Enduring Hardness

Transcript

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 0:01

So many of us in our lives, we have had moments. And we we still have moments. And then if the Lord continues to allow us to live, we're gonna have even more moments and times when we feel like how can I say it just seemed like sometimes things can just be so hard. No matter what you try, no matter what you do, it can just seem like things can just be so hard at times. What are you dealing with situations when you're dealing with family, where you were dealing with people, whatever, it just Lord, I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying, but it just seems like certain things are hard. Now, let us understand this that a lot of hearts, hardships, if you would, are gonna come into our lives as a result of stuff we doing, of stuff we have caused, whether that be through ignorance and doing certain things, whether it be through certain decisions we make in our lives, whether there be certain choices that we shouldn't have made, whether there be certain people where we shouldn't allow to enter into our lives in the first place. It could be a monopoly of things, and even a multitude of different factors in our lives which cause certain things we have done. Now, that is one category, but the category I want to talk about this morning is the hardship things we may have to undergo as a result of our spiritual lives. Now, that stuff we cause our own selves, that we're gonna have to deal with that on our own. We've got to as Lord just give strength, do that, because contrary to what we may believe, God ain't called that stuff in your lives because you wouldn't listen to somebody because you you made the wrong choices. That's stuff we did, and we got to accept responsibility for that. But the stuff that we must encounter in our spiritual lives as a result of being saved, this is what I wanna, this is what I want to touch on this morning. When you are called, let me say it like this. I ain't gonna hold you too long, but I want to I wanna I want to hit the nail on the head. When we are called to be saved by God, hallelujah, when God calls us out of darkness into his marvelous life, and make choice of us to place our feet on a path of his righteousness for his glory, the path that he set our feet up on, being saved, being the children of God, we are automatically on this journey down the road, up ahead, gonna have moments, gonna have days, gonna have periods where we face certain hardships as a result of our spiritual lives. And to help us accept that and help us understand that, we must realize that when we step over into the spiritual realm of things, if you would, there are not only just the spirits of God and good spirits. There are dark spirits and there are evil spirits which are gonna try to contradict our living for the Lord, which is gonna is gonna manifest itself to us as hardships because our spiritual man is gonna have to deal with the warfare or the fighting, if you would, with those spirits that's trying to bring hardship upon our lives spiritually. And that in itself is gonna make it, they're gonna make it seem like life is so hard because they're fighting against us so that we will never have the one thing that will be the ultimate reward for our living for the Lord. And that one thing, that ultimate one thing is to have eternal life. And that comes at a price. Now, that price is not something we can do to pay for eternal life, because that's already been that's already been made available. Jesus did everything he's supposed to do for eternal life. Where our fight comes in at the life we must live until we get eternal life. Eternal life is already available. We ain't trying to pay for eternal life. But until Jesus comes back and we obtain the fullness of eternal life.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

There is a life we must live.

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 6:35

And the enemy, the spirits of wickedness and darkness, is gonna try to make that life hard. And it's gonna, and one thing that's gonna make me sad is some of us can go through some hardness to the point that some of us, when I say us, I'm talking about those of us who are called the children of God, not so much us who was on the conference line this morning, but it has caused a lot of us who are called to be children of God to have thoughts of giving up. To have thoughts I can't take no more. To have thoughts, I don't went as far as I can go, Lord. I just can't see myself going through nothing there. Because see, you tell, if if one more thing happens, if just if it's just one more bottom fall out, I just don't see how I'm gonna make it. I don't see how I'm gonna hold on. I don't see how I'm gonna have the strength to take just one more thing. Because to me, that's what we tell ourselves, tell the Lord, because to me, Lord, I'm all burnt out. Through. And we should have been allowed to enemy to give us this mindset that we threw, that we finna give up on the Lord, that we're finna turn around, that we're finna bachelize. And what we fail to realize, being that we're operating in the spiritual, is that's exactly the victory that the enemy wants to hear come out of your mouth, is that you are about to give up. Because if you're about to give up, he knows you ain't far from giving up. And he knows if you give up, now he know ain't no way you're gonna obtain eternal life. The ultimate reward, because he can't get it, and he's trying to keep us from getting it. And that's a victory for him. I done tricked one mo from holding on, I done tricked one mout of the prize of eternal life. Because I made them think that it's too hard to make it. Because I made them forget about that they weren't supposed to be trusting in their strength in the first place, because I done made them forget about that they are supposed to be trusting in the strength of God, and I done made them forget about what the book said, that his strength, the God that they serve, strength is made perfect in weakness. I done made them forget about that because I done dumped so much problems on them, so much hardness on them, that I done made them forget about everything that book said and what the word of God stands for. And the enemy considered that's a victory. And this is what I'm talking about this morning. We're gonna have to learn how to deal with those moments of hardness.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

And it's gonna get hard.

