Hey, welcome home everybody! You're watching Legacy
Television! I'm Jeremy Pearsons. So glad to have you in the house
today. You need to know this, you are always welcomed in the
house of faith. We're a family! This isn't some organization,
this isn't some "denomination," if you will. But we are a
family. We're the family of God, we're the family of faith, and
there is a place for you and everybody in it. Father, we
worship you today. You are a good Father God. We glorify you.
Thank you for making a place for us in your family. Thank you for
carving out a place for every person, where they would fit in
a unique way, fit in a precise way. Precisely called by you
with an anointing, and with a purpose in their life. And I
thank you Lord that as we get into your Word today, you give
us eyes that see deeper into that calling. You give us the
ears that hear the voice of our good shepherd, Jesus, who calls
us by our name and leads us out of wherever we are, and into
what you called us into, Lord. And Father, we come before your
Word with an open heart today. Open and ready to see, ready to
hear, ready to understand more about who we are in Jesus, who
Jesus is in us. We thank you for your Word. We give you thanks
and praise for every good thing you've done, what you are doing,
and all that is yet to come. In Jesus' name, amen. Listen, I
want you to get your Bible if you can. If you can't, then
we're going to put some scriptures on the screen. I want
you to make sure at some point though, you set your eyes on the
Word of God. You know, that's who really, the Word works for.
It's those who keep it in their eyes. Those who keep it going in
their ears, getting in their heart. Those who will keep the
Word by doing the Word. That's who receives the blessing of the
Lord, and that really has a lot to do with what we've been
talking about over the last couple of weeks of broadcasts.
We began a series a couple of weeks ago called, "Keepers of
The Faith." That's you, that's me. We are keepers of the faith,
and I'm telling you we're making the decision, the declaration,
the determination right here and now that the way we live between
now and then is we are going to live in such a way that we come
to the end of this life, the end of this road, and say to the
Lord Jesus, "We have fought the good fight, we have finished our
race, and we have kept the faith." As a matter of fact,
let's look at that scripture together. In the book of second
Timothy, Paul is writing to this young man, and is writing to him
at the end of his life. At the the closing days, if you will,
of his life in ministry. Matter of fact, he says that. Verse six
of second Timothy, in chapter four he says, "I am already
being poured out as a drink offering, for the time of my
departure is that hand." "I have," he said, "fought the good
fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." And
we've talked a lot about this already, but let me remind you.
Most people, if they are honest with themselves and honest with
God, when they come to the end of their lives they would be
forced to say, "I didn't fight a good fight. I fought poorly."
Most people, if they were honest, they'd have to say, "I
didn't finish the race. I quit early." And many people would
have to say, if they were honest with God and themselves, they'd
have to say, "I lost my faith somewhere along the way." You
know, just because you get to the end of your life doesn't
automatically mean you get to open the Bible and say these
things Paul said. These words are reserved for a precious few
people. Who can say them honestly in the presence of God
and honestly look themselves in the mirror and say, "I have
fought the good fight. I fought and I was good at it"? Over the
years, over the course of my life, I've developed a technique
and a way of fighting. This is what you want to be able to say.
This is what I want to be able to say, that I've developed in
my technique of walking, living and fighting the fight of faith.
I want to be able to say to the Lord, "I've finished the race
that you set me on." Not, "Hey, I started it but I quit early."
No, He's not interested in somebody just starting a race.
He's looking for people who finish. Are you a finisher? Or
are you a quitter? There's a difference between finishing and
being finished. And I don't want to come to a place in my race
where I feel like I'm finished and I just have to quit. No, I
am going to stick with this thing all the way through. But
as much, or more than any of these things, I want to be able
to look Jesus in the eye and say, "Lord Jesus, I kept the
faith. I didn't let Satan steal it from me. I didn't let anyone
or anything else talk me out of it. I didn't let anything or
anyone pressure me out of my faith. I kept it. I guarded it.
I protected it. I wouldn't let anything steal it." And I want
to look Jesus in the eye and say, "I kept what you gave me
because it was valuable." I don't want to have to say, "Well
I lost my faith somewhere along the way." No, I kept it. We want
to be keepers of the faith. We've talked a lot about
endurance. This is an element of our spiritual fitness that
really, without it, Paul couldn't have said any one of
these things. It takes endurance to fight and fight well. It
takes endurance to run and finish a race. It takes almost
no endurance to start a race. Did you realize that? Anybody
can start a race, but not everybody can finish one. It
requires endurance and it most definitely requires endurance to
keep the faith. You've got to endure some stuff if you're
going to hang on to your faith. The word says, "Endure hardness
like a good soldier." There are things that you and I have to
endure. We have to endure pressure that comes from Satan
to steal the word. We've got to last longer than him. Our faith
in God has to last longer than his pressing and pressure
against us. You gotta be able to last longer than symptoms. You
got to be able to last longer than what it looks like or feels
like. You've got to be able to outlast your own senses. You've
got to be able to outlast some annoying, crazy people. Do you
realize that? You've got to be able to endure. We looked in the
book of Hebrews, chapter ten. Turn back there with me. Let me
show you one more thing. Talking about endurance, we were looking
in Hebrews ten. Verse thirty six says, "You have need of
endurance." But skip ahead to chapter twelve and listen to
this. I like this. Hebrews twelve, verse one. "Therefore we
also, since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily
ensnares us, and let us run with endurance." There it is again!
"Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." How
do we do that? "Looking unto Jesus, the author and the
finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross." Can you hear this coming up and coming out
over and over? You run with endurance. How are you going to
do it? Look at Jesus. He is your example of endurance. What did
He do? He "endured the cross, He despised the shame, and has sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God." How did Jesus
endure the cross and everything that went with that? Everything
that entailed, not just physically, but more so
spiritually. How did He endure all of that? Well it's very
clear. It was the joy that was set before Him. Jesus had His
eyes on the joy that was set out there in front of Him, and there
was something in front of Him that was sustaining Him and
causing Him to preserve, and it was preserving Him, and
strengthening Him. It was that joy. And well, we know this,
"The joy of the Lord is our strength." What was that joy? It
was you. It was me. Having us back in the family of God was
the joy set out there in front of Jesus. And it was that joy
that strengthened Him. That caused Him to be able to endure
the cross. To endure the shame. This goes on in verse three,
"For consider Him who," say it out loud, "ENDURED such
hostility from sinners against Himself, less you become weary
and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to
bloodshed, striving against sin. Consider Him who endured such
hostility from sinners against Himself." The Bible said of all
the things you and I have to endure to keep our faith, one of
the things we've got to endure, like I said, is people. You have
got to endure some people. There are people in and around your
life - have you figured this out yet? - that are not totally on
board with you in this "God" thing. You in this "faith"
thing. There are some people that it just does not make sense
to them. And there are people who will quietly disagree with
you, and then there are those, maybe you're related to some,
that will very openly and publicly disagree with you, and
may just downright persecute you for your stance of faith. Well,
the scripture tells you what to do in the middle of that.
"Consider Him who endured." Get your mind and your eyes off of
you and what you're going through, and get your mind and
your eyes on Jesus and what He went through. "Consider Him who
endured these kinds of people, lest you become weary." You get
worn out. And if you get worn out you quit early. Who is that
quits the race early? People that get tired. People that have
no more strength. No more endurance. And he said, "You're
going to get worn out. You're going to become weary. And
you're going to be discouraged in your soul." Now, it's one
thing to be tired in your body. I have been there, you have too.
What do you do? If you can, take some time off, go get some rest.
Get a little extra sleep, pop up... You feel good, you're
renewed. It's another thing entirely to be wearied and
discouraged in your soul. Now this is something you want to
take a special guard against. If you're going to be a keeper of
the faith, you're going to have to guard against getting
discouraged in your soul. Because if Satan can get you
worn out and discouraged in your soul, you're just moments away
from quitting the race, bowing out of the fight and losing the
faith. So what do we do? We get our eyes back on Jesus. We
consider Him. We meditate on Him. If you have to, in the
middle of it you just go back and you let the Holy Spirit do
what only the Holy Spirit can do, and you say, "Holy Ghost,
take me back to Calvary. Take me back to the cross." Right now,
I'm telling you to do this. If you've got symptoms of sickness
in your body, you do this right now. If you're dealing with
persecution from people, you do this right now. "Holy Ghost,
take me back to Calvary. Put me there. Put me in the presence of
what was going on there, then, that day! Show me Jesus on that
cross. Remind me of the punishment He took for me.
Remind me of the stripes that He bore. Remind me of the crown of
thorns that was on His head." And you let the Holy Spirit put
you there, and take you back to the foot of that cross and you
consider Him who endured all of this for you. Now we read this.
And we read on and it says, "less you become weary,
discouraged in your souls." Verse four. "You've not yet
resisted the bloodshed, striving against sin." What's that a
reference to? If you think back on it, do you remember Jesus
just moments before the cross? Moments before His betrayal in
the garden. He was there, with some of His disciples and He
left them and He said what? "Watch and pray." Simple
assignment right? "Watch and pray." Interesting thing about
that assignment is if you look up this word we've been talking
about, "keep," being a "keeper of the faith," "I have kept the
faith," that word "keep." It literally means, "to watch,
watch for, be on the guard, protect." You know, if you've
got a guard who's asleep at the door, he's not protecting your
stuff very well at all, is he? So protecting has everything to
do with being awake. Being watchful. Being on the guard.
