Skip to content How to Stand When They Want You to Fall - Part A Dec 24 · 26 min ...more
How to Stand When They Want You to Fall - Part A
December 24, 2025 · 26 min
Does your life reflect the gospel you proclaim? Pastor Skip challenges you to live in a way that matches your message and honors Christ.
Series Connect with Skip Heitzig Podcast December 24, 2025 · 26 min · Connect with Skip Heitzig Podcast
Does your life reflect the gospel you proclaim? Pastor Skip challenges you to live in a way that matches your message and honors Christ. ...more Show the full description Show less Does your life reflect the gospel you proclaim? Pastor Skip challenges you to live in a way that matches your message and honors Christ.
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Skip Heitzig ministers to over 15,000 people as senior pastor of Calvary Church in Albuquerque. He reaches out to thousands across the nation and throughout the
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0:01 This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. Thanks for joining us today. Here at Connect with Skip, our mission is to help you know God's word and apply it to your life through clear, practical bible teaching and real0:12 encouragement every day. And if you'd like to keep growing in your walk with Jesus, sign up for pastor Skip's free weekly devotional. You'll receive biblical insight, teaching highlights, and exclusive resource offers0:24 straight to your inbox. Everything designed to help you stay strong in your faith. It only takes a minute to sign up. Go to connect with skip dot com and join the list today. That's connect with skip dot0:35 com. Now let's dive into today's teaching from pastor Skip Heitzig.0:40 It's a real joy to be with you today. Would you turn in your Bibles, the Epistle of Joy, to Philippians chapter 1, Book of Philippians0:52 chapter 1. Do you ever feel like you're being watched by unbelievers? You ever feel that unbelievers look at you and they analyze you and scrutinize you?1:04 Well, if you ever get that feeling, you're right. That's what they're doing. And not only are they analyzing and scrutinizing you, they're criticizing you.1:17 And probably more so now than ever before in American history, the Christian church is being criticized by the unbelieving world.1:28 Every Christmas, you hear the same stories about how kids can't sing Silent Night in a public setting. Or throughout the year, you hear about1:40 a Christian group who doesn't go along with the mainstream idea of sexuality, etcetera, and they're labeled as being intolerant and mean spirited.1:52 I was listening to the news yesterday in North Carolina. The Board of Commissioners every year get together. And for the last 502:04 years, it has been their practice to get together and open up their public session with the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a prayer. It's been in their history a long time.2:16 So they did it this time. They opened up their session with Pledge of Allegiance and prayer. But this time, the ACLU is watching them and filed2:28 a lawsuit against them because they prayed. And get this, they said the worst thing of all you could say, they said at the end of the prayer, in Jesus'2:39 name. So that became a violation. And a lawsuit was filed. And you know, I've been asked to pray publicly from time to time. And a couple2:51 of times people have said, well, the only thing we're skittish about is if you use that term at the end, in Jesus' name. You probably shouldn't use that. I said, so do you want the prayer to work?3:05 I saw an article on CNN dot com that admitted that Christians are becoming a hated minority, a hated minority. I've3:17 long had an article in my arsenal about the neighbors that Americans don't want living next door. The article is called Not in My Backyard, and it's3:29 actually a little graph that shows this truth. It says, this is the percentage of Americans who do not like the following minorities as3:40 neighbors. 1 percent say they don't want Catholics living next door. 2 percent don't want Protestants living next door. 3 percent don't want Jews living next door. 93:52 percent say they don't want Hispanics as neighbors. Then comes unmarried couples. Then comes blacks. And finally, the bottom of the list, the highest percentage, 134:04 percent, say they don't want religious fundamentalists as neighbors. They especially hate bold believers, the kind4:16 that make a stand for what they believe. Because bold believers, the kind that don't fold with the culture and just sort of go along with the flow,4:28 the bold believers, they're the ones that will be labeled narrow, myopic, bigoted, and biased. 1 website that I found, 1 honest atheist wrote, and I4:39 quote, I've considered myself an atheist for 4 or 5 years. And I feel a real hate of Christians, more so than any other religious cult.4:52 And it's growing inside of me. I cannot just read a story or watch a video of a Christian without this huge fireball of impatience and anger coming up5:03 through my body, close quote. So who's intolerant? You ever feel like you're the missionary surrounded by cannibals? And the missionary5:15 noticed 1 cannibal is staring intently at him, and it got really nervous and said, why are you looking at me so intensely? And the guy said, I'm the food inspector. You sort of feel like the world5:27 is watching watching you because they want to gobble you up. Well, Paul understood this dilemma. Paul understood that if you become a Christian and you follow Christ boldly,5:40 that the Christian life is not a playground. Man, it's a battleground. He got that. He understood that. In fact, here's part of his resume in 2 Corinthians 11. He says, I've been imprisoned5:51 frequently. I've been flogged severely. I've been exposed to death again and again. 