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 10:02

I don't care how much people go around singing, I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me. Nobody told me that the road would be easy. You sang that all you want to, because but when it comes time to live that, it's gonna get hard sometimes. The road's gonna not be easy some days. But through Christ, here it is. I'm gonna give you the answer to the solution. Because I I I I'm not don't preach doom and gloom. I preach hope.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

I preach the truth. But I also speak the reality. What we're going through is very real.

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 10:47

What we're going through does pull on our spirit, does pull on our lives, does suck the strength out of us. But Jesus, he who is the overcomer, if you will just latch on to and plug into and engage in him who is the overcomer, you and I too can be overcomers no matter what we may face.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

See, even though we go through harsh, I'm finna give you some words. Just hold on, just hold on there. See, no matter what we go through, no matter how hard it gets, the power of the Lord is there available for us.

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 11:40

Because the Lord and our total, he see, Jesus knew this too before we even came to existence. That's why the word tells us we ought to be casting our cares upon him. If we would just learn how to stop trying to fix it ourselves, stop trying to uh use our own strength, learn how to take it to the Lord and actually leave it there with the Lord and go on about your ability to go somewhere and sit down somewhere. Do what you can. But what you can't do, trust the Lord. Just put it in there, Lord. I did all I can do that I'm capable of doing. Now the rest of this is out of my hands, Lord. I'm gonna have to give it to you. And that's when we should let our faith kick in and just go to trust in the Lord. Which means, okay, when you get to the Lord now, when you get to the Lord, when we get to the Lord now, that means you can no longer go by what you see. Hear me? You can no longer go by how you feel or how the situation makes you feel. You can no longer, you can no longer go on what you hear. How other people talking about the situation, how how other people say, Lord, if it was me, girl, a man if I if I was you, you can't go on what you hear now because you don't give it to the Lord. Y'all know how done told y'all, the Holy Ghost talked to me all the time. Let me tell y'all again, we hear rehearsing your memory. I was thinking a certain way one time, and the Holy Ghost spoke to me, just as plain as day, and this stuff with me, and I watched myself known. He said, We don't think like that of him.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

See, the way we think down him, that ain't the way they're thinking him.

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 13:43

And what the Holy Ghost was trying to tell me is we may be down here, but we supposed to think like the very people that we are becoming a part of in the body of Christ. We are to think heavenly minded, even though we are earthbound at the time, right now. Other words, we ain't supposed to think like we from him. We ain't supposed to act like we from him. All that doom and gloom. Because all the beings in heaven, minds are staying on the Lord, and when we take on the mind of Christ, who left him, we are yet supposed to take on his mindset, even though we are here to think just like Jesus. That's what the Bible, that's what my Bible teaches. Let this mind be in you. And when we learn how to start thinking like the Lord wants us to think, we'll start seeing our situations from a whole different perspective. And we'll we'll look at our situations from a different type of spiritual vision. And we'll automatically see this is something God can handle. Instead of saying this is something that's gonna take us out, because if they cut our lights off one more time, we can't afford to be in the dark as high as hill with no air and nothing blowing and then everything. We'll stop looking at the situation from a carnal perspective or earth perspective. We'll start seeing it from a spiritual perspective. Now, I'm not crazy, I'm not not being unrealistic because I know a lot of us not gonna get there to this point I'm talking about overnight. And I nobody gets there overnight, but you can be striving in your faith walk. See, faith walk means you're taking steps. You might not be there yet, but you you you're moving forward. You're taking steps. Each step brings you closer and closer to where you need to be in the Lord. Instead of standing still in one's place and getting comfortable, instead of bagging up, backsliding, we're supposed to be taking steps forward.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

This life is gonna have moments of hardship.

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 16:29

But I tell you, like I've told you before, there is no situation harder than God. And if we will just trust Him, He will create in us such a hardness against problems, a hardness, against the attacks, a hardness against situations. It won't matter how crazy your wife is, it won't matter how crazy your husband is, it won't matter how hard-headed your children is, it won't matter how messy your coworkers are, it won't matter. Hallelujah. Because you're looking to the heel for what's coming to your heal. You're looking to Jesus, the author and the finish of our faith. You're looking to a higher power, and you have learned to accept and believe in your spirit and in your heart that greater is he that is in me.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Hallelujah. Is he that is in the world. The word of God says this as Paul was talking to Timothy in one of his letters.