And that's what Jesus left His disciples to do. He told them
very simply, "watch and pray," and He went a little further and
He fell down, you remember this, and He cried out to God. "My
God, if there's any way this cup can pass for me." But then what
did He say? "Not my will, but yours be done." He came back to
the disciples and, of course, He found them. They're just praying
right? Praying in the Holy Ghost and interceding on His behalf?
No. What's the matter? He found these guys doing what? Sleeping.
Sound asleep. What's the problem? No endurance. "Could
you not," and this is - these are the words of Jesus, "Could
you not watch and pray for one hour?" No endurance. Now let me
just throw this in here while we're talking about this. You
know, we live in a culture, and we're bringing up another
generation into this culture that has a very short attention
span. Have you noticed that? That we, as a community, as a
culture, our attention span is getting shorter and shorter and
shorter. Years ago, Sarah and I used to get into this show on
television, and I noticed after watching several episodes of the
show, I said to her, "Do you notice how short these scenes
are?" It's like they do these short little scenes where a
couple of people say a few words to each other, then "bam!" On to
something else, and then on to something else, and then on to
something else. And I realized, and it took me a few episodes to
realize, the people making these shows and these movies they
realize that people don't have an attention span anymore.
They've got to keep it moving just to keep anybody's
attention. But I'm gonna tell you something. That's not okay.
Especially when it comes to you and I being able to watch and
pray. When it comes to you and I receiving from God, it's not
okay to have no attention span. That's not okay, and it's not
okay for our young people, our teenagers that we're bringing up
in church, in youth culture, it's not okay for them to have
no attention span. You want to know one of the reasons we even
in the church have no attention span? It's because it's not
required of us. We build these services with the motivation of,
"How quickly can we get people out." And that's the reason we
can't "attend" to the Word of God. It's because nobody is
requiring us to attend to it. But it's not okay. And if I have
any young people, teenagers, early twenties, if you're
listening to this broadcast I'm going to tell you something. You
need to be able to sit and hear the Word of God without a bunch
of fanfare. Without a bunch of flashing lights and without a
bunch of stuff to try to keep your attention. You need to be
able to sit and listen for an hour. You need to be able to
open the Word of God and spend time in it. Just you and your
bible for a length of time without getting distracted. I'm
talking to myself right now too, okay? I know what it's like. I
know what it's like to read my Bible with my phone sitting next
to me and being a slave to the vibration of this little thing.
Being a slave to the announcement, "Hey, you have a
text message." I know what that's like, but it's not okay.
It's not okay to live a relationship with God with such
a short attention span, being so easily distracted, and I think
we're going to get into that more in tomorrow's broadcast.
But Jesus left those guys there and He went away and He fell
down, and the pressure on Him and what He was about to go
through was so strong, and he was resisting that pressure in
such an intense way that, you remember this, great drops of
blood began to form on his skin. And he resisted to bloodshed.
And that's why this says here in Hebrews twelve, "Consider Him.
Because you have not yet resisted to bloodshed." And I
think we've read that for so long like, "Oh, yeah, you know
what? You're right. What I'm going through compared to what
Jesus went through it's not a big deal. I can get through
this." And we read what He did and we've said, "If He could do
that, then I can do this." But I think that's reading it wrong.
It's not to be read like this, "If He did that, then you can do
this." You need to read it like this, "Because He did that, you
can make it through this. Because He resisted, you can
resist. Because He endured, you can endure." That's why you've
got to get your eyes, your mind, your attention and your focus
back on Jesus. If you're going to keep the faith, you're going
to have to have eyes up front, eyes on Him at all times,
because when your eyes get off Jesus that's when you begin to
lose faith. Ask Peter. Ask Peter about that day Jesus went
walking to Him on the water, and Peter yelled out, "Hey, if
that's you." Because Jesus had already said, "It's me! Don't be
afraid," and Peter said, "Hey, if it really is you, then tell
me to come out there and walk to you." Which, I think I am going
to ask him about this, as a matter of fact. I mean this, to
me, is kind of a strange way of proving it. There's easier ways
to prove that this is Jesus. But this is what Peter came up with
and this is what he said. "If it's You, tell me to come
walking to you." And Jesus said, "Come." And Peter got out of the
boat, you remember this, you've heard it. And he stepped on top
of that water and there was foundation underneath his foot,
where once there was none. And what was that foundation? It was
his faith in the word that Jesus spoke, "Come on," and when Peter
put faith in that word and he began walking to Jesus, with
eyes on Jesus. As long as his eyes were on Him there was a
foundation underneath his feet and he could, you could walk all
way to Jesus like that. But the Scripture tells us he began to
see the wind was boisterous and to see that the waves were
boisterous, and as soon as he got his eyes off Jesus and on to
the wind and the waves, he began to sink. And of course Jesus is
merciful and He was there to rescue him, but He didn't you
know, really pat Peter on the head. He looked at him and He
basically said, "Why do you doubt? Where was your faith?" If
you and I are going to endure and if our testimony is going to
be that we are the keepers of the faith, then there's just no
other option. Eyes are going to have to be on Jesus, at all
times, in all things. Because Satan is coming for your faith.
