In this episode, Rick Hughes discusses how arrogance can derail a believer’s spiritual journey and the crucial role of humility. Listeners are encouraged to build a spiritual foundation by embracing God’s teachings and persisting through life’s challenges. Whether through liberty, love, or finishing your spiritual race, find the inspiration you need to maintain your focus on God’s unwavering plan and become a lighthouse for your generation.
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.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good morning, and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, you have an invitation to stick it out. Stay with me. Listen up, because it’s going to be 30 minutes of motivation, a lot of inspiration, a whole lot of education. and we do it without any manipulation because we don’t do any type of gimmicks no games no solicitations for money just information accurate information to help you verify and identify the plan of god for your life and if you’re able to do that as we always say you can orient and adjust to the plan that’s up to you but my job is to give you accurate information The show is called The Flot Line, F-L-O-T, and we always use that name because we’re talking about building an invisible forward line of troops. F-L-O-T, a forward line of troops. What that is is taking God’s Word, learning God’s Word, learning these unique problem-solving devices found in the Word of God and using them to stop the outside sources of adversity and before they ever become the inside source of stress. Remember, adversity is inevitable, but stress is optional. So you never have to have stress as a believer in Jesus Christ. There’s a unique way to live. It’s called the spiritual life. And it’s a pretty unique life. It’s an unbelievable life. It’s a life where you can live with no fear, no worry. It’s not a life where you can live with no adversity. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that adversity is inevitable. It’s going to happen, but it’s a life where you don’t have to let adversity rule you. You don’t have to let adversity control you. You never have to be afraid. You never have to worry. Because the Father’s plan is always going on 24-7. The Supreme Court of Heaven is open 24-7. So when you have complaints, when you have things you don’t like, you can just take it to the Supreme Court of Heaven, turn it over to the Father, let Him handle it, and that takes the monkey off your back. Isn’t that a neat way to live? Wonderful problem-solving device that’s found in the Bible. And as you learn them, as you put them to use in your life, then you have this invisible wall of protection. You have a main line of resistance made up of rebound. That’s you learning how to confess your sin. That’s something we have to do on a consistent daily basis. The Bible says if we confess our sin, then he’s faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. And anytime we sin as believers in Jesus Christ, we immediately quench the Holy Spirit. We grieve the Holy Spirit because of that, and we have to recover the filling of the Holy Spirit. We are mandated to be filled with the Spirit in Ephesians 5.18, and we recover the filling of the Spirit when we confess our sin, when we go to God and admit our sin. Then He cleanses us and puts us back into fellowship. Also, the wonderful problem-solving device of the faith rest drill, standing on God’s promises. using God’s promises. There are thousands of promises in the Bible for you. We even put together a small book on promises that we make available to folks. And these promises are yours to claim, yours to live by. They are from Almighty God Himself and they are your protection. They are your deposit of His guarantee that He will not leave you out to suffer consequences. He’s always there with you. He will always protect you. He’ll always look over you. And that’s some fantastic promises from God because of that. And so we have the biblical orientation. If you learn God’s word, you get a new way of thinking called divine viewpoint. We have grace orientation where we have a new way of living. and living, letting the mind of Christ control us instead of us living our way, thinking our thoughts. Remember, God said, I don’t think like you think. My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. And the Lord tells us that in the Bible. So he thinks different. And as we learn to think like Christ thinks, I mean, how do you do that? Well, remember, the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2, 5. You must learn to think like he thought, and he thought in terms of humility, not arrogance. The Bible says he humbled himself and made himself of no reputation, and that is the biggest enemy of any believer is arrogance. Arrogance in our soul will destroy us because arrogance always justifies why it’s okay to sin. Arrogance always lies to self, telling self it’s not really a problem. And then arrogance always justifies and lies and gets totally absorbed with it. So you have self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption. Whenever a person gets arrogant, his own arrogance will bring him low. That’s why the Bible says God makes war against the arrogant. the book of james but he gives grace to the humble and so that’s the key here thinking like christ thought in terms of humility when we do that we begin to see why we’re here we get a destiny as a personal sense of destiny that’s one of the problem-solving devices understanding who you are what your spiritual gift is and what god has in store for you And then we move into the greatest motivation that our life could ever have. That’s personal love for God. If you love Him, you will obey Him, the Bible says, and His mandates not hard they’re not grievous that’s first john 5 3 my mandates are not hard and jesus even