Today I want to talk about some very important aspects of the Christian life that are sometimes neglected by many!
Because of this neglect, many who are baptised, who were once saved are now lost or have become just churchgoers.
The most important thing about the Christian life is not how you started but how you finish the race.
Today’s message: Don’t give up
Today I want to talk about the importance of perseverance, patience, persistence and waiting.
They are all different aspects of the Christian life but are at the same part connected and must be present in every Christian life.
I want to start by talking about “Waiting”. Who here likes to wait? We are the fast-food generation and we want everything quick, instantly. We don’t like waiting. But the Christian life doesn’t work like that.
The importance of waiting is almost always overlooked in the contemporary church today.
Waiting is an essential part of our preparation for the Lord’s return and our encounter with Jesus.
“So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.”
Hebrews 9:28 NKJV
To whom will He appear? To those who eagerly wait for Him.
Do you really love Jesus? Do you really desire to be with Him, are you eagerly waiting for Him?
Is your heart burning with the desire to meet with Him and be received by Him as a faithful servant?
When the Lord returns He will expect to hear something more from us than “nice to have you back”. If we are eagerly waiting for Him, we will have more to say than that.
“But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
Matthew 24:13-14 NKJV
Jesus was speaking about all the problems and troubles that are coming on the nations, then He says : He who endures it to the end will be saved.
Jesus was very clear: Those who endure to the end will be saved.
Who will be saved? The one who has endured it all to the very end.
So you are saved now , but to stay saved you have to endure!
“By your patience possess your souls.” Luke 21:19 NKJV
“You will save yourselves by continuing strong in your faith through all these things.”
Luke 21:19 ERV
“By your endurance you will gain your lives.”
Luke 21:19 ESV
Jesus is saying that by your endurance you will save your soul. Without endurance and without patience you will be lost! Jesus said that!
Do you know how can you have great endurance or patience? Let’s see!
““Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
James 1:2-4 NLT
When we face various trials and troubles maybe we don’t complain but we certainly don’t count it joyful occasions. So we have to confess that as a sin.
James said: consider it pure joy when you face many trials! Why ? Because the testing of your faith produces endurance.
I have observed it in the New Testament that every time a Christian goes through some trial, it’s actually a test of faith.
It may take many forms but what is being tested is your faith.
James says: let endurance do its perfect work! Don’t stop short. Don’t start well and then give up halfway. Let endurance complete its work so that you may be perfected and lack in nothing.
How many of you want to be perfect and complete, lacking nothing?
What’s the condition? Endurance!
There is only one way to learn endurance, do you know what it is? Enduring!
Another word used in the Bible instead of endurance is long-suffering and do you know how you could learn long-suffering? By suffering for long! There is no other way to do it.
People come to me and ask me to pray for them and for their job, because they cannot stand their boss. Sometimes I say to them: God is using your boss to test you and you need to learn endurance! Don’t give up on your job, don’t change jobs, change yourself, endure suffering, be perfect, be humble because God is using your boss and the circumstances to transform you.
Let’s turn to the end of James and I’ll show you how endurance is connected with the preparation for the coming of the Lord.
“Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains.”
James 5:7 NIV
“You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.”
James 5:8-10 NIV
“As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.”
James 5:11 NIV
The word we see here is patience. These 3 words are all related here: patience, perseverance and endurance
All of them have their place in the christian experience. Patience is essentially doing nothing, and God shows a lot of patience.
Peter said that the patience of God waited in the days of Noah. God didn’t do anything for a hundred and twenty years.
Perseverance on the other hand is doing something and persistently doing it. It’s keeping on going, not stopping.
Endurance the Greek meaning is: remaining under. So that whenever you are under a lot of pressure, you remaining there, you don’t try to escape.
These three aspects of the Christian conduct : Patience, perseverance and endurance, they are all involved in the preparation for the coming of the Lord.
I find that for most men, patience can be one of the hardest thing to achieve. I think women are better at patience than men.
When you read these verses above you found that the theme is Patience, Perseverance and Endurance. That’s the pattern for the people of God who are preparing for the return of the Lord.
The Bible is very clear, if you don’t have patience , perseverance and endurance you can lose all of what God has promised you . Only the one who has endured to the end will be saved.
You know what I have noticed about God’s trials?
He hardly ever tells you: look this is a trial and if you hold out for six months, you will overcome it. Same of us get to five months and 29 days and we then give up.
