Five Postures of Resilient Disciples | Luke Humbrecht

Are you feeling spiritually drained, distracted, or disconnected? Life gets busy, and faith can quietly take a back seat without us even realizing it. In First Corinthians 16:13-14, the apostle Paul gives five short but powerful commands that serve as a blueprint for staying spiritually strong, no matter what season of life you are in.

These five postures of a resilient disciple are: be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong, and do everything in love. Each one is rooted in the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which means they are not about trying harder or doing more on your own. They are about receiving what God has already made available to every believer.

Being on your guard means staying spiritually awake and intentional, not letting life just happen to you. Standing firm is about building your life on the unshakable foundation of God's kingdom rather than relying on willpower alone. Courage is not something you generate from within. It is something you receive, because God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind. Strength works the same way. Like a tree drawing life from deep roots, biblical strength comes from God's grace meeting us in our weakness, not from having it all together. And love is the operating system that holds everything else in place, keeping our motives and actions oriented toward others.

Whether you are a new believer trying to build a strong foundation, a parent wanting to model faith for your family, or someone who has been walking with God for years and feels like you have drifted, these five postures offer a practical and biblical path back to spiritual vitality.

Topics covered include how to stay strong in your faith, overcoming spiritual drift, what the Bible says about courage and strength, how to stand firm in difficult times, the role of love in the Christian life, and how the resurrection of Jesus Christ empowers everyday discipleship.

If you are looking for biblical encouragement, practical faith application, or a deeper understanding of what it means to follow Jesus in real life, this is for you.