Jesus said, when He told the parable of the sower, that some
seed fell on the wayside ground and He said, "Those are those
who hear the word, but don't understand it. And Satan comes
immediately to steal the word that was sown in their heart."
That way side ground, is hard ground, packed ground, where
seed could not penetrate the earth. And if the seed never
gets in there, then it can't take root. If it can't take
root, it can't sprout up. And if it can't sprout up, then it
can't bear fruit. And because the seed of the word was just
sitting right out there, it never got in, they didn't
understand it, then Satan comes immediately and steals it. Jesus
says, "It's just like the birds coming along, seeing seeds
sitting right up there on top of the ground." Of course they're
going to come! They're going to take it! And that's what Satan
does. He comes immediately to steal the word that was sown in
your heart. So how do you keep him from stealing it? Well, be
somebody that understands the Word. And it's not just a mental
understanding He's talking about. He's talking about seeing
the Word as valuable. There are people who scoff at the things
that we preach and the things that we believe. Who scoff at us
who say, "There is a God, and on top of that He's good, and He'll
save you, and heal you and prosper you." There are people
that mock that, and say, "That's impossible. How could that be?"
But do you know, do you realize, it is the epitome of arrogance?
To say that something is not possible, simply because you
don't understand how it could be. Just because you don't get
how it could be, to say that it couldn't be possible? That is
the epitome of arrogance. But it is the epitome of humility to
say, "Lord, even if I don't mentally, totally understand
everything you've said in your Word, it is still valuable to me
and I'll honor it as your words, spoken to me, by your Holy
Spirit, and it's a revelation of Jesus and I receive it." That is
seed that gets sown into your heart, and Satan cannot steal
that word. Listen to me my friends, because Jesus endured,
you can too. Because He endured some crazy people, you can too.
And if He endured what He did on the cross, then you can endure
whatever it is you're facing right now and you can come out
on the other side with faith intact, and you can stare Jesus
eye to eye and say, "I am a keeper of the faith." Praise
God! I'm out of time right now, but don't go anywhere, I'll be
back in just a moment.
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
In the closing days of last
year, moving into 2018, we were seeking the Lord about this year
and we believe we heard something from Him. He said,
"This is the year I want you to 'buy up and build out.'" Years
ago, when we were first looking for ministry property, we didn't
have this place, or any place to call our own. The Lord told us,
"There are things you need to know about that property before
you find it. And you know these things so that way when you do
find it, you'll know when you see it." One of the things He
told us was, "It will be a platform from which you reach
the nations. A platform from which you reach the nations."
And that's really where the television ministry just went
off on the inside of us. And then, years later, when we
finally did end up here, we are in this building now, the Lord's
provided for it! It's debt free, it's built out, in large part.
But I believe in 2018 it's time for us to "buy up and build
out!" We're on a property with another couple of buildings, and
if you can see directly behind me there's another building back
there, and inside that building is a television studio that
needs to be built out and I believe it's time. And I want to
read this to you out of the book of Nehemiah. And I want you to
hear these words in verse four. It says, "Ezra the scribe stood
on a platform," did you hear that? "A platform." That's what
the Lord told us about our place. It would be a platform
from which we would reach the nations. "Ezra the scribe stood
on a platform of wood which they had made for the purpose." Now,
you read around this, and you find that the purpose was the
preaching of the Word of God. This platform had a purpose. And
if you go and read you see that a number of different people
stood on it. So the platform wasn't for a person, it was for
a purpose, and that's what we see when we look at these
buildings. We see a platform from which we can serve our
generation all over the world, and we want to invite you to be
a part of this project with us this year. We invite you to help
us buy up and build out, and if you've got something in your own
life that you're believing God to buy up and build out, well,
this is an awesome opportunity for you to sow a seed. Because
every seed produces after its own kind. And if you want to get
involved with us, it's easy. If you're in the United States the
simplest way to do it is to text, "LTV," and any dollar
amount to the number, Two- Eight- Nine- Five- Zero. Or you
can visit us online, Pearsons Ministries dot com, and give
that way. If you're outside the United States, visit us on our
website, you can give there. But we welcome everybody who wants
to get involved in the building of this platform. It's a
platform with a purpose, and that purpose is to preach the
Word of God all over the world. Father, we receive the gifts of
the people and we bless them today, in Jesus' name! We love
you, and we'll see you again next time on Legacy TV.
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