the direction of my life to go where my words are taking them. Thank you. In Joel chapter three in verse 10, it says, let the weak say I am strong. It doesn't say let the weak call five friends and complain about how difficult life is. It says, let the weak say that I'm strong. Strong. I think that what this passage implies is that there are some things that are true about our life but are not ultimately true about our life. We might be feeling weak,

but the Bible doesn't say to complain about how weak we are. Let the weak say what is ultimately true about us, we are strong. Let the poor say that I am rich. Let the sick say that I am healed. Let the discouraged say that I am blessed. There is something about saying what God says about us, this might be true. But this is ultimately true. What this verse implies is that we have agency. We have the ability to choose what comes out of our mouth. And what the Bible teaches is that we need to put a filter on what comes out of our mouth. And that filter is faith. We have the power to choose. The Bible says that I set before you life and death, choose life. We have agency. We have the ability to speak the right words. And something supernatural happens when we do. Our words become, as Proverbs says, apples of gold and settings of silver. It takes courage in God's grace to speak about things you do not see. Anyone can tell you like it is. It takes someone pretty special to tell it like it can be. And scriptures are full of story after story of men and women who spoke their faith. And that's my challenge to you here today.

Speak your faith. Speak God's word. Put a filter on your words that change what comes out of your mouth. You think about the story of Abraham and he was taking his son Isaac up the mountain and he was to sacrifice his son and his son is a little bit concerned about what's taking place and turns to his father and says, where is the sacrifice? And Abraham was also perplexed about this whole situation, but he spoke his faith. He said, the Lord will provide for himself a sacrifice. Yes. Moses was standing at the edge of the Red Sea, a mountain on one side, a mountain on the other. The Egyptians coming up the rear and the Egyptians were ferociously revenge-minded and the children of Israel are paralyzed with fear and they come up to Moses, did you just bring us out here in the wilderness to die? And Moses didn't know how it was all gonna work out, but he raises his staff and then he turns to the children of Israel and says, today you will see the deliverance of your God and miracle of miracles, the Red Sea parts. David is facing Goliath in the valley between two armies and Goliath is big and strong, a warrior from his youth, nine feet tall and David comes running up,

Goliath is making fun of him, he's just a youth, he's just a boy casting insults at him. But then David looks up at Goliath and says, today the Lord is gonna deliver you into my hands, today there will be a victory, today God's gonna give me the power to overcome. His knees might've been having some fellowship, but his words were words of faith and power. Could I hear a good amen? Thank you. I need to be reminded of this. And so I imagine that all of us do here today. Sometimes I can be facing some difficult circumstances and I can get down in the mouth. I can be facing maybe some challenging health circumstances or challenging family dynamics or maybe even challenges here at the church. And I can bring those challenges home and just kind of talk about them in a negative way. Well, this happened a number of years ago when we were building this particular sanctuary on the north side of campus, north side of town, our north campus. And I was thinking about how audacious it was that we were doing what we were doing. And an article appeared, I think it was in the Austin American Statesman and they were talking about shoreline. And there was one line in this particular article. I don't know why it just grabbed a hold of my heart,

but it did. They said, it's hard to imagine that this church that's now meeting in an old grocery store with hundreds of plastic chairs are building the largest sanctuary in Central Texas. I'm sure that they meant it as a compliment, but when I read it, oh my gosh, my heart was pierced with fear. And I thought to myself, what are we doing? I thought to myself, we bit off more than we could chew. There's no way that this is gonna happen. We're gonna be an embarrassment to everyone. They're gonna make fun of us and laugh at us. We started to build a tower and we couldn't finish it. All of these thoughts were running through my mind. And I remember coming home to Laura and she was very gracious and kind at first, but then a couple of days and maybe even a couple of weeks of hearing this negativity, she just looked up at me one day and she said, you know what, you need to have a quiet time. You need to take all of this to Jesus. And she wasn't wrong. I didn't appreciate the tone that she said it in. But she wasn't wrong. And I still remember just getting down on my knees and praying, God, I think we heard you. I think we've been following your voice. And so I'm putting all of this in your hands. And I remember specifically God gently encouraging me