This sermon was recorded at a Sunday morning gathering at Church of the Lookout in Longmont, Colorado.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast. Church of the Lookout is an older Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love. Visit us online at thelookout.church.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Alright, friends. Let's go ahead and take a seat. Fathers, happy Father's Day. From one father to another. So thankful for you. Let's give it up for all the dads in the room here today. At the end of the service, we do have some gifts for you. So stay tuned at the end of the service. Not all of us are fathers. All of us have fathers or had fathers. And uh and most certainly, all of us have a father in heaven who loves us, right? So it's a beautiful day to celebrate the calling of fatherhood and what that means for our formation. So this morning we are going to jump into the message. I do want to thank uh uh Walt Robertson for the beautiful message last week. So if you weren't here last week, go go listen online. It's one that every every Christian needs to hear and to and to heed. Um so you can always find all the sermons online. And thank you to everybody who came out this last week for the summer night in the park. That was a ton of fun, right? Uh summer night in the park, our Juneteenth event on Friday night. A lot of fun things happening this last week. This next week will be no shortage of more fun uh camping up in the mountains because that's what we do, because we are a church in Colorado, all right? And it would be criminal to not incorporate the outdoors in the life of God in this church, right? So um uh so you know the thing that's on my heart this morning to share with you is is really a message that parallels with Father's Day, but uh uh an exhortation that as we're coming into the summer months, it is one of my favorite times of year, especially with my family and all the fun we get to have outside. There's but it is a season where there's a lot of travel, um, there's a lot of things going on, there's activity. I know the lives that you guys live, right? And you know the life I live. Um, and there's a lot going on, and it's a really easy time to kind of disengage. And what happens in times where there's a lot of fun things happening, a lot of good things happening, sometimes what can happen is the spiritual temperature can kind of start to drop in our lives. Have you guys ever felt that before? When our lives are full of a lot of activity, but not intentionality towards the things of God. What can happen is it can kind of cool down the flame of God inside of us. And that's not how God's called us to live. God has called us to have a lot of fun and to rest hard, to play hard, to work hard. But in but underneath all of that, are you guys with me? Underneath all of that is a desire to stay pointed and indexed towards the purposes of God in our lives and in our day. Anyone with me? So we have a tendency, if you didn't know this, we have a tendency of human beings to drift towards the path of least resistance. This is partly why a lot of times in the scriptures, when Jesus looks out over the people, he's like, oh my gosh, these guys are poor sheep without a shepherd. These guys are in a lot of trouble. All right. They need a shepherd, they need to be led because we're just kind of looking around. We're just very easily distracted. I am so easily distracted. Um, and what happens is, especially you know, even in our walk with God, sometimes our vision leaks. It's easy for us to gravitate towards putting out fires or choosing what's most convenient at any one point of time. And out of necessity, sometimes what happens is we actually turn on autopilot and set cruise control. Like I'm gonna do just enough to kind of clock in, check the boxes. But underneath it though, sometimes we start to lack the resource that we need to remember what it is that we're made for. All right? So from time to time, listen to me, time to time, we actually need to call ourselves up. We need to kind of, before we get into that kind of zone, we need to remind ourselves what we're made for. We need to call ourselves up in the spirit to stay focused, to stay purposeful, to stay meaningful, and to remember our why. Why are we here in the first place? And I'm telling you, it's not to clock into a Sunday morning service and sing a few songs and get the heck out of here, all right? It is to orient the entire existence of our lives around the creator of heaven and earth. And to remind ourselves every moment of every day is designed for him. All right. This is what Paul, this is one of the things I love about Paul, he always has a way in the scriptures of just calling the people up, just reminding of them what they've forgotten and calling them up back into a mindset. This is the mindset that you are to live in. And so I want to look at one of these passages today. I'm just gonna call this message five postures of resilient disciples, five postures of resilient disciples. Who wants to be a resilient disciple in this room here? I want to be a resilient disciple, okay? I don't want to be a comfortable disciple. I don't want to be a good enough disciple. When I think about following Jesus, the one who loves us perfectly, the one who gave himself for us, we are invited to orient our lives at even the postures of our heart. Um, and I think this is good for all of us. There are some specific applications here today, especially for the Father. So let's let's look at this verse together. 1 Corinthians chapter 16. It's a short verse, but we're gonna read it together. Here's what it says. I'm gonna read it first, then we're gonna read it together. Here's what it says be on your guard, stand firm in the faith. Be courageous, be strong, do everything in love. All right, let's read it together. All right, here we go. Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong, do everything in love. Okay, let's read it like you believe it this morning. All right, we're gonna read it together. Talk to yourself. Here we go. Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong, do everything in love. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Come on, give it up for Jesus' word to us today. So this last Monday was a very special um time. What you see on the screen behind me is uh I got to meet with a pastor in uh at Second Baptist Church in Boulder. Some of you guys know we have a long history, an ancient history with Second Baptist Church. Um but we, ancient history, that's not the best word, but years ago, decades ago, we had an opportunity to bless them. Um and we had an opportunity to do that again. I shared the story a few weeks ago, and I just want to finish the story. Um, about every six weeks, a bunch of the lead pastors in the Boulder area, we get together to pray for each other, to build relationships, and to fortify one another. It is a good thing when pastors actually get together to pray for one another. It's a sign of that the kingdom of God is at hand. And uh, and so this if several weeks ago, we got together at Second Baptist, they let us know that one of their, you know, as we as we met with them, he talked about the season they're in as a church. And and it's a season of just they have such a strong heart for evangelism, for reaching the lost in Boulder, for reaching college students, the homeless. And we asked them, like, hey, what is one of the biggest needs you have right now? And they said, you know, what we've been praying for right now is we really would we really need a van. We need a van that we can use to go shuttle college kids from CU to here on Sunday mornings, a van that we can use to minister to the homeless people in Boulder. And it's something that we're praying for. And he shared some other prayer requests, but um, it was one of those moments where we prayed for them as we always do. We pray for everybody's needs. But how many of you guys know sometimes God calls you to be the answer to your own prayers? We love praying, but then God says, All right, now it's your turn to answer this prayer. And so after the meeting, several of the pastors we we started a text thread and said, Hey guys, would you pray about what maybe God would lead us to help them with this need? And certainly he did. And out of all the six churches that that were on this text thread, every single one of them said, We're in, let's do what we can do. And so this last Monday, I got to go to Second Baptist, to Pastor James, and hand him a check for about $11,000 to help them cover the cost of a van for that they can use to go uh do them the stuff that God has called them to do. Now, when I when I brought this, and he wasn't expecting this at all. When I brought this to him, it was it was immediately uh it just felt like the presence of God entered the room and uh and he just teared up. His eyes just welled up with tears, and he was kind of doing one of those laugh-cry things we've talked about, where he's laughing and crying, and then he hugged us about six or seven times, six, six or seven times, right? And uh, and and we uh and it was one of those moments where it wasn't even about us trying to come to the rescue to help somebody, it was something about what God was doing in the region, what God was doing in the church. God was doing something, it was because of their faithfulness and they were trying to be faithful with God's mission, and that they were praying for the means and a van to be able to do this, that we were able to say, how can we be a part of what God is doing over here? And not only that, we're able to make this contribution. So to this week is uh later this week is his 10-year anniversary in Boulder. So we're able to make a contribution towards a sabbatical season for him. And again, he was just he was blown away. The reason I share this story, though, is because I want to encourage us that these are the types of things that we get to do as a body. Okay, so when you give and you participate, it's about our participation in the regional church, the regional kingdom of God, the global kingdom of God. How many of you guys know we are not just a lonely island on a hill in gun barrel? We are a part of the global connection ongoing thousands of years. It will, it's an eternal community of saints called the church that God has redeemed for his purposes and his glory. We are not about the lookout. Can we just be clear here? We have our own little patch of the field. We're doing our best to be faithful with what God's doing us here. But when he says, I want you to go over there, I want you to invest over there, that's what we're doing, and that's what we're gonna be as a church, okay? And so he wrote a letter to us. I want to read this because this is important for you to be encouraged. He said, Dear Pastor Luke and the saints of Church of the Lookout, grace and peace to you in the name of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. On behalf of your brothers and sisters in Christ at Second Baptist Church and Boulder, I would like to take this opportunity by way of letter to express our sincere gratitude for your kindness and generosity shown to us through your recent monetary gift orchestrated through the loving heart of my dear friend and your pastor, Luke Cumbrecht. To be sure your thoughtful act of love and generosity has proven to be encouraging, deeply appreciated, impactful, and reason for rejoicing. As you know, our churches are characterized by prayer and trusting God along every step of our journey. Your thoughtful contribution is answered to prayer and will enable our church to take the next step in acquiring a passenger van that we will, we pray, expand our evangelism footprint and ministry outreach to the homeless and students at CU. Again, we are grateful to God for your love and support. Please continue to pray for us as we continue to pray for you. And let us watch God change things with love and blessing and sincere gratitude. James Ray. Yeah, come on. And so we gave him the check, and then he said, Hey, this is incredible. Can you come down to our church this Sunday? Are you doing anything Sunday morning? I'm like, Yes, I am doing something Sunday morning. I'll see what time I can get out. So that being said, at 11:15 promptly, which is 11 minutes from now, I'm walking out that door. I don't know what you guys are gonna do here, but I'm walking out that door because I get to go visit Second Baptist Church and I'm going to present them this check and pray over their congregation on behalf of all of us here. And just so you know, our other friends in the region, Cornerstone Church, Pinewood Church, Belay Church, Calvary Bible Church, Boulder Valley Christian Church, these are all friends of ours. We cheer each other