5 times I received from the Jews 40 lashes minus 1. 3 times I was6:03 beaten with rods. And once I was stoned. And that's not Colorado stoned. That's stoned with rocks. Now, as we have6:15 been reading in the book of Philippians, this chapter, this book of joy, we saw that Paul begins by writing to the Philippians as saints. Paul and Timothy6:27 to the saints who are at Philippi in Christ Jesus. Then he writes to them as servants, those who enjoyed the fellowship of the gospel with him. They were partners in the6:39 gospel. But now there is a shift. Now he writes to them not as saints, not as servants, but as soldiers, as it were. And the focus of his letter, beginning6:51 in chapter 1, verse 27, turns from his imprisonment to their predicament. And you'll notice by just the wording in7:03 this little grouping of sentences, the word adversaries appears or enemies. The word suffer shows up. And the word conflict is all in what we are7:15 about to read. So what I want to show you from this set of verses is how to stand for Christ when the world wants you to fall. Verse 27,7:27 Paul writes, Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of7:39 your affairs that you stand fast in 1 spirit with 1 mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel,7:51 And not in any way be terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God. For to you it has8:03 been granted on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear8:15 is in me. I want you to picture something in your mind. I want you to picture a man, and around him is standing a hostile crowd. The crowd8:27 does not like the man. The crowd is yelling at him, shouting at him, threatening him. They're jeering and they're taunting, and they wish him ill.8:39 They want to see him gone or hurt. Now with that picture in mind, I want to show you 4 qualities on how to stand and8:51 not fall in the midst of a hostile world. I want you to picture it sort of like a stool with 4 legs. Each leg will add a little more stability to the whole. First, consistency. Consistency9:02 is the first quality. Verse 27, Paul says, Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ.9:15 You see the word conduct? I'm going to give you a literal translation of it, then I'm going to explain of it. The word means your political affiliation. Don't think of9:27 politics in the terms of modern America. The Greek word is polituo. And polituo is the word by which we get our word9:38 political or politics or policy or police. They all come from this word because politeuo was all about the polis in9:50 ancient times. A polis is a city, or more accurately, a city state, a free state. It's citizens that belong to a city state, and they conduct10:02 themselves in a manner that represents the best of that state. So the idea carries the word carries the idea of being a good citizen,10:13 honoring the political affiliation or the city state that you're a part of. And what are we a part of? Chapter 3 will say, your citizenship is in10:25 heaven. So the idea is let's conduct ourselves so that we are offering the very best of the kingdom of God. Know, wherever we10:36 travel, we represent our nation, whether we like it or not. You're an American. I don't know if you know what the reputation of Americans is around the world.10:49 It's not favorable in most cases. The loud American, the ugly American, there's several things that we are noted for around the world. And I remember on 1 trip I was on in11:00 India, I was with a group of people from different places. And there was 1 group of guys that were very, very loud. And they were at a meal, and they're being laughing and loud and obnoxious. And11:13 the Indians in that culture didn't know how to read these guys. They just sort of thought, I guess this is how Americans act. And I'm over in the corner with my head and my hands going,11:24 they don't represent the best my country has to offer, trust me. But they were representing their kingdom. They were conducting themselves in a certain way. Or11:36 like the time I went to England and tried to sound like I was English. I tried really hard to come up with the best British accent. I'd practice it. I thought I had it down. So I went to breakfast, and I ordered11:48 in an English accent. And the maitre d' looked at me and said, and you're from California. So I must have given myself away, either in my fake British accent or the12:00 mannerisms that I display. So let your conduct, your display of your national identity, And notice what it says, let your12:11 conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ.12:16 You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. As 20 25 comes to a close, generous support from friends like you is vital to keep Connect with Skip Heitzig