If only we had known we had only one more day!
Don’t give up.
There is no precedent in the Bible for giving up. God determines how long the test will last, not us.
Waiting is one of the tests which God will almost always subject the servants He intends to use.
Lets see some example in the Bible:
Abraham
God said him : You’ll have a son who will be the head of a unique and precious Nation.
How long did Abraham have to wait for this? 25 years!
Meanwhile his dear wife Sarah tried to help him and ended up complicating things even more…
She said to her husband, listen to me and do what I say: First of all have a child with Hagar but later she changed her mind and demanded, get rid of the child!
That’s the counsel of the flesh. It’s inconsistent, it tells you to do one thing and later the opposite.
But Abraham became the man he was by waiting. He had to watch his wife go past the age of childbearing and still wait.
It amazes me that Abraham is so highly rated in the Bible. What did he ever do?
He was a prosperous cattle farmer who wandered around the area the east of the Mediterranean looking after his flocks in his herds. He did nothing very dramatic or spiritual until that time when he was willing to offer his son Isaac as sacrifice.
I’ve often asked myself what was it in Abraham that caused God to esteem him so highly he was later called a friend of God?
I think one of the ways he earns God’s favour is by waiting.
Some of you are going to lose God’s favour if you don’t wait. Don’t give up, wait! Persevere!
Another example is Joseph.
There is a Psalm that speaks about Joseph , Psalm 105:17
“He sent a man before them— Joseph—who was sold as a slave. They hurt his feet with fetters, He was laid in irons. Until the time that his word came to pass, The word of the Lord tested him.”
Psalms 105:17-19 NKJV
See that how the Lord tests Joseph, first the Lord promises something glorious, and soon after that everything goes the opposite way.
Instead becoming a ruler, he ends up in a jail in Egypt.
What was God doing? Testing him!
What was the test? Waiting
Let’s now look at one more person: Moses
“Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth” Numbers 12:3 KJV
The Bible says Moses was the meekest man on earth. How did Moses learn meekness?
By waiting! By waiting for 40 years.
Somebody asks: Why did God keep Moses waiting for 40 years ? The answer is simply because He couldn’t do it in 39 years. God will not stop until the testing is complete.
When Moses first thought he could deliver Israel out of Egypt he was a very arrogant young man. He was called by God but he had many things to learn first.
40 years later he was the meekest man on earth and no one, except Jesus has ever exercised such authority as Moses did.
So if you want to have authority, if you want to be used by God, you know what you need to cultivate? Meekness!
God cannot trust His authority to the arrogant, proud and self-asserted.
You know the condition for promotion in the kingdom of God ? It’s very easy!
“Whoever serves you like a servant is the greatest among you. People who think they are better than others will be made humble. But people who humble themselves will be made great.” Matthew 23:11-12
Everyone who humbles himself will be exalted!
On the other hand, if you exalt yourself, you’ll be at the base! You have the choice!
That’s an unchangeable law that governs the universe !
People talk about breaking God’s laws! That’s not true !
We don’t break God’s law, God’s law breaks us, If you break them.
Let’s look at David for a moment.
Another young man who was given tremendous promises of God. God called him , gave him many promises and also he was anointed. He spent about 15 years waiting until the promises for his life could be fulfilled.
He was living as he himself said, like a “dead dog”, running away from a the man whom he was to succeed as king.
Why does God permit that?
In fact why does God ordain that? What is God looking for? Endurance!
You cannot bypass endurance.
I was tested many times. My faith was tested many times. It was not easy but the worst times I’ve had in life helped to teach me patience, endurance , persistence, meekness and humbleness.
You can not bypass any endurance and enter into the promises of God .
You can come so far , but the completeness is only through endurance.
And just when it seems impossible to hold on, that’s when you’re really not supposed to let go.
Don’t give in.
I would like to say that to several of you individually: You’re in the test !
You’re doing all right, just hang in there! Don’t give back out, don’t give up !
Maybe you’re in the middle of a test, it has been hard for you, you may have only a few days to finish your test ! Do not give up !
God is faithful! I can guarantee you: God is faithful ! God will not make things easy for you or to deliver you from all hardships.
God has a beautiful calling for your life! Don’t give up, keep on believing, keep on running the race of faith and you will receive the crown of justice if you endure it until the end.
God bless you !