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 17:54

He says, Thou. Thou mean you. You and I. He talking to he's talking to Timothy, but this word is to us. Put yourself down. Thou means you. You, therefore, endure hardness. Endure the hardness. Take it, go through it. Because you ain't didn't your strength gonna get you through it. Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Know who you belong to. You can endure the hardness when you know that you belong to Jesus Christ, when you know that you want to his soldiers, when you know that you want to heal. You can endure the hardness because when you want to heal, he's gonna supply you with his strength to endure the hardness, to take it, to stand. Jesus ain't asking us to do, he ain't never told us to do some of our own strength. We ought to be using his strength. Our strength can't handle spiritual stuff, just can't handle natural stuff. He said, Endu it. Why, Jesus, why are you trying to mean to do hardness? Because if you endure it, if you take it, that's gonna be part of you helping you to receive that ultimate reward that you're trying to get, that eternal life. You gotta take it. Because we gotta stop thinking something strange happening. We gotta get out of that frame of mind thinking that something strange is going on. Yeah, it's strange, but it ain't strange. When you're looking at it, when you're looking at it from a carnal perspective, a natural perspective, it's gonna look strange. But when you look at it from a spiritual perspective, you're gonna say, uh-huh, I see what's behind this now. So you gotta always you gotta you always gotta look deeper. Stop using your natural eyes and use your spiritual eyes. When a situation gonna happen, look look deeper. And I guarantee you're gonna see the spiritual enemy behind it. Why in the world is my husband acting so stupid? Look deeper. Stop looking at him. Look deeper. Oh, this is the devil behind the devil done got any. Why is my wife acting such a fool? Stop looking at her, look deeper. And you'll see the enemy is playing with her mind. Why is every last one? Do every last one of my children got to be hard-headed? Do all of them got to act like they done lost their mind? Look deeper, look past that. They don't care nothing about children. Y'all better stop thinking that like the enemies and demons in the spiritual realm care anything about children. They don't care nothing about no child. They'll jump right in and make you thinking, Lord, what's wrong with my baby? See, we gotta stop looking at things. You better look at them devils, look past what I'm saying, spiritually, and learn how to pray. And you will understand all that stuff that's going on in the people around you, is designed to attack your faith. It's designed to get to you, the one that's professing being saved, to get you from stop walking your saved walk. You think it's them, but the attack, you think they've been attacked, but the attack is really against you to wear you down. Because your heart is attached to all these people in your circle. Your heart is attached to them. So the attack to get to you, the enemy is gonna go through those that's closest to you. To throw you off your spiritual walk, to throw you off your spiritual stance. But when you're looking at it from the perspective of the word of God, this ain't nothing strange. This ain't nothing but the enemy trying to attack me. So many times I wake up, y'all, some morning, and I can tell, I don't say I'm gonna be attacked, but what I do say to them spirits, I say, okay, this is gonna be a test day. I can tell this is good when it's gonna be a test day. My faith is gonna be a test day because I can tell, I can just feel something. The enemy on he on he on the wallpass, he's finna try to attack me today, and the day's gonna be a test of my faith. I ain't scared of him. I ain't worried about what he thinks he's gonna do. But I know I got I keep my garder because I know this is gonna be a test day. The test of my faith. The test of me standing with the word of God. And that's where we got to be and not think that something strange is happening. It ain't strange when you're looking at it from a spiritual perspective. We in warfare, and the Bible teaches that we've been in warfare since day one. We just want such a calm, peaceful life now, spiritually, and it's not time for that. We got to stand and fight, and we got to hold on, and we must endure until the end.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

I'm gonna leave you with this. This one script in Peter.

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 23:58

I want to be this direct, so trying to get at least 30 minutes in before I hear him knocking at the door. Keep this in mind. Each and every day of your spiritual life.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

I'm not gonna lie, you turn around. Because I'm gonna give you the truth with the love of God and let you know that with the love of God, we all can hold on.