strong in the year ahead so more people can hear God's12:28 word and find real hope in Jesus. Your year end gift today helps reach even more hearts with verse by verse teaching and resources that connect people with God's love. To thank you for your generous gift12:40 of 50 dollars or more, we'll send you pastor Skip's new resource, the daily God journal, along with the digital companion devotional, the daily God book. These resources will help you align your heart with12:51 God's, let go of anxiety, and grow in steady faith through his word each day. So give your year end gift today at connectwithskip dot com slash offer or call 8 0 0 913:03 2 2 18 88. Now let's get back to today's teaching.13:08 The word worthy means to balance the scales or to weigh as much. That is, the weight on 1 side of the scales equals the weight on the other13:20 side of the scales. We use the word in that way. We will say, that person is worthy of his pay. What we mean is13:32 the money we are giving that person corresponds or weighs as much as the output of the work that he or she produces. If we say she is worthy of this13:43 honor, we are saying the accolades we give her weigh as much or correspond to the productivity or the achievement that she has produced. So when Paul13:55 writes, let your conduct be worthy of the gospel, that's his way of saying that your practice must match your proclamation. If14:07 it's like a set of scales, and on 1 side you say, well, this is what I believe, that's your proclamation. Your practice, what you do, needs to match up, needs to14:19 weigh as much. And by the way, John the Baptist used this word like that. He said, bear fruits worthy of14:31 repentance. If you say you have a repentant life, let's see it in what that life will produce. So what Paul is doing here is calling us14:43 to a consistent Christian life. If you're called Christian, then live up to the name. A Christian must never live beneath his14:54 theology. A Christian must never live beneath his belief. I know that you've heard all the research statistics for years. Barna Research every year comes15:06 up with what Americans say they believe in. And every year, we're always astonished because every year we find out that a large majority of Americans say that they're Christian. And a lot of them say they're born again15:18 Christians. But as I look at the American landscape, I just got to say, it didn't quite weigh the same. What they say we are isn't really what we are. There's got to be some inconsistency in that.15:31 Back in 19 86, get this, an IRS 25 year auditor, a veteran of auditing for the IRS, was arrested15:43 and convicted for tax evasion. You know, that just gets to you, right? It's like, yeah, those are the guys that try to stiff me. You know, they're always15:55 bummed out about this little discrepancy. They audit me. Well, this auditor thought that he had found a loophole, that he had found a flaw in the system.16:07 He didn't. The system found a flaw in him. And when they found it, they fined him 115000 dollars He was inconsistent. What he16:19 said he believed in and what he actually practiced in his personal life were vastly different. And John Bunyan put it this way, a man can be a saint abroad and a devil at home.16:32 And if that is the case, then that is unworthy conduct. It is inconsistent. Now let me turn that around. 1 of the greatest weapons you can use against the16:43 devil is a consistent life, a consistent life, a godly, consistent life. Not that God expects perfection. He does not. The Bible says He knows our frame, that we are16:55 dust. But He does expect that as citizens of the kingdom of God, of the kingdom of heaven, that we show a consistency in that. John says, 1 John17:07 chapter 1 verse 6, If we say we have fellowship with Him and we walk in darkness, we lie and do not17:18 practice the truth. So simply put, our lives must give proof that they have been touched by the gospel, by17:30 the good news about Jesus Christ. That's worthy of the gospel. So here's a question. Is your life filled with love? Because the gospel is. For God17:42 so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Is your life filled with forgiveness? Because the gospel is. Is your life filled with hope? Because the gospel is. Is your life filled with holiness?17:54 Because the gospel is. So consistency is the first tool, weapon, strength that will help you stand when the world wants you to fall. Here's a second,18:06 unity, unity. He says, continuing on in verse 27, So that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs18:18 that you stand fast in 1 spirit with 1 mind, striving together that's the unity for the faith of the18:29 gospel. Now Paul doesn't know if he's going to live or die. He said that. I don't know if I'm going to live or die. I don't know if I'm to be set free or stay incarcerated. I may come and see you. I may not. But that18:41 doesn't matter. Whether I'm around or not does not matter. What matters is that whether I'm with you or not, you stand firm. Now, that's soldier18:53 talk. The word that Paul uses here in the imperative, stekate, stand firm, means stand your post, don't leave your19:04 guard. It speaks of a soldier who would stand his position even with the onslaught of tremendous opposition or temptation. So