How To Remain Unshakable In Your Faith

Even though the Babylonian leaders tried to brainwash these young men, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah remained unshakable in their faith, and God blessed them for it. The question is: How can we do that? How can we learn what the world wants to teach us without losing our faith? What do we do when our faith is challenged by the wisdom of the world? Because let’s face it…

Our faith may be challenged by state or federal laws that we don’t agree with.
Our faith may be challenged in the workplace. I know some workplaces don’t allow you to talk about your religious beliefs. Some don’t allow you to have a Bible at your desk. And some might not allow you to wear a cross as jewelry.
Our faith may be challenged in our families by members who disagree with our Biblical views.
Our faith may be challenged in the realm of education.

So, how can we excel in this world – in public, at work, among our family members, at school – when our faith is challenged? I want to give you six keys to remaining unshakable in your faith.

1. Decide in advance to stand for God

Daniel decided right up front that he wasn’t gonna defile himself with the king’s food and drink. He wasn’t gonna allow himself to be polluted by their pagan values. We’ve got to decide right up front whom we’re gonna be loyal to. And we know that if we take a stand for God, we might be persecuted. We might be made fun of. We might be criticized. We ought to expect our faith to be challenged. And we need to be ready for that so we can thrive through those challenges. That’s what Daniel and his buddies did. They excelled in their education because they were prepared. They didn’t let phony ideas infiltrate their thinking. They stood up for God and protected their minds and hearts. How?

Well, Proverbs 1:7 says…

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge…

They started with God. God is the foundation of all truth. He’s the source of all knowledge and wisdom. God is the one who invented everything. He’s the one who invented Biology, Algebra, Art, and Music. God thought it all up. So, we ought to start with God and decide in advance to stand with him.

2. Never stop learning

All leaders are learners. If you want to be a great leader, you need to keep learning.

So, let me ask this:

What new skill or what new concept are you gonna study and learn this year?
What are you working on this year to make yourself a better person?
What are you studying to become more spiritually mature?
What books are you reading?
What classes are you attending?
What workshops are you going to?

We ought to be intentional about this – never stop learning.

Proverbs 18:15 says…

The mind of the discerning acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks it.

Notice the connection between listening and learning. You’re never learning when you’re talking. You learn when you listen. Like right now, I’m not learning anything. I was learning as I was preparing for this message. But I’m not learning anything right now because I’m talking. If you’re listening right now, you’re learning something. Hopefully.

Paul tells young Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15…

Study to show yourself approved by God…. (MEV).

God wants you to study. He wants you to be a student. There’s a Christian word we toss around a lot here at The Hill, and it’s the word disciple. The 12 guys that Jesus called and followed him around were often called disciples. We encourage everyone who comes to The Hill to get involved in a discipleship group. What’s a disciple? The word disciple means student. I like the word apprentice. A disciple is an apprentice of Jesus. We ought to be continually learning from the Bible, which leads me to the third key to keeping our faith…

3. Steep myself in God’s Word

I like the word steep. If you’re a tea drinking then you know what this means. You take a tea bag, dunk it in a cup of hot water, and bounce it up and down a little bit. But you can’t do it quickly. If you do, then you’re not gonna get a whole lot of tea. You’ve got to do it slowly to extract all the flavor out of the tea bag. That’s what we need to do with God’s Word. We need to read it slowly and diligently to get all the flavor out of it. We can’t do it quickly. We need to steep ourselves in God’s Word. We ought to be reading it every day and then meditating on it and even memorizing it.

After Moses died, a man named Joshua became the new leader of the Israelites. Look what God tells him in Joshua 1:8…

“This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to meditate on it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.”

How many of you want to be prosperous and successful in everything you do? Meditating on God’s Word is the number one key.

How many of you know how to meditate? Now, I’m not talking about sitting in a pretzel bend and chanting, “Oohhmm…” Let me ask it this way: How many of you know how to worry? Let me see your hands. Yeah, we all know how to worry. Worry is negative meditation. When you take a fear or a problem and think about it constantly, that’s meditation. God wants us to meditate on his Word. The word meditate comes from a Hebrew word meaning to mutter or to think deeply and reflectively about a topic. So, we take a passage that stands out to us in our daily reading and take some time to think about it until it sinks in and becomes part of our everyday living. That’s positive meditation, and it’s the secret to success.

