Join Rick Hughes in this engaging episode of The Flatline as he explores the powerful concept of living a life aligned with God’s will. Through his dialogue, Rick explains the significance of spiritual integrity and how it acts as a barrier against life’s adversities. Learn about the Forward Line of Troops or FLOT, a concept that empowers believers to handle stress and adversity by aligning with divine principles.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning, and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stay with me. It’ll only be about 30 minutes, but 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, some education. and always without any type of manipulation because we don’t play games here. We’re not trying to sell you something. We’re not trying to ask you for money. We’re not trying to tell you how to get rich. We’re not trying to tell you who to vote for. We’re trying to tell you what the plan of God is for your life. If you’ll listen, I’ll try to verify and identify that plan, and if you want to orient and adjust to the plan, that’s up to you. My job is to get it right, to get it accurate, and to give you the pertinent information. We are the rickhughesevangelisticministries.org on the internet, rickhughesevangelisticministries.org. I tell you that because there are many new stations coming online today. This month in March, we’ve contracted with 18 new radio stations, so I’m really excited about that. And some of you will be hearing it for the first time today. If you stick with me, you’re going to learn some wonderful things. Thank you for giving me a few minutes of your time. We’d like to study the FLOT line, F-L-O-T, Forward Line of Troops, and that refers to the main line of resistance believers have in their soul from the Word of God that will stop the outside source of adversity before it ever becomes the inside source of stress. And if you’re new to the show, that’s what the FLOT line stands for, FLOT Forward Line of Troops. And we’re dealing with the Word of God and how you can overcome the adversities and the situations in your life without having to worry, without having to be afraid, without having to get anxious or bitter, any of that. Today, we’re going to study a verse in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 1. I’ll read it to you, and then hopefully we’ll be able to carry on with it. Here’s what it says. Finally, now, brethren. He’s wrapping this thing up in chapter 4 or 1 Thessalonians. We urge, U-R-G-E, and exhort in the Lord. There’s your prepositional phrase. It’s from the Lord, in the Lord, in the Lord Jesus, that you should abound more and more just as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God. There’s some key words here we want to take a look at. Before we do, let me remind you that the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church at Thessalonica, which was located in what we now know as modern-day Greece. Apparently, he visited this city during his evangelistic journeys and won many converts, mostly Gentiles, but some Jews, to Christ. And he probably wrote this around 50 A.D. while he was in the city of Corinth. We don’t have the original manuscripts. They didn’t survive. That’s the original letters, but we do have many copies that were made and remain and have been discovered even today. So let’s look at his exhortations. Okay. He said, we urge, U-R-G-E, we don’t use that word very often, but we urge and we exhort, we exhort. And then he said the authority for him to say these things is in the Lord or from the Lord, referencing the motivation behind the instructions that he’s giving. And finally, he said that they should abound more and more. Listen to what the Apostle Peter said about scriptures like this. You hear something like this and you wonder, is that for me? Should I obey that? In 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21, Peter wrote, knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation. For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. So with that passage behind us, we can assume from the scripture that I just read to you, that what we’re about to study came directly from God the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul to the church in Thessalonica and now to you and to me through the preservation of the canon of Scripture called the Bible. One translation put it this way, no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. So what we’re looking at is directly from God through Paul under the pages preserved for us in the Bible. So let’s examine what he’s telling these believers in Thessalonica. He wrote, you received from us how you ought to walk. You received from us how you ought to walk. He’s reminding them that this is referring to information they had been taught previously. In previous visits, he laid out precisely correct procedure for the believers in the church at Thessalonica. And the motivation for them to follow these instructions is that they would please God. He said it. You receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God. So the believer does not always live a life pleasing to God, or our actions are not always pleasing to God. So here’s a question I want to ask you today, this morning, if you’ll allow me to be honest with you. Is your lifestyle as a child of God, as a Christian, is it pleasing to God? Is it pleasing to God? Think about that for a moment. Take a blank piece of paper and write yes or no. Is your lifestyle as a child of God pleasing to God? The word walk, when he said how you ought to walk and to please God, the word walk is from the Greek text peripatao. That’s the original Greek word, and it literally means your lifestyle. It means how you’re to live your lifestyle. And so there is a lifestyle that’s pleasing to God, and there is a lifestyle that’s not pleasing to God. And we know, obviously, that all sin is displeasing to God, but what I’m speaking about here is not personal sin. It’s personal priorities. Does your spiritual life take priority number one in your daily walk as a Christian? Now don’t forget the verse. I go back again and read it. Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more just as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God. And don’t forget those words, or urge and exhort. By the way, urge is a Greek verb, eratao, and it means to make a great request, an urgent request. And he also used the word exhort, which is parakaleo, the Greek word. You say, why am I giving you these Greek words? Because it was written in Greek. It was not originally written in English. These words were Greek words. And the word exhort, parakalao, means to make an urgent call to attention that will hopefully motivate them to continue on the path that obviously they had been following. You should abound more and more just as you received from us. They’ve been doing the right thing. And he’s trying to encourage them to keep doing the right thing. His urgency was because he recognized the spiritual warfare this church faced. And he stated that they should abound. You should abound more and more. Perisuo. Perisuo is the word abound. What does perisuo mean? It means give a greater effort than you did before. To excel or to put forth even a greater effort. And on this radio show called The Flatline, I encourage you to stick with the growth you’ve experienced. Many of you have written to me and told me that you’ve grown spiritually from listening to this show and you’ve been able to start studying under a well-qualified pastor and I’m really happy about that because That’s my job to point you to the Lord Jesus Christ and to eventually point you to a well-qualified pastor where you can grow spiritually. So on this radio show, I encourage you to stick with the growth you’ve experienced. And I want to tell you today, if it’s possible, I want you to double down on your efforts so you can reach spiritual maturity and glorify God to the maximum with the idea that you will replicate the life of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. In regards to God’s plan, remember this. A right thing has to be done in a right way. You know, you can have all the talent in the world as an athlete, but if you don’t do the right thing in the right way, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. There’s a right way to do everything. And we know as believers, we are to pray, yes. We are to witness, yes. We are to study our Bible, yes. We should worship, yes. We should give, yes. But what if you’re doing all these right things in the wrong way? What a tragedy it would be for you to arrive in heaven to find out that most of your Christian service was actually unproductive and did not glorify God, period. If you don’t understand what I’m saying, look at 1 Corinthians 3, verse 11 through 15, and this is where the judgment seat of Christ is talked about. And many of the good deeds that we do at the judgment seat of Christ will be burned up and called wood, hay, and stubble because they did not glorify God. And that means that they did them in the energy of the flesh, not in the filling of the Holy Spirit. That’s the difference. When you do something for God in the energy of the flesh, it does not glorify God. It just glorifies you. And that’s what burned up in 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15. I tell you that again. Go read it. Some of your production will be gold, silver, and precious stone, and some will be wood, hay, and stubble. Some things you did in the right way and some things you did in the wrong way. So maybe that’s confusing to you. I hope not. But if you’re a new listener to this program, which we call The Flatline, you’re going to discover that we focus on these 10 unique problem-solving devices provided by God and revealed through the Scripture. And these 10 biblical principles are provisions from God in order to equip us to do the right thing in the right way while we maintain our relationship in the devil’s world. We got a problem. Remember that old movie, Houston, we have a problem? Well, we have a problem. You and I have a problem. And our first problem is our sinful nature. We got that from Adam. The Bible tells us that in Romans 5.12. Just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, thus death is now spread to all men because all have sinned. So you and I are sinners. We were born sinners. We’re born with a sinful nature. And Christians, like you and I, commit sin. They always have and they always will since we’re human. But there is a wonderful recovery process for our sinful deeds, and that’s taught in 1 John 1, 9, where the Bible says, if we will confess our sin, then God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to purify us from all unrighteousness. And this is actually the first problem-solving device of those 10 unique problem-solving devices. We call it on the plot line, Rebound. Rebound is the number one problem-solving device for the believer. It’s how we recover from our sinful acts, sinful deeds we did. Now remember, some sins are mental and some sins are overt. Some sins are committed by the words you say and some are committed by the deeds you do. The tragic thing about all of this is the religious self-righteous Christian who thinks he or she doesn’t sin as badly as that lascivious Christian. I mean, you don’t drink, you don’t smoke, you don’t cuss, you don’t dance, you don’t go honky-tonking, and those people over there do, so I’m not as bad as they are. Sin is sin. Yeah, you might not cheat, you might not lie, you might not steal, but do you worry? Do you judge? Do you criticize? You see, all sin breaks fellowship with God, and it demands immediate recovery. Even David recognized this in the Old Testament in Psalm 32, 5. I quote what he said, I acknowledge my sin to you and my iniquity I did not try to hide. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. So even David understood this. Don’t hide sin from God. When you sin, you’ve got to deal with it quickly and immediately. And there’s a reason for that. Now, you’re going to sin. God doesn’t want you to sin, but you’re indwelled by a sinful nature, and you’re going to sin. You may be able to tone it down to a degree, and you may be able to get to a place where you don’t do some of the bad ones you used to do, but the Christian life as we know it is designed to be powered not by your will, not by your strength, but by the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ stated in John 14, 16 that he was going to leave them, but he’s going to send them a helper, one that would help them once he departed. And that helper, that mentor that he’s going to send to us is none other than the Holy Spirit. And his ministry to the disciples and to each one of us is told in John 16, 13 through 15. Listen to what Jesus said. However, when he, that’s the spirit of truth, When he has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but what he hears, he will speak. Now, where is he going to hear it from? That’s the question. He’s going to hear it from the Father. Those will be divine instructions, and from the Father, and he will tell you things to come. That’s going to give you what to expect. He will glorify me. That means he will use you to glorify Christ. He will take what is mine and give it to you, declare it to you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore, I’ve said he will take up mine and declare it to you, which means that he will now enable you to operate as the Lord Jesus Christ operated. So we see now that the Holy Spirit is not only a revealer, he reveals the Father’s plan, but he’s an enabler. He gives you the ability to live as Christ lived. So here is a very good principle I want you to remember, please. No Christian can effectively live the spiritual life, the spiritual life, not the human life, the spiritual life, without the Holy Spirit’s power to equip and reveal truth to the human spirit. No Christian can live the Christian life, the spiritual life, without the Holy Spirit’s power to equip and reveal truth. So we have a warning. That warning is found in Ephesians 4.30. Actually, a couple of warnings I want to give you. Why are these warnings here? Because it deals with you shutting off the power of the Holy Spirit. And that means that you began to operate under the energy of the flesh, and that’s the right thing done in the wrong way. So in Ephesians 4.30, the Bible says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. That’s from Ephesians 1.13, where you’re sealed into the day of redemption. God’s not going to take the Holy Spirit away from you, but you definitely can shut off his power by sin. And then in 1 Thessalonians 5, 19, do not quench the Holy Spirit. So the scriptures instruct us not only to be filled with the Holy Spirit, but don’t grieve him and don’t quench him. Don’t shut off his power. When you sin, what you’re doing is shutting off your power source. What you’re doing is letting your sin nature take over instead of letting the Holy Spirit run the show. And the scriptures instruct us, we are to be filled with the Holy Spirit, not let your sin nature run your life. Ephesians 5.18, do not be drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. Be controlled with the Spirit. Be empowered with the Spirit. You know, it’s very easy to sin and not deal with it. I’m going to show you an illustration here in just a minute, but it’s very easy to do. And you cannot let sin abound in your life. You’re to let the Word of God abound in your life. You’re to let the filling of the Spirit abound in your life. You’re to be controlled and filled with the Spirit. This is why it’s the first problem-solving device, what to do when you quench the Holy Spirit, what to do when you grieve the Holy Spirit. You rebound quickly. Whenever we commit personal sin, we allow our sinful nature to start calling the shots in our decision-making process. Now whenever we confess that sin, what we’re doing is stuffing that sin nature back in the box and allowing the Holy Spirit to take control again. And the ironic thing is this could happen multiple times every day. So you might be confessing sin several times a day, each day. But the danger is when you try to assume a spiritual posture and have unconfessed sin still present in your life. Thus, your good deeds, your good works, become nothing but human good production, and they don’t glorify God, nor are they even rewardable. 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15. On the outside, you look spiritual. Oh, don’t he look good? Oh, boy, look at him. He’s in church, and he’s all dressed up and got his Sunday go-to-meeting clothes on. He looks spiritual, but on the inside, you’re out of fellowship. And you’re actually doing the right thing, being in church, but doing it in the wrong way. You’re doing it in the energy of the flesh. See, when we receive the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, we are given a relationship with God. a relationship. You are God’s child, 1 John 3, 1. See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God? You are a child of God if you’re a Christian. That relationship is unbreakable, but it is very likely and very possible that that even though you have a relationship with God your Father, you might not be in fellowship with God, which simply means you quenched or grieved the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Holy Spirit is unable to assist you in your spiritual life. Even though we never lose that relationship status, we can break fellowship by being disobedient and rebelling against his will for our lives. That’s very possible. We can be disobedient and we can rebel against his will, And as I said earlier, all sin is sin, whether it’s mental, overt, or spoken. Do you need an illustration? Mental sins like worry, anger, bitterness, frustration, overt sins like stealing, murder, fornication, or even a spoken sin like slander, maligning, criticizing, backbiting. Sin, one of those three that I’m talking about, breaks fellowship with God by quenching and grieving the Holy Spirit, as I told you earlier in those verses that said don’t do that. Ephesians 4.30, don’t grieve the Spirit of God. And 1 Thessalonians 5.19, don’t quench the Spirit of God. So even though we never, never, ever can lose the relationship, we definitely can break fellowship when we’re disobedient and rebel against his will for our lives. And that may be a problem. You might not know what God’s will is for your life. If you don’t, I need to give you a show on what is the will of God for your life. I can tell you very easy what it is. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Study to show that self-approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. That is his will for you to grow to be a mature believer, for you to replicate the life of Christ. As I said earlier, all sin is sin, whether it’s mental, overt, or spoken. And as I said, sin breaks fellowship by quenching and grieving the Holy Spirit. So now let me just give you a simple illustration. A simple illustration of a Sunday morning conflict. I know it’s never happened at your house, but I can promise you it’s happened at my house from time to time. Here you are trying to get out the door, trying to be on time, but your children are being stubborn and not getting dressed. You’re yelling at them, put your shoes on, put your socks on, put your pants on, put your dress on. Let’s go. We got to go. We got to go. Your spouse is being fussy. Quit yelling at the children. Your temper is being tested. All because you want to get to church on time. And finally you get everybody in the car and you’re headed to church. But the guy in front of you is poking around so you honk at him to encourage him to speed up or either move over. He doesn’t take too kindly to that gesture so he flashes you a one-fingered gesture which enrages you. Now, you’ve lost your temper, you committed a sin, but you lost your temper before you ever got in that car. However, you don’t confess your sin, but you show up at church with your family in tow, out of fellowship, your wife probably out of fellowship, mad at you, quenching and grieving the Holy Spirit. You’re in the right place, but you’re in the wrong way. I don’t care how great a message the pastor gives you, you’re not going to be able to metabolize it because the Holy Spirit is subdued and he can’t help you. Maybe you put your offering in the collection plate. Good for you. Maybe you sang in the choir. Good for you. But if you did all of that with unconfessed sin in your life, it’s all human good production produced by the energy of the flesh. Since the Holy Spirit was not in charge, you quenched him and grieved him this morning earlier when you lost your temper. And nor does God get credit for what you did. It’s just wood, hay, and stubble. And finally, before bedtime, you remember what you did that morning about 7 a.m. when you tried to get everybody ready. And you said, Father, you know, I really was a jerk this morning. I shouldn’t have yelled at my wife like that. I shouldn’t have yelled at the kids like that. I shouldn’t have got mad at that guy in the car that shot me the bird. And you name your sin to God. Congratulations. Congratulations. Now you’re going to sleep in fellowship all night long, even though you’ve been out of fellowship all day long. You see the illustration? So let’s remember what Paul said in our passage. Finally, brethren, we urge and we exhort you in the Lord Jesus Christ that you should abound more and more just as you receive from us how you ought to walk and how you ought to please God. So let’s go back to my question I asked you. Are you living a lifestyle that’s pleasing God? Are you doing a right thing in a right way? Or are you just decorated up and going through the motions? You look good, you sound good, you smell good, but you’re not good. Not that you’re not a Christian. Oh yes, you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, but you’re operating in the energy of the flesh. And you’re producing wood, hay, and stubble. And you’re not glorifying God at all. That offering you put in the offering plate didn’t glorify God. That song you sang in the choir didn’t glorify God. You didn’t glorify God at all because you did all of that in the energy of the flesh. Even a person that’s not a Christian could do those things. The number one problem-solving device you and I must take advantage of is rebound. Rebound. Out of those 10 problem-solving devices we’ll discuss on this radio show, rebound solves the problem of personal sin, which we all do. When we come back on our next radio show, we’ll look at problem-solving device number two, and hopefully problem solving device number three. And I think maybe, I hope, pray that you will stick around for that and join us then. As I said, we’ve added a lot of new radio stations. Some people that are hearing this information today have heard it before, and that’s good. It doesn’t hurt you to be reminded. But some people that are hearing it have never heard it before. And if you’re hearing something you’ve never heard before, just drop me a note. Go to our website, rickhughesministries.org. rickhughesministries.org. Take a look at our books that we have available. They’re all free of charge. We don’t sell anything. We won’t cost you a dime. And if you want to get one of those books, I suggest you get Christian Problem Solving. And that will deal with those 10 unique problem-solving devices that we’re going to be talking about. I love being on the radio with you. I’m so thankful that I had this opportunity. We’ve been doing this for 22 years now, and we’re up to around 1,073 Sundays on the air. That’s a long time. I don’t know how much longer God will give us, but I think he’ll keep us going until he said that’s enough and calls us to the home office. Right now, we’ve got information for you. Are you interested? I got a letter this week from a prisoner. He said, my goodness, I never heard it. He says, this is the best information I’ve ever heard. We need more. Where can I get more information like this? I got a call from a guy last week in Kansas who said, this is great. I didn’t realize somebody was out there teaching like this. We’re here. We’re here for you, but I’m not your pastor. I’m going to appoint you to a pastor where you can get good doctrinal information from a well-qualified man. Okay? All right. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you so very much for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