on, we pray for each other. Why? Because we believe a healthy church is one that is strong and encouraged and motivated by love and stands firm in the faith and is guarding out and watching the way we're thinking we're thinking that we're doing the things to fortify the church. We only win if we all win. God's not coming back from multiple churches, he's coming back for one. And we're a part of that. And so when I talked to Pastor James, I and we gave him the check, I realized he what he expressed, he's like, Man, when we're we've been praying for this fan, sometimes it feels like when we pray, it just you know, sometimes it feels like it's hard to believe that anything's actually happening. And so for you to come and answer this prayers, it shows us that God sees us and knows us. And he said that, and I was like, oh God, how true is that for all of us? Sometimes we fall for the lie that we're all on our own, doing it all on our own, and we're doing our best to heave up prayers to heaven. And so, what God has to do though, when we don't have the strength of our own, he wants to fortify us with the strength of others and with the resources of heaven to come in and meet us in our deepest need. And so when Paul gets into this this place at the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 16, be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong, do everything in love. It feels it feels like a lot to just rapid fire leave with the church. And the context though is so important here because at the end of 1 Corinthians and 1 Corinthians 15, he just got done talking about the reality of the resurrection, the reality of life in God. He said, if the resurrection doesn't happen, then all of this is futile. But if it did happen, then you need to continue your work and do not labor in vain. If Christ has been raised from the dead, and because he was, death doesn't get the last word over us. It's not if that's true, but it it but but it is true, and because that's true, we stand the chance to live with a different kind of strength, a different kind of encouragement that is more than willpower and positive affirmation. It is a resource in the very nature and activity of God in Christ Jesus. Here's what he says just the chapter before in 1 Corinthians 15, 58. He said, Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Can you receive that word today? Do not be moved. Give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Why? Because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. We need to be reminded of this more often than we think. We need to be fortified with the fact that we're not just living every day to keep up with the demands of the day. We are living in the day towards the Lord to remember that our labor in the Lord is not in vain. It takes diligence, strength, courage, and love as the motivation. The verse is pretty easy to understand, but just for our Gen Z audience here today, here's what would be a Gen Z translation. Stay locked in. Don't be sus about the faith. Be low-key brave. No cap, be strong, and do everything with big love energy. Slay. All right? Yes, no? Yes, no. Okay. All right. So just, you know, doing my best to connect with all audiences here. So if we want to be resilient with disciples, we need five postures. We're gonna do five postures in five minutes. Okay? Be on your guard. It means to stay awake to keep watch. This is the same word that Jesus used in the Garden of Gethsemane when he just invited his disciples. Can you stay up and pray with me? Don't fall asleep. Don't fall asleep. How easy is it to fall asleep? Our main danger isn't attack, it's distraction. It's it's going passive, it's letting life all of a sudden happen to us versus us happening to our life. The Spirit of God wasn't put inside of you to let life happen to you, but for you to happen to your life. And I believe that for us, that when we posture ourselves as we follow Jesus, we must be on guard, not in a way that we live suspiciously, always thinking everything is attacking, not over-spiritualizing everything, but always always calling our thoughts and heart back into alignment. What am I here for? So for men, this is important that we resist the drift to the path of least resistance where faith becomes peripheral, not central. We forget that there's a battle raging all around us. Be on guard. Guard your mind. Let the helmet, like a helmet, protect your thoughts, the sewarding of your thought, take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Beware of settling into a way of living that takes you out of God awareness. Be on your guard. If the resurrection is true, be on your guard. But also stand firm in the faith. This word stand firm in the faith has to do with being immovable. Standing firm in the faith means stability that comes from what you're standing on, not your own rigidity. And I can't stress this enough. When we can read these all of these commands and these directives, okay, here's five more things I have to do to be a better person today. That is not what Paul's doing. He's saying, here's all the things that have already happened, and because of what has happened in Christ Jesus, this is now how you get to live. Which means standing firm in the faith isn't about the the uh the capacity for your own rigidity. It's about paying attention to the ground you're actually standing on. Standing firm has more to do with the ground than your capacity to be strong. It has to do with you have been given something to stand on that is unshakable and unmovable. The kingdom of God cannot be shaken. All things will be shaken, but those who give themselves in the kingdom, you are have you are standing in an unshakable kingdom, which means that standing firm in the faith is not about bucking it up. It's about remembering of what can't be taken away from you, which means what? Which means that we get to live with conviction. We get to live decisively. You decide where you're going to stand every day. You decide, and then you design your life around that conviction. So, fathers, what this means for you is continue. Live with conviction. Bring your family to church. Bring your kids to church every Sunday. Make it happen. Don't let it slide. Let your kids see you sing and pray and be in the Word and talking about God. Let them catch you in your relationship with God because you've decided where you're standing on. And let that not be a mystery to the kids what values your family is actually built on. Come on, fathers. This is what we get to do. The stats show that fathers, when fathers come to church, when fathers make this a priority, when you let your kids see what you are giving your life to, the rest of the family will follow. That's what stats show us. And so, fathers, this is specifically for us. Stand firm in the faith. Know what you're standing on. And thirdly, be courageous. One of the things I love about this letter, and as it's translated, this Greek word Andrid Zezdah, it's a plural command. Paul's writing to this whole church, he also is using some words that have a very masculine bent in the original word. That's why in the ESV, here's what it says. Here's the verse in ESV. You want to put this up. Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. Now, with this act like men, I want to be careful here because there's a version of manhood in our culture that has to do with this macho bravado thing, and that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about be courageous. But what he's talking about is not having it all together. It's not about beating your chest and have meat dangling out of your mouth. That's not what we're talking about. It's about being willing to receive courage where you are afraid. The word encourage actually means to be instilled with courage. To be encouraged means you're not the source of your own courage. It means you're receiving courage from an outside source. You're receiving, so all of these things Paul is talking about, the flair of it isn't here's what you need to do to generate this within and of yourself. It is this. God has already done this. Receive the resources from heaven, receive courage where you need it. You do not need to become a lion. All you need to do is rediscover that there's a lion already inside of you, and it's the Holy Spirit of God. You don't have to have, fathers, listen to me, you don't have to have it all put together all the time. You don't have to nail it. But your invitation is to receive courage with Where you need courage. He's not given you a spirit of fear, but a one of power and love and a sound mind. You have a lion inside of you. So be filled with courage for what God's given you. Be strong is the next word. And there's no better picture than for being strong than an oak tree, and not just an oak tree that is standing on the surface solitary, but with roots that go deep beneath the surface. And similar to be courageous, when I hear the words be strong, I don't immediately hear that through a lens of encouragement. I don't immediately feel inspired. I feel like now that's more pressure. I need to be something else. I need to, I'm not doing it good enough. I need to be something else. I signed up for this race at the end of the year, thanks to Gary Lee. I don't know why I did this this fitness race in November. Thanks, Gary. I appreciate that. And so I decided I needed to get in shape. So I made a terrible decision on uh on Facebook and I clicked on a video of somebody doing bicep curls. Okay. And when you click on a video of somebody doing bicep curls, I'm just telling you, for the next two weeks, all you're gonna see is just men just doing bicep curls. I was like, I just wanted to know the posture of how to do a bicep curl. And now in the booms that all I'm thinking about, all on my mind is how no one can just everything on my video feed is these these guys that are just like just blown out with muscles. I'm like, I'm not, no, I don't, I'm not trying to do that. Like, I want to be strong, but not that strong. I always feel like it's never good enough. Beach strong, beach junker. Oh, dude, you're so beach junkers in the background. And I'm like, I'm not the good. I'm doing my best here. As a father, listen, I get it. It's hard to hit the sweet spot. Um I'm I'm either too passive or I'm too reactionary. I'm never just enough. It's never in the sweet spot. And that's why what I love about when when Paul says be strong, a better translation is be strengthened. It's not in and of yourself to be strong, it's to receive the strength that God has to give you, to let yourself be made strong. An oak does not generate its own strength, it draws from its roots the soil, and water underneath it. It's strength below the surface. And this is why Paul listened to me in this, and I gotta go here because I have something else I have to do as second Baptist. But Paul says this He says, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. My power is made perfect in your weakness. I can show you story after story. That in my weakness, it's in my weakness, in my confession of where I don't have it together, where God is the most strong in my life. God is not trying to get us to not be weak. Listen to me. God is not trying to get you to not be weak. The mindset shift is when we come to him in our weakness, he meets us in our weakness, so that he can be strong even in the midst of our weakness. So listen, men. The path forward is not to nail it and to be strong. The path forward is to confess your weakness and let the God of all strength and comfort meet you exactly where you are in the places that you've hidden and you've been afraid to be vulnerable. And you open up to a band of trusted people around you. You bring yourself to God. I promise you that God wants to strengthen you beyond anything that you have imagined. He wants to give you a pathway for strength, and it's your confession of need. And lastly, do everything in love. This is the operating system of the kingdom of God. So let's pray. That's a fast landing right there. Across the room, close your eyes and Jesus, we thank you. That today we call ourselves up not to our own willpower, but to receive the strength that you have to give. And across this room, God, we're coming in in a lot of different places, whether we're fathers or whether just here and we just need to know what you've called us to. But God, I just thank you that your resurrection is reality and the gospel is reality, and we stand firm on what you've done. And so this morning, as we end this time, as we sing, we build our life upon your love. This is about your work and not our own. So we just thank you, God. We say, Come, Holy Spirit, speak what you will to our hearts, fortify us where we're weak, and let our motivation be love. In Jesus' name.