go back19:16 to that little picture I put in your mind. Here's a man. There's a hostile crowd around him. He's standing. Maybe he's sort of standing upright in a relaxed position. But the crowd gets louder and closer. And so he does19:28 this. He widens his stance to give him more stability. He's now going to stand firm, stand fast. He's not going to move his position. But he19:40 would be better served if he himself wasn't the only 1 standing fast, but he had a whole bunch of friends next to him kind of doing this, right? When you have other people standing with19:51 you, your odds for victory increase. That's the thought of this verse. Stand fast in 1 spirit with 1 mind, striving20:02 together for the faith of the gospel. I just got to say, there are some great metaphors in this section. Paul the Apostle uses some great words.20:14 The words for striving together, a single Greek word, sun athleo. Sun, the prefix for together. Athleo, we20:26 get the term athletic or athlete from it. So come together as athletes, you might say. Strive and stand together in20:38 this race as athletes. It is clear, it is evident, that Paul saw the church as a team sport, not as some little private20:50 personal island experience that I have with God all by myself. No, he said, our team is in conflict. Our team is in a battle, and it takes teamwork. We have to stand together.21:03 We need unity. Now, I would like to explain when the New Testament talks about unity, what it doesn't mean and what it does mean. Unity in the Bible doesn't mean21:15 necessarily unanimity, where everybody thinks exactly the same. It doesn't necessarily mean uniformity, where everybody acts exactly the same.21:27 If you think that you're going to get every Christian to agree on every point of doctrine and style of worship, good luck. Not going to happen. You may not agree with21:39 my view on certain things. You may not agree with my view on eschatology, the rapture of the church. You may not agree with my view on spiritual gifts. You may not agree with my view on the election of the21:50 believer. And I always give anybody the privilege to be wrong. You can believe whatever you'd like. Somebody once said, if you find 2 people that agree on22:02 everything, 1 of them is not thinking. So I think vigorous debate can be good, can be healthy, can be helpful, as long as we don't divide over it.22:14 Can you imagine if we could assemble the great Christian minds throughout the centuries and put them in 1 room together? For example, if we were to go back to the fourth22:26 century and get Augustine of Hippo, North Africa, who spiritualized so many texts of the scripture, put him in the room and sit next to him, the tenth century Bernard22:37 of Clairvaux. And for fun, let's add the sixteenth century reformer John Calvin next to him. And then to really spice things up, we'll go to the eighteenth century. We'll get22:49 John Wesley, Charles Wesley, and George Whitfield. Just those 3 in and of themselves would be fireworks. Then let's go to the ninth century and put in Charles Haddon Spurgeon and23:01 D. L. Moody. We'll go to the twentieth century. We'll put C. S. Lewis in that room and Billy Graham. Will go to the 20 first century and put the likes of N. T. Wright in there. I'm going to23:12 tell you something. There is not going to be unanimity on every single point. It'll be a very, very lively discussion. But at the end of the day, what you will have is unity23:25 when it comes to the essential historic Christian gospel. We're not much different than an athletic team. You've all heard of teams every season. The23:37 season starts out where there's bickering between some of the individual players on that team. They're kind of out for their own glory, out for themselves. But as the season moves on and they near the playoff, they know23:49 they need to act together because victory is in sight. If they've made the playoff, they better give their best parts of who they are to the team so they can win the battle.24:02 So unity then doesn't mean uniformity or unanimity. It does, however, mean harmony. It means harmony. It means we choose to work together. We choose to24:13 cooperate over the essentials, the essentials. I've always loved that little axiom from the Reformation. You've heard it. In24:25 essentials, unity. In non essentials, liberty. In all things, charity. That was Jesus' passion. He prayed for unity24:37 in His high priestly prayer of John 17. Jesus prayed that they all may be 1, that they also may be 1 in us, that the world may believe24:49 that you sent me.24:52 Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before you go, don't miss your opportunity to request the Daily God Journal, along with the companion digital devotional, The Daily God Book. These25:04 resources are our thanks for your generous year end gift of 50 dollars or more to help connect with Skip Heitzig finish 20 25 strong and reach more people with the truth of God's word in the year ahead.25:16 Call 809 2 2 18 88 or go to connect with Skip dot com slash offer. Thanks for spending time with us today, and we'll see you next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig.25:49 Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.
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