said in in matthew 11 take my yoke and learn of me my yoke is easy and my burden is light so god’s not going to ask you to do something that’s too tough for you to do he’s just going to ask you to listen up and obey what am i supposed to obey his plan his plan for you it’s the best plan in the world Now you can go down the my way highway and live your plan. You can decide you don’t want anything to do with God’s plan and you can make a wreck out of your life as some of you have already done. Or you can recover by admitting your sin and turning around and saying, Father, whatever it is, Show me so I can learn and understand what I’m doing wrong. And then pray that God would lead you to a great pastor, somebody that can explain the Word of God to you. The Bible is not a novel. It’s not designed to be read. It’s a textbook. I’m not telling you you’re not supposed to read the Bible. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is it’s a textbook. It’s a book designed to be taught to you. And that’s why God gave men the gift of pastor-teacher, qualified men. And Ephesians 4 talks about those that have the spiritual gift of pastor and teacher, the poimen kai didaskalos in the Greek New Testament, poet, pastor, and teacher. His job is to make you rich. That’s right. Now, not wealthy in money. I know you’re thinking immediately, oh boy, I need to be rich. No, the rich of the treasure that God offers you, the word is thesaurus in the Greek New Testament, treasure. It’s a word treasure. And as a pastor teaches you God’s word, You have a word treasure in your soul. You equip your soul with the word of God, the most wonderful treasure called wisdom and knowledge and discernment. When you have wisdom, knowledge, and discernment, you have a treasure that is just not worth, you can’t count it. You can’t even add it up because it’s going to bless your life so much. So are you listening? Are you learning? Are you ready to advance in that life that God has for you? One of the things that I see quite often in people’s lives are people wind up being spiritual failures. That means they don’t advance in the Christian life. And one of the reasons Revelation talks about in chapter two is they leave their first love. They don’t have that personal love for God, that motivational virtue anymore. Personal love for God is a wonderful problem-solving device because then it gives us impersonal love for other people. And that’s a problem-solving device also, as well as sharing the happiness of God and being occupied with Christ. Wonderful problem-solving devices, 10 of them. And oh, by the way, we have them listed in a book. If you’d like to know, if you’d like to see them, read them over them, just let us know. Contact us. We’ll send you the book free of charge. No problem. Just go to the website, RickHughesMinistries.org. RickHughesMinistries.org. And we’ll be glad to send you any of the material that we printed and make available all free of charge. We never charge for anything. So some people wind up being losers spiritually. They never advance in their Christian life because they lose their first love. They lose sight of what motivates them to be that type of person God wants them to be to start with. Other people are just lazy. I mean, Hebrews 5 said you’ve been a Christian a long time now and you ought to be teaching others, but instead you’ve gone backwards where you need someone to teach you all over again the very first principles of the Word of God. We’re going to talk about some of the reasons why that people wind up being spiritual failures. Recently, my own pastor was doing a series in John 16, and he’s talking about skandalion, the Greek word, skandalizo, the stumbling block, becoming a stumbling block. And the Lord Jesus Christ was talking to the disciples And he was telling them what they were going to face in John 16, 1, 2, and 3, that people are going to try to kill them, people are going to put them to death, and think they’re doing God a favor. And he says, I’m telling you this so you won’t stumble when it happens. And this can really trip people up sometimes when they get persecuted. Sometimes they don’t understand why God allows that to happen. Now we are disciples in the church age. They were with him face to face. They ate with him. They camped with him. They talked with him. And they were all martyred except one, John, who died on the Isle of Patmos. But now it’s you. You are the mouthpiece today. You are God’s instrument that he uses in time to represent Jesus Christ and to represent him to your generation. You are the disciple in the church age, and it’s your mission to spread the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, that Jesus Christ is our redeemer, and through faith alone and Christ alone, we have eternal life. It’s already been paid for. It’s made available. And the only thing is, as the Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith. It’s a gift of God and not of works, lest anyone would brag about it. So our Lord emphasized to the disciples not to allow the persecution that they would face to distract them from finishing the race set before them. They had no idea they were going to write the New Testament. They really didn’t like the idea of him going to the cross. Peter even said, God forbid it, Lord. No, no, no. And that got him a quick rebuke when Jesus said to him, you are a stumbling block to me. So the same is true for us. We must finish the race. You must complete the course God left you here for. Paul made a statement in regards to sticking with the plan when he said in 2 Timothy 4, 7, I have competed well. I have finished my race. I have kept the faith. And that same warning that our Lord Jesus Christ gave to the disciples in John 16, 2 and 3 also applied to Paul. He wasn’t there in the flesh. He came later when he accepted