to speak my faith, to put a filter on my words, not to speak my fears, not to speak my doubts, not to speak all the negative, can't imagine it happening phrases that were coming out of my mouth. Let my words come out of a heart filled with faith. My God, put the stars in the sky. My God, split the Red Sea. My God, joins Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace. My God, walked on the water. My God, can feed the 5000. My God, raised people from the dead. My God. We need to learn to block out the negative voices that wanna poison our hearts, poison our faith. We're in this series, fight the good fight of faith. We gotta make that connection to what we say. You know, Laura is a part of a few small groups. One of her life groups means so much to her. They've adopted a phrase that they've been saying to each other for the last couple of months. I don't know, I started hearing about it, you know, about six months ago or so. And she's saying it more and more and more. And I've been really intrigued. In fact, I've been adopting this phrase myself, not as much as she has, but I've been adopting it because it's so true. I did a little bit of research on this particular phrase,

and it's a combination of thoughts that have developed, you know, throughout, you know, the history of Christendom. It started back in the 14th century with a lady, Lady Julian, who famously recorded her vision of Jesus, telling her that it shall be well, it shall be well. George Washington, the last words he ever spoke on planet Earth was it is well. A famous song was written after a family tragedy where a father lost four of his daughters in a tragic sinking of a ship. And he wrote the words to a song that became one of the most famous songs in all of Christendom. It is well with my soul. So I'm not exactly sure where the inspiration, but Laura has taken, you know, this with her friends. She's taken this idea that all is well, it shall be well. And she makes that statement. Sometimes I'll come home and I say, hey, you know, we're facing this situation. We're facing this challenge. And she'll say to me, all is well, it shall be well. This past weekend, I was standing in front of the mirror at our house and water started coming out of the light fixture above my head. And I turned to Laura and I said, I don't think that's supposed to happen. All is well, all shall be well. I was thinking, oh my gosh, the water's gonna cascade, ruin the carpets, ruin the floor.

We're gonna have all kinds. All is well, all shall be well. And you might think that that's a Pollyanna statement, but the truth is it's rooted in scripture. All is well, no matter what's taking place around you. All is well. We've been forgiven by the blood of the lamb. We've been made brand new. God who created the world lives on the inside of us. All is well and all shall be well. That's backed up by a promise that God is able to make all things work out for good. For those who are called according to his purpose and heaven is the ultimate, it all shall be well reality. It is well, it will be well. Let's speak our faith. Let's fight the good fight of faith with the right filter on our words. Let's fill our hearts with good and speak good. Let's fill our hearts with faith and speak faith. Let's fill our hearts with encouragement and speak encouragement. Let's fill our hearts with life and speak life. Can I hear a good amen? Come on, let's give God praise together here today. Father, I thank you so much for the opportunity to be together. Lord, I pray that all of us would learn to turn a deaf ear to the negative lies of the enemy and the darkness and the discouragement

that is so prevalent around us. Father, let us speak life, joy, peace, promises and your goodness to us, in Jesus name. Let's remain in an attitude of prayer for just a moment longer. If you came to church here today and you'd say, pastor, I'm not where I need to be with God. This is honestly the most important moment in our service. If you came to church today and you're not where you need to be with God and you say, pastor, I'm not living right. I'm not doing right. I'm not where I ought to be. I need prayer. Maybe you made that decision at one point in time but you slipped away or maybe you've never invited Jesus into your heart. But if you came to church today and you wanna get right with God, meet Him for the first time or rededicate your life to serving Him, would you please boldly, enthusiastically, with joy, just raise your hand quickly and boldly wherever you are here today. Wonderful, God bless you. God bless you. Awesome, amazing. All these hands raised. All of you with your hands raised, I wanna lead you in a very simple prayer

to invite Jesus into your heart. And I want you to pray this prayer out loud after me. And I'm gonna ask everyone else in this congregation, I know you've already done it at some point in time in your Christian journey, but as a reaffirmation of your faith in God, let's join those who are praying perhaps for the first time. Let's all of us pray together. Heavenly Father, let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for sending Jesus. Jesus, I ask you to come into my heart. Forgive me of all my sins. I put my trust in you. And I will live for you from this day forward by your power, for your glory. In Jesus name, amen, amen. Give him a great big hand clap. In a moment, we're gonna be dismissed. And when we are, all of you who raised your hands, I want you to go either to my right or to my left. There's a sign that's being raised up that says made brand new. We wanna give you some resources, give you some information that'll really help you to live this Christian life that you just prayed to receive. On your way out, don't forget to grab some invite cards to our very, very special celebration of 250 years. If you've got a prayer request, please come forward. Our prayer partners will meet you here.

They'd be delighted to pray a prayer of faith over your heart and over your life. Let's all of us stand to our feet. And I just wanna speak this blessing, this word of faith over your life. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face to you and give you peace. God bless you. Have a fantastic rest of your weekend. And we look forward to seeing you next Sunday. God bless.