And get this: When we learn the truth, we’ll be able to discern the lies. You might already know this, but do you know how agents are able to identify counterfeit money? The U.S. Treasury Department has them study the real thing. They don’t give them a bunch of counterfeit bills to study. They give them the real thing to study so they can spot a counterfeit right away. They study the real one to recognize the false one. In the same way, we ought to study what God says in order to know what’s fake. The more we know God’s Word, the more we’re gonna know the difference between authentic and inauthentic. When we know the real truth, then we’ll keep ourselves from falling for crazy ideas.

Psalm 119:104 says…

I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every false way.

Because I know the truth, I can spot a fake a mile away.

Now, I just want to share something with you. I know the Bible looks intimidating to just pick up and read. It’s got 66 books in it. It’s really thick. The print is really small. And it’s gonna take me forever to read it. It takes about 80 hours to read through the Bible. If you want to read the Bible through in a year, that’s just less than 15 minutes a day. Now, get this: If you’re a typical American, by the time you reach 18 years of age, you will have amassed around 20,000 hours in front of screens. That’s television, video games, computers, phones, and tablets – 20,000 hours of screen. And many have not read through the entire Bible. It takes only 80 hours to read through the Bible. It’s no wonder that if we don’t stand for something, we’ll fall for anything. We’ve got to know God’s Word.

4. Choose believers as my best friends

For three years, Daniel remains unshaken. I think it helped having his buddies with him. He was surrounded by Godly friends. Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have non-Christian friends. We need some non-Christian friends with whom we can share Jesus. God wants us to plant seeds in people’s lives. But our best friends – the ones we hang out with the most – ought to be strong Christians. We need them in our lives to build us up because the ones who aren’t Christians tend to pull us down pretty easily.

1 Corinthians 15:33 says…

…“Bad company corrupts good morals.”

How many of us can testify to that? We ought to choose our friends wisely.

5. Stay connected to the church

We need a church family for support.

Hebrews 10:24-25 says…

And let us watch out for one another to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

We need each other for support and encouragement. Part of my prayer every day is that all of us here at The Hill are committed to coming to church every Sunday.

Did you know there are over 30 commands in the New Testament we can’t obey unless we’re together in person? They’re called the “one-another commands,” like…

Love one another.
Teach one another.
Care for one another.
Submit to one another.
Encourage one another.
Greet one another with a holy kiss. Umm…let’s be careful with that one, all right?

But we need a group of Christians to hang out with here on Sunday mornings and throughout the week in small groups. We need Christian friends that we can connect with, study the Bible with, pray with, and do ministry with. Being connected to a group of Christians is kind of like a campfire. In a campfire, you’ve got all these coals burning red hot. If you were to take one of the coals out and set it aside, in a matter of minutes, it’s gonna cool off, the fire will go out, and it’ll go dark. But if you take that same coal and put it back in the fire with the other coals, it’ll reignite and get hot again. If your life has gotten cold, it could be that you’re not spending enough time in fellowship with other Christians. We all need a support system. We need the church. We need a small group. We need each other.

6. Remember that God will reward me

As Christians, we might be made fun of, we might be harassed, we might be criticized, insulted, and maybe even shunned when we stand for Biblical truths in a pagan world. But we will be rewarded. Jesus says in Matthew 5:11-12…

“You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Your reward is great in heaven.

I want to close with an encouraging scene that’s gonna happen in the future some time. We don’t know when, but we know it’s coming. Philippians 2:9-11 says…

For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

In the end, every person who has ever lived will kneel before Jesus and call him Lord. Think about that. Some of them will confess Jesus’ name in praise because they’ve said it and claimed it all their earthly lives. But some of them will confess his name in judgment to themselves because they’ve denied it all their earthly lives.

Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess:

Every rock star
Every athlete
Every celebrity
Every professor
Every politician
Every world leader
Every atheist

Everyone will be on their knees crying out, “Jesus is Lord.”

==================================

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Jeremy KleinFebruary 15, 2025Hilliard Church of ChristComment