unknown 26:42

Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

So here worship team is gonna lead us. And then in a couple minutes, uh, Graham is gonna come up and just lead an additional response time. And at the end of the service, we have some gifts for you. We'll give some instructions for you. But I want to bless you. As I go, you guys are coming with me. Together, we're moving forward to be the people that God is calling us to be. We don't check out, we're called up into the life of the kingdom. Amen? Amen. Let's sing.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

As we wrap up this morning, I want to share another scripture with you. This one's in Hebrews 10, 39. It says, But we are not those who shrink back and are destroyed. But of those who have faith and preserve their souls. I love that scripture. I think it ties in really well with what Luke was sharing earlier. Um I just, as a father and as a man, I just uh just confess that there are times in life where the pressure, the weight of you know, life, work, family, um just so much. You know, I just might make me want to shrink back. I want to uh retreat to comfort. And um I need you guys, I need my friends, my family to help me to stand strong. And um, I'm sure we've all heard the adage that uh courage is not the lack of fear, it's the willingness to stand in the face of fear and be faithful. And also, as Luke pointed out, courage is not exclusive to men. I know some extremely brave and courageous women, but I do think that as men, there's a responsibility to bear the image of our Father in a unique way that's slightly different than women are called to. And um so I just want to exhort the men and the fathers in the room and just ask you this question: what what in your life, um, what area of your life may the Holy Spirit be encouraging you to step up, to rise up, and to not shrink back? Um, and that there's there could be lots of areas that could be in leading your family, that could be in uh work, that could be in leading in this community and stepping up as a as a father figure in this community, uh, and dozens of other areas, but I just encourage you to consider that right now. Where is there an area in your life where you've been shrinking back and God is asking you to uh step out and courage? Um so as as we close, I just want to pray a blessing over the men and over the fathers. Um, and then we'll wrap up here. God, I thank you for the men and for the fathers in this room, and really for each person in this room. I want to pray this blessing over uh Lord. Thank you that they are image bearers of you. And as our Father in heaven, God, you are the template, you're the model. And God, you have placed us on this earth to bear your image, to be courageous, to stand firm, and to not shrink back. And so I just exhort each man and each father in this room. I thank you for them. I thank you for the fight that they're in, the fight for righteousness, the fight for their families, the fight for themselves, for their marriages. And Lord, I just pray for your Holy Spirit to impart courage to each person this morning. Thank you, Jesus. God, I bless each one of them in the name of Jesus, and God, um, as we go forth this morning, pray for your blessing on each person in this room. In Jesus' name. Amen. All right, amen. Thank you. Um, as Luke said, we have gifts for all the fathers. There's hats, they're out on the shelf in the lobby. So grab one on your way out. They have these really cool leather patches that have the little icons of the five different ways to stand firm. So grab one on your way out. And the other gift that we have for you is that we're ending early. So go have the great father's day. Amen. Love you guys. Oh, yes. Also, if you want prayer for anything, the ministry team will be lined up along the walls. Go grab some prayer for healing. If you want specific prayer over the message and shrinking back and needing courage, grab some prayer.