Christ on the road to Damascus. But the same warning that they’re going to kill you, they’re going to think they’re doing God a favor, it applied to Paul when he was put to death by means of religious persecution. For example, in Acts 23, 12, when it was day, The Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves under an oath saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they killed Paul. And in Acts 24, 5, the testimony of Ananias, the high priest, as he appeared before Governor Felix of Caesarea, he said, we have found this man to be a real pest. and a fellow who stirs up dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. Sect of the Nazarenes is the followers of Jesus the Nazarene. And this is what Ananias said about him before Felix, the governor of Caesarea. So let’s get a couple of principles in regards to your life and finishing the race. One, in spite of the injustice that you and I may face in the future, none of us can afford to be sidetracked by circumstances or by people who drive those circumstances. Our job is to keep our eyes on our Savior, Hebrews 12, 1, 2, and 3. Put your eyes on Christ who, in spite of the shame, endured the cross. Look at him. Keep your eyes on him. We can’t afford to be sidetracked by things that happen to us or people who drive circumstances in our life. I mean, there are going to be times in your life when people will become a stumbling block. People that you trust, people that you put faith in, people that encouraged you, and people that motivated you. If you look at their life, you’re going to find out that all of us are no good. We all have a sin nature. We all have different areas of weaknesses. Keep your eyes on Christ, not on people. And so secondly, his emphasis to us, the Lord Jesus Christ, was to stay on the point, complete the mission the Father assigned. We must be professional and finish our mission, our life’s course, what God left us here to do. So point three, make no mistake, to fail is to sin. To fail is to sin. That doesn’t mean you’re going to lose your salvation. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to go to heaven, but it means if you fail God’s plan, you sin. Many of you listening to me right now on this radio show have been on point and have fulfilled your mission for some times now. Some people were even motivated to get under a good pastor, move to a city where there was a pastor, and get face-to-face teaching. Some have been faithful to locate and serve and persevere in whatever mission God assigned for them. So let me tell you how to become a spiritual failure. One, you can become a stumbling block to other people. The word skandalon, S-K-A, N-D-A-L-O-N, skandalon. In the New Testament, skandalon is always used metaphorically and ordinarily of anything that arouses prejudice or becomes a hindrance to other people or causes other people to fall by the way. In Matthew 16, 23, our Lord even called Peter a stumbling block. I mentioned that to you earlier. A stumbling block, a person or a thing by which one is entrapped or drawn into error or sin. Here’s what Peter did in Matthew 16, 22. So Peter took the Lord aside and began to rebuke him. Can you imagine Peter rebuking the Lord? Why did he do that? Because the Lord told him he was going to be put to death. The Lord told him he was going to be crucified. And Peter just went off on him. This is what he said. God forbid, Lord. This must not happen to you. And then Jesus in verse 23 of Matthew 16 turned and looked at Peter right into the eyes with a stern look and said, get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me because you are setting your mind on God’s. You’re not setting your mind on God’s interest. You’re setting your mind on man’s interest. What does that mean? It means Peter wanted the millennium to come. He wanted the kingdom to come. He couldn’t stand the idea that the kingdom wasn’t coming right now. And Jesus has already told him the kingdom has been postponed. It’ll come later. right now they’re going to kill me and that just blew peter’s mind so jesus called him a stumbling block or a trap or a snare the stumbling block the scandalon is the movable stick or the trigger of a trap or a snare and metaphorically it’s used for any person or anything by which someone is drawn into error or drawn into sin anyone who causes you to lose sight of your mission Or anyone who causes you to be drawn into sin and then to resulting have depression has been a stumbling block to you. When you get tripped up, the question is this. Do you want to lay there and have a pity party and feel sorry for yourself? Or do you want to get up and complete the mission? Our Lord said in Luke 17, 1, it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come. Our Lord was very specific about those who cause others to stumble, others who believe in him, and now they’re caused to stumble. And the Pharisees were certainly that sort of person. They were actively engaged in trying to distort the message of Jesus, as well as persecute anyone who followed him. Listen to John 12, 42. Nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in him. But because of the Pharisees, the religious leaders of their time, they would not confess Jesus to be the Christ so that they would be put out of the synagogue for they love the praises of men more than the praises of God. If you’re going to follow Jesus Christ, there is a price to be paid. You are going to be persecuted. You may even be killed for that. There are people in this world today that would take great joy in killing a Christian. They think you are of the devil, and they would take great joy in destroying you. They would even give their life in an attempt to kill you, thinking that they would be martyrs and go to heaven if they could rid the world of people like you. Well, just get ready. You