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 24:39

I'm gonna leave you with this script here. In 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 10. He says this. But the God of all grace who has called us into his eternal glory. See, that's what the enemy don't want us to have. He don't want us to be a part of God's eternal glory. That's why we got to we got to understand when we go through these hard times, it's the enemy trying to make us give up, trying to make us turn around, trying to make us second-guess God. But you've got to resist that and know that God, He has called us into His eternal glory by His grace. And you don't want to miss what He has prepared for us. Let me tell you again, but the God of all grace, who has called us into His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, He says, after that you have suffered a while, we're gonna have to take some things out. Some things we're gonna have to just go through. Some things we're gonna have to suffer. But don't worry. He's gonna give us the strength to go through it. He ain't gonna let us be alone while we're going through. But he said, after you've done suffered a while, some things you're gonna have to take because the enemy sees you standing up to live a saved life. And he hates that. He sees you standing up trying to do right as best you know how. He sees you trying to hold on so that one day you see the Lord's face. And that's gonna require some suffering on our parts because we are in, we're, this is not our home. We're in a place until he comes back and get us. Some days we're gonna have to suffer. We've got to take somebody talking about you. You've got to take some uh foolishness with our relatives. You got to go through some stuff. But then know this God is with you. He said, after you have suffered a while, make you perfect. And I tell you all the time, we gotta stop thinking that words in the Bible, the word perfect means without faults, ain't got no. This is a this is a Greek word means it's spelled the same, but it means spiritually mature. That type of thing, because ain't nobody naturally perfect, but spiritually perfect. Other words, mature in the word of God, mature in your faith, mature in the things that God done said in his word. God allows us to go through certain things because he also teaches us while we're going through a suffering. Go through something now. When you come out of it, you know, you see life in a whole different perspective than you once did. Because now you done went through something. Now you have experienced something, and those experiences will be with you the rest of your life. He's trying to make you spiritually mature in him. So now that you done went through something him, the next time you go through something, you'll know that God got me through that last thing. And I can see I'm gonna go through something else. He's gonna go take me through this too. It builds your faith in him the more you go through for him. Make you perfect, establish you, strengthen you, and God knows we're gonna need this, and you cannot make it in this world, in this life, without the strength of God. Our strength ain't gonna never be enough because it runs out. We get weak. But his strength, the word of God tells us, is made perfect in weakness. Whenever you're weak, just trust in God's strength. So, Lord, I try my strength to run out. But your strength is inexhaustible. And I'm trusting you, Lord. I need you to touch me. I need some strength to get through this I'm going through because I know I ain't gonna make it without it. He is there to strengthen us. And if we just put our faith in his strength, it works. Trust me, his strength works, his strength works, especially in times of hardness, especially in times of going through. And the last thing in this scripture, let me go back and read it one more time before I get to that last part. I'm gonna let you go. But the God of all grace who has called us. See, you've been we've been called, y'all. We ain't no way we can get out of it. You can try to run, you can try to deny it. But God done called us. He called us into this eternal glory. Let me say it another way to help us understand. God done called a lot of us to be a part of eternal life. That's that's his eternal glory. Okay, but it's gonna you it's gonna cost you something in your living. And in our living gonna be some hardship, and our living gonna be some adversaries to keep us from living this life that we're supposed to live. But we gotta resist and we gotta put up a fight. Who has called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus? He did it through Jesus, because Jesus won't shed the blood. After that, you have suffered a while. Now, God only knows how long your while is gonna be. God only knows how long my while is gonna be. All of us don't go through stuff the same. But that's not the rule of God, because we differ. He knows it's gonna take for you, because some of us is hard-headed and stubborn. And he knows just how long each one of us is going to suffer a little bit the while. Whatever your while is, accept it. After that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, which means spiritually mature, establish. So some of us need to be established in the Lord, deepen our faith in what we is, strengthen, have the strength to stand. The strength, building up your strength for the next thing you got to go through. See, some of us was weak in the last thing we went through, and we never built up our strength in preparation for the next thing we go through because we thought we'd got scot free. Oh, that's over. That done fans. I'm good. No, you better get some sense. Because after Swan Bang over, sooner or later, the next thing is gonna come up, and you need to be built up in your strength. And here's the last thing to settle you. Brothers and sisters, a lot of us are not gonna be where we need to be in the Lord until we get ourselves, get our minds right on this one thing. Let God settle you. Some of our spirits are not settled. Some of our minds are not settled in the fact that we are here to live for the Lord. And He didn't put you here to do what you want to do. We ain't settled. Our hearts ain't settled, our lives ain't settled, our decision making ain't settled. We ain't at peace even within our own self, let alone talk about heaven. I need peace in my house. You ain't got peace in your heart. Because we're not settled. And God wants to settle us. And some of the very things we're going through, those hardships we're going through, we were talking about this morning, God will use some of them to settle us down. Trust me, he knows just how to do it. I love all of you with the love of God. But we got to stop lacking the knowledge and the understanding of why certain things are going on in our lives. That's because I'm talking about the spiritual stuff, not the natural stuff this time. You know what you don't need in your own lives that cause some problem, but the spiritual side, we got to understand why things have happened.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

It's because God has chosen us to be saved.

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 33:14

Which means he has taken us out of the hands of the devil. And the devil don't like that. But he can't do nothing about it. God makes choice of who he wants to make choice of. Okay, but he is going to be on an unrelenting endeavor to try to snatch us back into sin out of the hands of God if he can. But if we stay focused and stay on track for God, we will become a part of God's eternal glory and we will reap the ultimate reward of eternal life if we learn how to endure the hardness now and stay fixed in the Lord until we see his face. God bless you. And I pray that something will see you to help somebody this morning.