haven’t seen anything yet. We are going down a road in this country, the United States of America, that is going to see more and more persecution of believers in the future. Satan is having a heyday in our schools. He’s having a heyday with the destruction of marriage. He’s having a heyday in organized religion with more and more absurdity coming out of our theological seminaries. I mean, I don’t even want to waste your time with some of the goofy stuff I read that professors are saying about Jesus Christ. So the practical application for you and me as far as us being a stumbling block, I know you don’t want to cause people to stumble. I don’t want to cause people to stumble. It’s not our mission to cause people to trip and fail. And so my pastor taught me this years ago, that we have the liberty to enjoy certain things, but sometimes we refrain from those things when we’re in the presence of weaker believers. We don’t want them to be confused by our behavior, so we simply refrain from our liberty and protect the weaker believers. Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians 8-9. Take care that this liberty of yours does not become a stumbling block to the weak. My pastor taught me this doctrine under the laws of Christian behavior, and let me review some of what he taught me. I always kept his notes. He’s gone to be with the Lord now, but I’ve kept his notes for years, and I certainly have his permission to reteach the things that he taught me. It’s just simply out of the Bible. No one has a copyright on the truth that’s in the Bible, and my pastor would want me to reteach it to you. He taught me the law of liberty in 1 Corinthians 8 and 9, what I just read. Take care that this liberty of yours does not become a stumbling block to the world. And this law is always directed towards self. Biblically, as a believer in Jesus Christ, there are things that I have the right to do, certain things I could do that are not sinful, and they would not tempt any mature believer to sin if they were in my presence. But it’s different if it’s a weak believer. New believers and believers without much strength only have carnal norms and standards in their conscience. The weak conscience makes a taboo out of certain things like wine or food which had been sacrificed to idols in the meat market of the heathen temples and they set up these false criteria for spirituality. And so a weak conscience substitutes taboos for the doctrinal norms and standards and it does not possess. In 1 Corinthians 8, 7, however, not all men have this knowledge, but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol. and their conscience being weak is defiled. Defiled. Oh, what is that word, defiled? Molunon, molunon. Moluno, excuse me, I’ll get it right in a minute. Moluno. It’s used figuratively of a conscience that’s been stained with mud or filth. here’s the principle since they don’t have a main line of resistance in their soul new young believers then they are distracted or scared by the behavior of the mature believer when they’re around him it would appear to them you’re disregarding god’s laws and the end result is that the emphasis shifts from god’s grace to your behavior and thus you become a stumbling block you become an issue not the grace of God, you. So you never want to be an issue in anyone’s life. They don’t need to be looking at you and looking at me and looking at God and his words, what they need to be looking at. So my pastor used to always say, it’s not the man, it’s the message. Never idolize the man. Jeremiah 17, five says, cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength and whose heart turns away from me. So the enlightened believer, the smart believer, thought nothing about eating and drinking the food and maybe even having wine from the temple meat market. But the enlightened believer has the responsibility not to offend the ignorant believer as long as it’s not encouraging some sort of legalism. That’s a different story. If that encourages legalism, then he has no responsibility to worry about what the legalistic believer is going to say. But if it’s a new believer, a weak believer, then the liberty of the mature believer may become a stumbling block. And so under the law of liberty, we refrain. We don’t do it. We stay away from it because it would create a false issue. And then there’s the law of love. And under the law of love, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 8, 13, Therefore, if food makes my brother to stumble, I will not eat food again, so that I might not cause my fellow Christians to stumble. The law of love is the function of impersonal love towards all believers. including legalist, self-righteous, religious types, et cetera. The law of love is generally directed towards new believers who are ignorant of the word of God or towards believers who are distracted by legitimate authority or functions. So let me just say this. Don’t let some religious legalist try to establish tyranny over you and tell you what you can and cannot do because they will use your graciousness to manipulate you. I’m trying not to be so blunt with this. There are things you have the right to do. It’s nobody’s business between you and God, but if you let them, they will stick their nose into your business. Every believer is a minister of reconciliation, and we must refrain from doing things not because they’re wrong, but because they could prevent some unbeliever from seeing the true issue of faith alone in Christ alone. There’s so much more to say. I’m running out of time quickly here. Will you come back with me next week, and I’ll press on with this, and we’ll continue this study on what is a spiritual stumbling block. Until then, I’m your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you 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.
